Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume II, Vietnam, 1962

221. Letter From the Deputy Director of the Vietnam Task Force (Wood) to the Ambassador in Vietnam (Nolting)¹

Washington, June 18, 1962.

Dear Fitz: At Cotʼs suggestion I spoke June 16th to the Counterinsurgency Group on my trip to Viet-Nam.² The CIG is chaired by General Taylor and is usually attended at the Undersecretary level by the Departments concerned.

I stressed:

1. That the question of deciding whether the GVN was moving too fast in creating Strategic Hamlets was one which depended on many local variables and that the decisions should be made in Saigon. However, we could help the GVN move faster by supplying more piasters for locally obtainable products and services. The members of the Group appeared to agree.

2. That we would ask you to consider whether it would be feasible to make more bulldozers and dredges available (from those already in Viet-Nam) to speed the work of’6uilding ditches and walls around Strategic Hamlets.

3. I mentioned various items of military equipment which American and Vietnamese officers at the province level had particularly requested, emphasizing that I was not qualified to pass any judgments. The items were more grenade launchers (to lob grenades over the walls of rice paddies), more armalite rifles, more helicopters (requested by the Vietnamese), and more Caribou aircraft. General Taylor said that he believed more Caribou are available in Thailand and asked that the matter be explored.

. . . . . . .

Today, Joe Alsop gave a lunch for Colonel Thao which Cot, Mike Forrestal and I attended. Thao stressed the following points to Alsop and so I suppose more will be heard of these suggestions in Washington:

Thao is convinced that if the situation in Laos weakens further and the route through Attopeau into Kontum becomes more easily accessible to the Viet Cong, it must be expected that they will bring in increased numbers of mortars and recoilless artillery. Based on his own experiences in the Indochina War, he also felt that it was relatively easy for the Viet Cong to bring in a few hundred technicians to manufacture mortars, recoilless artillery, and projectiles in South Viet-Nam. Thao believes that the United States must therefore face the necessity of promptly making a further major increase in its efforts to assist the Vietnamese. He is convinced that this further effort should be concentrated on (a) artillery for the Vietnamese forces and more artillery training for Vietnamese officers in the United States; (b) a change in the employment of our helicopters, and an increase in their total numbers so that these would be available in larger numbers rather than used in small groups throughout the country; (c) a major increase in the Civil Guard and the Self Defense Corps without a corresponding increase in ARVN.

After the lunch Thao told me that in his private opinion it would be very useful to invite Nhu to this country for a relatively quiet two weeks, primarily for informal, high-level consultations in Washington. He is concerned by Nhuʼs well-known anti-Americanism, by his thought processes which frequently parallel the Communists’, and particularly by the fact that, in Thaoʼs opinion, Nhu thinks in terms of the type of tactics which the Communists employed a decade ago. He commented that Communist tactics had improved since then, but Nhuʼs had not. Thao emphasized frequently how much he, Thao, was impressed by the differences between the American and Vietnamese governments. He believes firmly that such a visit would be most useful in changing Nhuʼs views.³

If you think it would be useful to pursue any of the above, let us know by whatever channels seem best and we will get to work.

Yours very sincerely,

Ben

1. Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 84, Saigon Embassy Files: FRC 67 A 677, 350. Counterinsurgency Plan. Secret; Limit Distribution; Official-Informal.
2. No record of the June 16 meeting has been found.
3. In the margin next to this paragraph Nolting wrote: “I think Nhu should not go now (even if he wanted to) during present stage S.H. [Strategic Hamlet] program. FEN”.