276. Despatch From the Ambassador in Vietnam (Reinhardt) to the Department of State1
No. 156
Saigon, November 17,
1955.
SUBJECT
- Conversation with President Diem on Village Defense Units
Enclosed for the information of the Department is a memorandum of
conversation between President Diem, General
O’Daniel, General
Williams, and myself on the subject of village
auto-defense units, sometimes referred to as rural militia. The
development of a system of village auto-defense units, averaging 10 men
each for an estimated 6,000 villages, has been much on the minds of high
Vietnamese Government officials in the past few months. Embassy telegram
1497, dated September 30,2 reported
President Diem’s previous
expression of interest in this subject. The recent regrouping of
Vietnamese Army units into new divisional organizations, which has given
Viet Minh cadres in many sections of the country
greater freedom to commit acts of terrorism, has added an extra note of
urgency to this problem.
During the past week, [name and title deleted] expounded on the village
defense plan at some length to the joint Defense–ICA costing team now in Saigon, headed by Major General
William Lawton. In addition to repeating the arguments made by President
Diem as reported in the
enclosed memorandum of conversation, [name deleted] emphasized the great
advantage of having village security protected by local villagers who
would be on call twenty four hours a day, and who were thoroughly
familiar with local conditions and therefore more likely to be able to
detect Viet Minh and dissident sect elements than
either the Army or the Garde Civile, [name deleted] also made much of
the relative cheapness of this form of protection, pointing out that the
members of the rural militia required neither uniforms nor housing and
would be paid only 300 piasters a month by the government, plus a rice
ration contributed by the village.
The Embassy expects to receive shortly from the Vietnamese Government a
written proposal outlining the organization of a village defense corps
and asking for US financial support.3
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[Enclosure]
Memorandum of a Conversation, Saigon, November 7, 1955
PARTICIPANTS
- President Diem
- Ambassador Reinhardt
- General O’Daniel
- General
Williams
When General O’Daniel,
General Williams and I
called on President Diem the
evening of November 7 to discuss US approval of a 150,000 man force
level for the Vietnamese Armed Forces, the President took the
occasion to make a strong and lengthy plea for US financial support
for the immediate development of a system of village auto-defense
units. He expounded on the subject for over an hour. His thesis was
the urgent need for the development of an adequate defense against
continued Viet Minh terrorism and sabotage at
the village level in numerous provincial areas of the country.
Although this requirement for village defense was one of long
standing, as attested by the Ministry of Defense’s study on the
subject last March, two recent developments which had rendered the
situation critical were the regrouping of VNA units into the new divisional organization and the
imminence of elections for a National Assembly. Some of his
associates were now insisting that if such a system were not
organized shortly, it would not be possible to hold the elections as
planned. In reply to my query whether the village defense system had
not already been inaugurated in various areas, he admitted it had,
but insisted that it was a makeshift effort and was being done in
part with funds which the Governors had diverted from their proper
use and in part on credit. Even this limited undertaking could not
go on for more than a month or two on such a basis. His plan was for
village defense units averaging ten men each for an estimated 6,000
villages. The men would be paid 500 piasters by the National
Government, and their rice would be provided by the individual
village. At a later stage in his presentation, the President said
that if US financial support were only to the amount of 300 piasters
per man, it would still be possible for him to establish the desired
organization.
The President said that, in general, the Viet
Minh retained a considerable capacity for
terrorism and sabotage throughout the country. They were, however,
unwilling to reveal the exact magnitude of their capability at this
time. They were limiting their terroristic acts to methodical
isolated forays calculated to terrorize the villages and to disrupt
administrative and economic progress in the countryside. Until
recently, the wide deployment of VNA
battalions
[Page 583]
had kept this
activity down to a minimum, but the current withdrawal of these
units for regrouping into divisional organizations had left many
areas uncovered. Both civil and military officials were pressing him
for something to fill the gap, and many unit commanders were
reluctant for this reason to withdraw their forces from areas
occupied at present. He cited as an example of this problem a recent
raid carried out by Viet Minh forces during
which they burned fifty-seven houses in a village near Long Xuyen
the day following the withdrawal of the VNA battalion which had been stationed in the vicinity.
The President said that in some areas this methodical Viet
Minh action took the form of assassinating
one or two notables of a village. This was an effective way of
terrorizing their surviving colleagues on the village council.
General O’Daniel asked whether
the territorial battalions were being fully utilized to replace the
battalions being moved into the new divisional organizations. The
President said they were, and that the civil guard was being used to
the maximum. The problem, he said, in its simplest terms, was that
the resources available were not adequate to meet the total security
requirements.
He mentioned as areas particularly troublesome those which have long
been recognized as most subject to Viet Minh
influence, namely: the plateau area north of Kontum, the mountains
behind Quang Ngai from which a raid had been made against the city
by some one hundred armed men at the time of the referendum; the
whole area between Baria and Phan Thiet, which he said the French
had never been able to occupy nor had his government to date; the
Plaine des Joncs where there was collaboration between Ba Cut’s Hoa Hao remnants and
Viet Minh; and finally, the Ca Mau Peninsula. In the course of the
foregoing exposé, he mentioned incidentally that there was some
evidence that certain Binh Xuyen remnants had succeeded in crossing
from Phan Thiet to the Plaine des Joncs where they had joined up
with the Hoa Hao and Viet Minh elements
operating there. He also mentioned that in their joint operations
with sect remnants the Viet Minh had so far
used the sects as a cover and had not revealed their own true
identity in those exercises.
When asked by General
Williams why it was not possible to organize village
defense units without putting them on the government payroll, the
President said that the economic level of the villages as a result
of the many years of war was still too low for the villages to
support the expense, and that it was necessary to provide a strong
nucleus around which to build morale and the will to self-defense in
the villages. He agreed with General
Williams’ observation that this could only be
achieved if the units were properly trained and controlled.
Diem went on to say that,
traditionally, the villages had had a voluntary police system in
which the able bodied men of a village
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took their turn at serving as night watchmen.
This was before the war when there were no firearms in the hands of
the people, and the night watchman, who himself was unarmed, had
nothing worse to contend with than an occasional sneak thief against
whom he could arouse the whole village. During the Indochinese War,
on the other hand, a system of auto-defense units in Vietnam had
been supported by the French administration. Since they were made up
of local personnel who knew the community in which they lived, they
had been, in fact, a more effective anti-Communist instrument than
the army itself. Unfortunately, these units had been dissolved after
Geneva.
I told the President and [title deleted] who was present at the
meeting that if they would submit to us a written proposal for US
financial support for this project, it would be given the most
immediate and sympathetic attention.
