Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Vietnam, Volume I

103. Telegram From the Commander in Chief, Pacific (Felt) to the Office of the Secretary of Defense¹

Pearl Harbor, February 15, 1960—2:21 p.m.

152221Z. Subject: Special Forces Training Vietnamese Civil Guard, approved by OSD 242127Z Aug 59 cite DEF 964297.²

1. Although special forces team can be made available as originally proposed, exploration of various means of accomplishing its introduction into Vietnam without generation of undesirable side-effects leads to conclusion that proposal should be shelved as infeasible at this time. Pertinent factors include:

(A) Covert introduction of active duty military personnel into USOM Vietnam under civilian cover is of questionable advisability. Experience in Laos has demonstrated difficulty maintaining plausibility such cover. This would be doubly difficult in Vietnam due ICC activity and doubly dangerous in its potential jeopardy to U.S. interests in MAAG/TERM situation.³

(B) Overt introduction to military special forces team into Vietnam, regardless of activity to which attached, would be construed by ICC as device to increase MAAG/TERM ceiling. No reasonable denial could be made to this charge.

(C) Various proposals as to mechanics of introduction special forces team into Vietnam have been made. All have been rejected for one or more compelling reasons, e.g.

(1) Attachment to or operational control by CHMAAG is blocked by MAAG/TERM ceilings.

(2) Attachment to USARMA understandably opposed by ACSI/DA as inimical to primary mission USARMA.

(3) Representation as civilian augmentation USOM too thin a disguise for credibility.

2. Training of selected Vietnamese Civil Guard personnel on Okinawa, by special forces instructors; continues to be practicable and believed to be only solution this problem currently feasible.

3. Recommend proposal to inject special forces team into Vietnam for training of Vietnamese Civil Guard, either overtly or covertly, be abandoned for the foreseeable future and that it be reconsidered only as overt MAAG augmentation if, as and when existing MAAG/TERM ceilings are removed.

1. Source: National Archives and Records Services, JCS Records, CCS 99, 9155.3/4060 (15 Feb 60). Secret. Repeated for information to JCS, DA, CINCUSARPAC, CHMAAG Vietnam, and the Embassy in Vietnam.
2. Not found.
3. A comment on this plan in a CINCPAC study dated April 24 reads as follows: “An attempt by ICA in recent months to employ a mobile training team of Special Forces to assist in training the Civil Guard failed because no agreed means could be devised of conducting the training overtly” (“Counter-Insurgency Operations in Vietnam and Laos”; Center of Military History, Williams Papers, CINCPAC Study (109))