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

51. Memorandum From the Chief of the Military Assistance Advisory Group in Vietnam (Williams) to the Ambassador in Vietnam (Durbrow)¹

Saigon, January 14, 1959

SUBJECT

• Your “Memo for Record” of Conversation with Mr. Ngo Dinh Nhu, 7 January 1959²

I have read your memorandum closely and have given it considerable thought, mainly is an attempt to determine Mr. Nhu’s basic motivation.

With several of the remarks, I readily agree. With others, I cannot. For example, I cannot agree with the thought that in Vietnam the troops should be used to “work in the fields, build roads and houses”. Of course, Army Engineers do work on roads as part of their training and troop labor has been used on occasion to assist in building bamboo houses for farmers in those implantation settlements where the troops were present as guards against guerrillas and outlaws.

VN troops, with only a 12 months length of conscription service, cannot be properly trained in that length of time. To take time away from their 12 months training to “work in fields” would further reduce their combat potential. Additionally, it is extremely doubtful if the U.S. would budget for pay for field hands, in uniform, under the guise that they were soldiers.

Officers of MAAG have not become aware of any appreciable number of Vietnamese officers adopting what Mr. Nhu terms the “Thai attitude”.³ I cannot class any General officer as being of that type and I know them all personally. Naturally, in the military service there are those that work less than others just as in other walks of life, but the “white hands code” that prevailed among the officers of all rank when I came to Vietnam late in 1955 has for the vast majority in all commissioned grades disappeared. This primarily due to the advice and the example set by officers of MAAG and TERM.

Certainly there is not one General officer in Vietnam that has the necessary background and training to be a qualified General officer, if one uses U.S., British, German, etc. General officers as the standard of comparison. However, in comparison to officers of other countries in South East Asia, South America and elsewhere, the Vietnamese Generals professionally will stand in a favorable position. One could say with probably equal correctness that none of the VN Ministers are qualified. Such comparisons are relative. Fortunately, the General officers realize their deficiencies and are working harder to correct them than Mr. Nhu probably realizes.

Why he went into a discussion of the case of ex-General Duc I can’t imagine. However, he did not state the exact facts and I’m pretty sure he must be familiar with them. Probably he brought up this case out of irritation with Duc. I’m sure that Mr. Nhu knows that General Duc was violently opposed to his attempts to inject politics into the Army and that Duc’s sentiments in this regard are shared by the majority of the General officers and Colonels. This is probably both irritating and frustrating to Mr. Nhu.

As Vietnam has only 17 out of an authorized [illegible] General officers Mr. Nhu may try to see that future promotions to that grade are made from his staunch friends. However, I’m not too sure that he could succeed in this as the promotions to Colonel and General officer grade are personally passed upon by the President as to efficiency and loyalty and in my opinion he does not do this in a routine fashion.

It is apparent that Mr. Nhu has read freely from Mao Tse-tung who published in the “Common Program” (Article 24), adopted in September 1949, the following: “The Armed Forces of the People’s Republic of China shall, during peace time, systematically take part in agricultural and industrial production in order to assist in national construction work, provided their military duties are not thereby hampered”. And in the reading failed to pay proper attention to the part I have underlined.⁴

In summary, I would say that to support his ideas, Mr. Nhu has expressed and rationalized a mass of data. Some of what he says appears to me to be true, much appears half-true, some of it untrue. Many items that he has received from his own sources I am not prepared to judge.

In the aggregate, however, I do not feel that a detailed analysis of his remarks would be useful or warranted without a clearer indication of Mr. Nhu’s motivation, or without some clearer indication of exactly what he wants to do. I cannot believe that Mr. Nhu or any other responsible member of the government will undertake to change the present mission of ARVN forces without comprehensive study and a full exchange of views among all concerned.

I believe I have reiterated my views so often on the vital need for ARVN to increase its emphasis on combat training to include training of specialists that I have left no doubts as to what my views are. In short, I am unalterably opposed to diverting ARVN forces to perform any form of farm, road or industrial labor that does not advance their combat readiness. I have no reason to believe the President holds a contrary view. Rather than attempting to deal with the mass of suggestions and opinions Mr. Nhu has put forth, MAAG is prepared instead to deal with any concrete proposals he or other members of the government may initiate.

Your comment on Mr. Nhu’s motivation (to set up an argument against reduction in military aid) may be plausible as one possible explanation for what he said, but based on past experience here I doubt it. It is also possible he is deeply irritated at several of the Generals, and rationalized much of this as a thrust at them. Furthermore, it appears possible that he may hope to capitalize politically on the use of military forces as labor that would cost the VN government little or nothing but would be very expensive to the U.S. government. Additionally, he may have some views derived from the DRV experience along this line although he should know that they have run into some trouble by forming “industrial Battalions” from their troops. He may hope for some propaganda or other advantage in relation to GVN’s neighbors, particularly Cambodia or the DRV.

My summary is, of course, essentially speculation. I would prefer to reserve further comment until more light is thrown on the subject by subsequent remarks by Mr. Nhu, if they are made.

S.T. Williams
Lt General USA

1. Source: Center of Military History, Williams Papers, Memoranda to and from Ambassador 1959. Secret.
2. In this memorandum, Durbrow reported Nhu’s interest in the use of the ARVN for community development projects. “In Nhu’s estimation, the officer corps in newly independent countries must continue to be imbued with selfless revolutionary spirit and set a high example of hard work and devotion…. I agreed that perhaps it was necessary to adopt different training methods in underdeveloped countries, but added that in the case of Vietnam, a split country, with a large Communist force in the north, it is essential in the first instance to concentrate fully on military training in order to have an effective deterrent force which would be able, if necessary, to defend the country initially in case of foreign aggression.” In his attached comments on the memorandum, dated January 9, Durbrow stated in part: “While Nhu did not say so specifically, I received the impression that he went into considerable detail regarding the need to have the armed forces build up the economy in order to set up an argument to be used against us if we decide to reduce aid for the military budget next year and contribute a larger proportion of support for the economic development of the country. He seemed to wish to convince me that in an underdeveloped country if the army is used to build roads, houses, etc., it is making a substantial contribution to the economy. He apparently thinks that if we understood this, we will not cut military aid next year.” (Ibid.)
3. According to Durbrow’s memorandum, Nhu had characterized the Thai officer corps as one made up of men who had entered the services for privilege and personal gain.
4. Printed here as italics.