365. Memorandum From the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (Steadman) to the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Warnke)1
SUBJECT
- Visit to Thailand, 6–15 October 1967
The following observations arise from discussions with the Embassy and the MAAG and reports of various of their discussions with the Thai.
10,000 Additional Men
The Thai probably will commit themselves to deploying an additional 10,000 men. It will take at least 14 months to reach this figure and perhaps somewhat longer.
Composition of the Unit
The original Thai 10,000 men proposal has 3 battalions of riflemen, with the rest being artillery, support and headquarters troops. The structure we will discuss with the Thai, as developed by the MAAG and MACV representatives, contains 6 battalions of riflemen. General McCown (COMUSMACTHAI) is optimistic that this structure can be sold to the Thai as their own divisions contain 9 infantry battalions. This force structure is not only a far more useful fighting force, but its equipment is considerably cheaper ($20–$23 million vs. $30–$35 million for the Thai proposed structure). Ambassador Unger and General McCown are prepared to press hard in this area.
Training Bases
The “traditional” Thai pattern has been full unit rotation and their initial thinking has been to train and deploy the full 10,000 (now 12,200) men on a unit basis. This system, or even a base of half the troops deployed, would be far more expensive in equipment, training and manpower costs than individual rotation as practiced by the Koreans and ourselves. The Thai eye on the residual equipment reinforces their conceptual preferences.
US Costs of Training and Deployment
Our commitment to bear legitimate costs in assembling and training forces to be deployed to Vietnam will unquestionably produce wrangling [Page 810] with the Thai, some being legitimate arguments and some being Thai attempts to fatten the account. I believe that Ambassador Unger and General McCown are prepared to be firm in this area. I have less confidence in their staffs, operating under pressure, to get things done. At my suggestion, the Embassy and the MAAG have sent personnel to Korea to learn the pitfalls and problems in this area.
Replacement Costs
The Thai have raised the problem of the burden on their budget of the costs for replacing at home the forces sent to Vietnam. They allude to the “no additional costs to Thai budget” formula expressed by Clifford and Taylor and clearly are aware of what we have done in Korea in this regard.
Ambassador Unger has told the Thai at staff level that in making our FY 68 MAP add-on and higher FY 69 MAP planning figure commitments, we took into account the Thai requirement to maintain their military readiness at home and that we conceived that these higher MAPs could offset the manpower drain either by improving the capabilities of forces remaining in Thailand or by various ways, such as increasing consumable purchases, helping to offset the costs of replacing men deployed to SVN if this is a course the Thai choose to follow.
Ambassador Unger stepped right up to this, and I believe he will argue the case well. Whether or not his staff will stand still is another question, as some of them already are talking of a “requirement” to increase the $75 million figure to accommodate this possible Thai demand.
In any event, I argued hard for maintaining the principle of one pot so that the Thai will weigh decisions to replace forces against the knowledge that any US indirect budget support to help meet the costs of such replacements will directly affect the amount of new equipment received. Further, I argued against agreeing to any direct offsets even with one pot, citing our congressional problems with the Korean “net additional costs” formula.
MAP Programs
The MAAG has put together a sensible FY 68 add-on package and expanded FY 69 program, emphasizing building the logistic capabilities of the RTA. Encouragingly enough, the RTAʼs own ideas of its “priority requirements” were in the same area. M–16s are a special problem and the subject of a separate paper.2 Helicopters are covered below.
The Thai reactions to the FY 68 add-on are, of course, unknown. The FY 68 add-on package may be discussed with the Thai during the course of the deployment discussions, but the make-up of the FY 69 program [Page 811] will not be detailed to the Thai until all the deployment problems are settled.
Helicopters
I told the Embassy, USAID and the MAAG that the Secretary would not agree to fund the 15 helicopters in the FY 68 add-on package until he was satisfied that the US Country Team had developed a concept which would permit the best possible utilization of all helicopters in country and that he would not agree to deliver these helicopters unless he was assured that the Thai had successfully implemented this concept. Actually, the US side is well along on this project and all the Mission members (none of whom was there when the Thai were encouraged to establish independent police and Army helicopter forces) are acutely aware of the need to resolve this problem. The “concept plan” will be here soon.
Hawks
The battery instead of the battalion seems to have worked at the RTARF staff level. However, Marshal Dawee is not yet back in Thailand (from a swing through the Far East) and he is the strongest proponent of Hawks. Further, the Thai probably do not yet know that we expect them to bear the baht costs and they may not be clear on our decision not to provide US manning until they are trained. The idea of announcing without deploying has not yet been pushed.
Force Structure
Our discussion of possible Thai force structures resulted in strong Embassy and MAAG support for the concept of forcing the Thai to examine the costs of various forces with emphasis upon what it would cost the Thai to make their existing forces operationally ready. (We tentatively estimate that to make the quantitative and qualitative changes necessary to make the RTA combat capable would require at least a doubling of its budget.)
I am encouraged that the new people in the Pol/Mil section of the Embassy, and the new MAAG team, believe that this is an important subject and are prepared to push it. This will be an entirely new exercise for the Thai, and we cannot expect immediate results.
General Observations
I found a new spirit of cooperation between elements of the Mission. All say the atmosphere has changed markedly with the changes in the top levels of various elements. The new people are trying to please and there are no old wounds between personalities. Moreover, I found in extensive discussions with the MAAG staff a willingness to admit and to step up to the problems in our MAAG and MAP relations with the Thai. The Army and Air Force advisory section chiefs are new, as well as there [Page 812] being a new Commander and Deputy Commander, and the feedback I got is that they are doing a much improved job of getting the Thai to shape up.
Finally, I donʼt think the Thai yet recognize the immense drain on the Army which will result from the additional deployments. This will pull off a large proportion of their junior officer and NCO strength and will hit particularly hard in the logistic area, where their existing capabilities are minimal. This deployment may produce a highly beneficial shock to the complacency of the RTA.
U-Tapao
My visit was primarily to learn how many additional B–52s might be deployed here without requiring additional construction. I found that some movable trailers for aircrews would be the only vertical construction required and that up to 10 more B–52s could be deployed without additional horizontal construction. I have not yet seen the JCSM which recommends deploying 15 more B–52s and undertaking $30 million of new construction to support the deployment.
U.S.-Thai Relations
I have a feeling that dislocations produced by the American presence around the country have been more severe than have been recognized back here and that we have put about as much into Thailand as they will accept. I think we are in for some hard times as the Thai react to our dislocations by asserting their sovereignty.