REORGANIZING FOR
PACIFICATION
SUPPORT
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CHAPTER 1
Prelude to Change
Pacification is an imprecise term. The Oxford English Dictionary states that
to pacify is "to reduce to peaceful submission, to establish peace and
tranquility in a country or district." Although the Americans, like the
French before them, saw pacification in the broadest sense of those terms, both
usually thought of pacification as a specific strategy or program to bring security
and political and economic stability to the countryside of Vietnam. But there
was never agreement among Americans in Vietnam on just what pacification was
and how it might be achieved. Some saw it as controlling the population; others
as winning the people's allegiance. Some viewed it as a short-term military
operation aimed at quashing opposition; others as a long-term process of bringing,
in addition to security, economic, political, and social development to the
people.
A semi-official study of pacification in South Vietnam provided one of the most
comprehensive definitions:
. . . an array and combination of action programs designed to extend the presence
and influence of the central government and to reduce the presence and influence
of those who threaten the survival of the government through propaganda, terror,
and subversion. The pacification process incorporates a mix of programs and
activities that may vary in composition and relative emphasis from time to time
and from place to place . . . The program mix comprises two broad, types of
activities. They are designed on the one hand to establish and maintain a significant
degree of physical security for the population and, on the other, to increase
the communication and ties between the government and the people through a variety
of selected non-military programs.1
Yet even that definition alluded to a fundamental cleavage over priorities that
plagued American efforts at pacification in South Vietnam, one that CORDS was
set up to eliminate: security versus development or, put another way, military
versus civil.
Until the creation of CORDS in 1967, many Americans involved in South Vietnam,
depending on their outlook or on which government
[3]
agency they worked for, saw pacification as either civil or military but not as
a joint civil-military process. Most military men and some civilians believed
that there had to be security before economic, political, and social development
could proceed, that the people had to be safe before the government could win
their allegiance. The converse, to which most civilian officials adhered, was
that economic, political, and social development would foster political allegiance
and, in time, bring military success, because an insurgency without popular support
would wither for lack of roots.
That dichotomy reflected an even more basic conflict in the entire American approach
to the war: Was the war primarily military, to be fought with essentially military
means, or was it basically a political struggle? Although the U.S. government
never formally resolved that question, the resources and emphasis devoted to the
military side constituted a de facto policy decision in favor of a military solution.
Indeed, such a "security first" approach to pacification may have been,
after the first few years of the 1960s, the only realistic path. The South Vietnamese
people by that time had seen too many programs and too many governments; they
had been prey too often to the ebb and flow of struggle in their villages to put
their trust in anybody who was unable first to protect them. Yet despite the emphasis
on security, pacification continued to founder for lack of sustained security;
and what was in effect two wars, military and political, flowed in parallel but
separate streams. By 1966 the separation and degree of emphasis on the military
war were so great that President Johnson, to give pacification more attention,
began to speak of it as "the other war."
The lack of coordination and centralized direction in the American pacification
effort in South Vietnam that CORDS was designed to eliminate was apparent even
in the late 1950s when commitments were minuscule in comparison to what they had
become by 1967. The lack existed despite a general understanding that an American
ambassador headed all US representatives in the country to which he was accredited.
That general understanding became formal in 1951 when the Departments of Defense
and State and the Economic Cooperation Administration (forerunner of the Agency
for International Development) agreed that their representatives in a country
were to constitute what came to be known as a "country team" under leadership
of the ambassador, who provided coordination, general direction, and leadership
for the entire effort. Three years later President Dwight D. Eisenhower strengthened
the arrangement by means of an executive order giving the ambassador in each
[4]
countrywide authority to manage and coordinate the US mission in all matters involving
more than merely internal agency affairs.2
Yet it was a rare ambassador who used fully the authority that order afforded
him. The first and probably most important reason was the situation in Washington,
where interagency battles and jurisdictional disputes were magnified and interests
supporting each agency were solidly entrenched. It followed that representatives
of the agencies in South Vietnam failed to consider themselves members of the
ambassador's staff but instead looked to their home offices for guidance and direction,
particularly in regard to programs and budgets.
Nor were most ambassadors either trained or inclined to be managers. Following
years of custom, they tended to view their task as reportorial and representational.
Yet even when they tried to exercise more than general coordination, they faced
formidable obstacles. By its very nature, the CIA zealously guarded its operational
secrets, and military representatives could appeal to a powerful and well-endowed
bureaucracy in Washington with institutionalized ties to the Congress and the
American public that far outweighed those of the Department of State. The size
of the US program further aggravated the ambassador's difficulties in South Vietnam.
The AID mission there was one of that agency's biggest, and even in the late 1950s
the Military Assistance Advisory Group was the largest advisory group in the world
and the only one commanded by a threestar general.
In 1961 President John F. Kennedy made two decisions that perpetuated the lack
of centralized control in South Vietnam. In May of that year, rather than appoint
single managers in the field and Washington to oversee all US operations related
to the war in South Vietnam, he reserved responsibility for coordination and direction
to himself, his White House staff, and ad hoc interagency task forces that turned
out to exercise little real control. Later in the year he sharply increased the
size of the American military commitment in South Vietnam and superimposed
over the existing Military Assistance Advisory Group a full military assistance
command headed by a four-star general who was equal in rank to the ambassador,
actions which made it more difficult than ever for the ambassador to manage the
military.
The years 1964 and 1965 provided the seedbed for the formation of CORDS. In those
two years there was a veritable stream of suggestions
[5]
for improved organization for the overall American effort and for pacification.
Those suggestions, and in some cases concrete experiments, came from every agency
involved in South Vietnam and from the White House. Although the president took
some part in those proposals and experiments, they were for the most part the
province of government agencies which fought over them with little apparent intervention
or influence from the president. The agencies groped in vain for a solution. Their
failure was to be the catalyst for a presidentially imposed solution in 1966 and
1967.
Several factors were responsible for the interest in reorganization that arose
during 1964 and 1965: The war was expanding in size and intensity; the South Vietnamese
government was marked by weakness and instability; that government also adopted
a new organization for pacification; and the commitment of American resources
was rapidly growing.
The expanding war, soon involving not only the insurgent Viet Cong but also the
North Vietnamese Army, dictated an increased American and South Vietnamese military
response, which reinforced the perception of the struggle as basically military.
Although many officials still maintained that pacification was the key to the
war, the assignment of priorities and resources favored the military more than
ever. In the face of enemy forces that had grown from small bands of insurgents
to regular divisions, it was hard to argue otherwise.
Although South Vietnam had experienced eight years of relatively stable, if authoritarian,
rule under President Ngo Dinh Diem, that changed suddenly in November 1963 when
a coup d'etat and Diem's death in the course of it turned the government over
to inexperienced generals. Amid changing and unstable governments, Americans found
themselves involved in internal South Vietnamese politics and administration in
a way Diem never would have countenanced. Although eventually rejected, joint
American-South Vietnamese command and infusion of American advisers directly into
the South Vietnamese government were seriously discussed both at the US mission
in Saigon and in Washington.
In addition, with Diem's death, the South Vietnamese abandoned the primary feature
of their pacification program, the Strategic Hamlet Program, whereby the rural
population was to be relocated in fortified hamlets, and turned pacification over
to their military high command. That prompted more than one suggestion from the
American military that the same should be done on the American side. Yet in 1965
the South Vietnamese put pacification under a Ministry of Rural Construc-
[6]
tion (later called Revolutionary Development); and that produced similar contentions
from American civilian officials that either the embassy or the United States
Operations Mission, as the Saigon Office of the Agency for International Development
was then known, should manage the American pacification program.
Probably the greatest impetus for organizational change was generated by the growing
commitment of American resources. During 1964 and 1965, the American military
strength in South Vietnam grew from less than 20,000 to nine times that figure,
and civilian representation increased correspondingly. A major increase in the
American advisory program started in early 1964 when the American military headquarters,
the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), began to place small advisory
teams in South Vietnamese districts (similar to counties in the United States).
Within a year almost all of the 243 districts had them, and military advisory
teams at the province (state) level expanded as well. American civilian agencies
also placed their own representatives in provinces and many districts, so that
the advisory effort was soon too large and too remote for any Saigon-based ambassador
to control. It was no rarity for several American agencies to present conflicting
advice to South Vietnamese officials at various administrative levels.
In Washington, President Johnson clearly was the man in charge on Vietnam, but
only on those issues of high policy or immediate necessity that he chose or found
time to deal with. There was still no individual, committee, or task force below
the presidential level in charge of either the war as a whole or pacification.
Although in 1964 Johnson created an interagency Vietnam Coordinating Committee
within the Department of State to manage policy and operations, that committee
failed to deal in major policy decisions or to manage operations.
In Saigon the situation was little better than in Washington. Ambassador Henry
Cabot Lodge appeared to have no wish to manage the US mission, yet he was unwilling
to turn the task over to anybody else. In 1964 when his deputy, David Nes, attempted
to improve coordination by creating a "pacification committee," chaired
by Nes himself with the deputy chiefs of the other American agencies as members,
Lodge ordered it disbanded soon after it was formed.3
The US mission received an unusual opportunity for achieving unity when in July
1964 President Johnson appointed General Maxwell D. Taylor as ambassador. Former
chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff,
[7]
AMBASSADOR LODGE
Taylor commanded great respect within the military. He was apparently the ideal
man to mesh the military effort with the civil and political aspects of the
war.
Lest there be any question as to Taylor's authority, he himself elicited from
President Johnson the strongest possible terms of reference. On the basis of
a draft that Taylor prepared, the president ordered that he would "have
and exercise full responsibility for the effort of the United States Government
in South Vietnam." He wanted it "clearly understood," the president
went on, "that this overall responsibility includes the whole military
effort in South Vietnam and authorizes the degree of command and control that
you consider appropriate." 4
Few if any American ambassadors have entered on their assignments with such
a formidable combination of personal respect and presidential authority and
backing. Yet at the end of Taylor's tenure a year later, the US mission had
larger, more fragmented bureaucratic fiefdoms than ever.
Taylor apparently saw no need for major organizational changes, but he did make
one innovation; he formalized the country team con
[8]
AMBASSADOR TAYLOR
cept by setting up what he called the Mission Council, in his mind a miniature
National Security Council. The members were the ambassador, his deputy, the
embassy's political and economic counselors, and the heads of the other American
agencies, including the military commander. An executive secretary known as
the Mission Coordinator prepared the agenda, recorded decisions, and followed
them up. The council met weekly by itself and also held periodic meetings with
the South Vietnamese National Security Council. Interagency subcommittees, chaired
by the agency having primary interest, dealt with special areas of concern.
Although the ambassador retained final authority, the object was to achieve
a consensus, especially among staff officers, before issues even reached the
formal meetings.5 Despite the existence
of this council, agencies were allowed to appeal council decisions to Washington,
which reinforced the concept of the ultimate independence of each agency.
The existence of the Mission Council did relieve some pressure from Washington
for tighter organization, for on paper the council arrangement looked effective.
It also increased the interchange of information among the agencies. Taylor's
deputy, U. Alexis Johnson, took pride in
[9]
GENERAL WESTMORELAND
the work of the Mission Council on the theory that it "established the
habit" of components of the mission working together and also of their
working with the South Vietnamese government. Yet a hands-off philosophy was
still evident, for the deputy ambassador noted that "the Mission Council
and the Joint [American-South Vietnamese] Council were important not so much
for what was in fact decided at the meetings but for the fact that their existence,
and the necessity of reporting to them, acted as a spur to the staff people
to get things done and to resolve issues on their level."6
Yet coordination failed to flow downward from the council to representatives
of the agencies working in the field. No member of the council was willing to
subordinate the operations of his particular program to the council as a whole,
and staff work for that body was accomplished by the agencies, not by a separate
group serving the council. Perhaps the most glaring operational failure was
that the council failed to reduce competition among agencies for resources.
In the end even General West
[10]
moreland, who had helped create it, observed in retrospect that "the Mission
Council failed to provide the tight management needed for pacification."7
Despite the broad powers Ambassador Taylor had elicited from the president, he
was reluctant to interfere with the military chain of command. To the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific, and General Westmoreland, he specifically
promised no interference; he had no wish to put Westmoreland" in the unhappy
position of having two military masters." Although he asked Westmoreland
to clear with him all policy cables going to Washington by military channels,
he did that only so that he might dissent, if necessary, through the Department
of State. Both Ambassador Taylor and General Westmoreland thought the arrangement
worked well, Taylor "because the parties involved were reasonable people,"
Westmoreland because he deemed it the ambassador's prerogative "to keep abreast
of military matters."8
There was no open defiance of the ambassador, either by Westmoreland or the heads
of any of the other agencies; for Taylor was unquestionably the figure of authority
in the US mission. It was merely that in the absence of firm direction to pull
the mission together, something Taylor apparently saw as unnecessary,9
the agencies continued to go their respective ways. And the beginning of the massive
American build-up during this period aggravated the problems of disunity.
During Ambassador Taylor's tenure, one pacification operation showed that it was
possible to pull together US and Vietnamese resources, civil and military, to
work on pacification.. Hop TAC was launched in September 1964 as the major Vietnamese
pacification operation of the year. It grew out of a desire to concentrate Vietnamese
efforts in a few critical provinces. The concept envisaged starting from a core
of four provinces immediately adjacent to Saigon and then moving pacification
out in a series of concentric rings. Central to the concept was military/civilian
and US/Vietnamese unity. Hop TAC was run by a joint US/Vietnamese council with
a secretariat. A US Army colonel,
[11]
the senior adviser to the III Vietnamese Corps, led the interagency US component
of this council. The Hop TAC operation made no lasting impact on the Viet Cong,
but the organizational structure it spawned did provide an early example of the
Vietnamese military running pacification, as well as a demonstration of disparate
US agencies working together under military supervision in advising a pacification
operation.10
During the same period (1964-65), however, the beginning of what was later known
as the Revolutionary Development Cadre Program sharpened the dichotomy between
military and civilian operations. Considering that neither the American nor South
Vietnamese military was devoting sufficient emphasis and resources to pacification,
American civilian agencies threw their support behind an expansion of the People's
Action Teams. Started under CIA sponsorship, the teams were localdefense
platoons, trained extensively in political indoctrination and motivation, that
lived and worked among the people. Vastly expanding the number of teams, the South
Vietnamese absorbed some members of existing programs run by separate government
ministries but also gathered new recruits. Requirements for scarce South Vietnamese
manpower conflicted with military needs, and the program became a major point
of contention between American civilian agencies and General Westmoreland's command.
In the meantime, American bombing of North Vietnam beginning in February 1965
and arrival of American ground troops starting the next month and their commitment
later in the year against the enemy's main-force units, produced more and more
emphasis on military action and thus less and less American military attention
to pacification. Immersed in their own expanding pacification program, American
civilian agencies felt a widening conceptual gulf between the military war and
what they were trying to achieve. While admitting that organization for pacification
support might be tightened, they believed it should be achieved under civilian
direction. Contributing most of the advisers and materiel and responsible for
security, the American military command preferred to leave the organization as
it was rather than see its resources put under civilian management.
[12]
Officials at the highest level of the US government were aware of the lack of
unity in the US effort. In February, for example, in advocating reprisal bombing
against North Vietnam, President Johnson's Special Assistant for National Security
Affairs, McGeorge Bundy, told the president that if the reprisal program raised
new hopes and if some improvement in the South Vietnamese government followed,
"the most urgent order for business will then be the improvement and broadening
of the pacification program, especially in its nonmilitary elements." He
advocated strengthening at what he called "the margin between military advice
and economic development." The military, he noted, needed to pay more attention
to supporting civilian programs while the United States Operations Mission, which
advised the South Vietnamese police, needed to focus more on security.11
Numerous proposals during 1965 for reorganizing the US mission and the American
pacification effort reflected continuing concern in Washington over disunity in
the mission. In February, for example, the Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency
and Special Activities in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Maj. Gen. Rollen Anthis,
recommended a single chain of command for the pacification program under General
Westmoreland.12
In Saigon, in an effort to coordinate the advice given South Vietnamese province
chiefs, the US mission tried an experiment in three provinces, designating three
"team chiefs," from AID, MACV, and the embassy. Although the test worked
well in at least one province, it was abandoned after three months because of
inconclusive results. The idea of unified advice for each province nevertheless
became a part of nearly every reorganization subsequently proposed and eventually
was to be incorporated as an important principle in the final structure for CORDS.
That unified interagency action for a particular aspect of the struggle in Vietnam
was not necessarily impossible was demonstrated in May when Ambassador Taylor
established the Joint United States Public Affairs Office (JUSPAO) under the head
of the United States Information Agency's office in South Vietnam, Barry Zorthian.13
He was given
[13]
ministerial rank and made responsible for the entire mission's psychological warfare
operations and press relations. For those matters the joint office was made the
central point of contact with the South Vietnamese government. Zorthian's powers
were directive and included seeing that his orders were carried out; he was not
merely a coordinator. Officers from his agency and from all US agencies in South
Vietnam served under him. The Joint Public Affairs Office was a successful smaller
precursor to CORDS for the management of programs that cut across agency
lines.
When Henry Cabot Lodge returned for a second tour as ambassador in July 1965,
he came armed with a letter of authority from President Johnson as powerful as
that earlier given to Taylor.14 Yet Lodge continued
to see himself primarily as the president's personal representative, and his earlier
reluctance to interject himself in a managerial role continued.
Ambassador Lodge did bring with him to Saigon a small, handpicked team of
specialists to serve as an informal political staff for his use and to provide
liaison with South Vietnamese officials responsible for pacification. The head
of the group, Maj. Gen. Edward G. Lansdale, US Air Force, had helped defeat an
insurgency in the Philippines soon after World War II and had headed a staff advising
President Diem on pacification. Lodge made Lansdale chairman of an interagency
mission liaison group, which Ambassador Taylor had earlier created to provide
coordination with the South Vietnamese Director General of Rural Reconstruction
(pacification).
Yet neither in that post nor later as the US mission's senior liaison officer
to the South Vietnamese government was Lansdale able to accomplish much in terms
of bringing unity and direction to the US pacification support effort. The political
contacts he had established in his earlier tour and his ability to gain the trust
and confidence of South Vietnamese officials were valuable, but otherwise his
stay was frustrating. Key South Vietnamese leaders quickly discerned that his
power was limited and chose to deal instead with the agencies themselves, which
had large staffs and access to funding and other resources. The agencies resented
Lansdale's efforts to deal with Lodge on issues cutting across agency responsibilities
and frequently frustrated those efforts; for Lans
[14]
dale had no independent operating authority, no funds, and--an extremely important
factor-no Washington constituency to back him
up.15
The year 1965 ended with little change in the management of the American program
of pacification support. Despite a greatly expanded war, a vastly increased American
effort, an enormous commitment of military and civilian resources, and a change
of ambassadors arid commanders in Saigon (Westmoreland had become commander in
mid1964 ), the organization at the end of the year was basically the same
as it had been two years earlier. At all levels American officials appreciated
the problems of organization and made numerous proposals for change, and the president
had given his ambassadors unprecedented authority. Yet the situation remained
basically the same. It was not to stay that way much longer.
[15]