CHAPTER 1

Background to Military Assistance

_The Geographic Setting--The People--Vietnam’s Recent History--Post-Geneva South Vietnam--The American Response_

_The Geographic Setting_

Hanging like a bulbous pendant from China’s southern border, the Southeast Asian land mass projects itself southward to within 100 miles of the equator. Often referred to as the Indochinese Peninsula, this land mass is contained by the Andaman Sea on the west, the Gulf of Siam on the south, and the South China Sea and the Tonkin Gulf on the east. Along with the extensive Indonesian island chain which lies to the immediate south, mainland Southeast Asia dominates the key water routes between the Pacific and the Indian Oceans. So positioned, the Indochinese Peninsula and the offshore islands resemble the Middle East in that they traditionally have been recognized as a “crossroads of commerce and history.”[1-1]

Seven sovereign states currently make up the Indochinese Peninsula. Burma and Thailand occupy what is roughly the western two-thirds of the entire peninsula. To the south, the Moslem state of Malaysia occupies the southern third of the rugged, southward-reaching Malaysian Peninsula. East of Thailand lies Cambodia, which possesses a relatively abbreviated coastline on the Gulf of Siam, and Laos, a landlocked country. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), which borders to the north on China, and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) form the eastern rim of the Indochinese Peninsula.

Vietnamese have often described the area currently administered by the two separate Vietnamese states as resembling “two rice baskets at the ends of their carrying poles.”[1-2] This description is derived from the position of extensive rice producing river deltas at the northern and southern extremities of the long, narrow expanse of coastline and adjacent mountains. Vietnamese civilization originated in the northernmost of these so-called “rice baskets,” the Red River Delta, centuries before the birth of Christ. Pressured at various stages in their history by the vastly more powerful Chinese and by increasingly crowded conditions in the Red River Delta, the Vietnamese gradually pushed southward down the narrow coastal plain in search of new rice lands. Eventually their migration displaced several rival cultures and carried them into every arable corner of the Mekong Delta, the more extensive river delta located at the southern end of the proverbial “carrying pole.” Although unified since the eighteenth century under the Vietnamese, the area between the Chinese border and the Gulf of Siam came to be divided into three more or less different regions: Tonkin, centered on the Red River Delta; Cochinchina, centered on the Mekong Delta; and Annam, the intervening coastal region.

[Illustration:

MAINLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA ]

[Illustration:

FRENCH INDOCHINA 1954 ]

Since mid-1954 the area known collectively as Vietnam has been divided into northern and southern states. South Vietnam (known after 1956 as the Republic of Vietnam), where the earliest U.S. military activities were focused, came to include all of former Cochinchina and the southern half of Annam. The geography of this small state, described in general terms, is rugged and difficult. The lengthy country shares often ill-defined jungle boundaries with Laos and Cambodia in the west and with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) to the north. Its land borders total almost 1,000 miles--600 with Cambodia, 300 with Laos, and roughly 40 with North Vietnam. Approximately 1,500 miles of irregular coastline on the Tonkin Gulf and the South China Sea complete the enclosure of its 66,000-square mile area.

South Vietnam is divided into four relatively distinct physiographic regions--the Mekong Delta, the coastal plain, the Annamite Mountains, and the forested plain. The Mekong Delta, an extensive and fertile lowland centered on the Mekong River, covers roughly the southern quarter of the country. This region is essentially a marshy flat land well suited for rice growing and is recognized as one of Asia’s richest agricultural areas. South Vietnam’s second physiographic region, the coastal plain, is similar to the Mekong Delta in that it is predominantly flat and generally well suited for rice growing. Properly known as the coastal lowland, this region extends from the country’s northern border to the Mekong Delta. Its width is never constant, being defined on the west by the rugged Annamite Mountains--the region which dominates the northern two thirds of South Vietnam. The jungle-covered mountains, whose highest elevations measure over 8,000 feet, stand in sharp contrast to the low and flat coastal plain. The eastern slopes of the mountains normally rise from the lowlands at a distance of five or 10 miles from the sea. At several points along the coast, however, the emerald mountains crowd to the water’s edge, dividing the coastal plain into compartments and creating a seascape breathtaking in its beauty. At other locations the mountain chain recedes from the coast, allowing the lowlands to extend inland as far as 40 miles. An extensive upland plateau sprawls over the central portion of South Vietnam’s mountain region.

This important subregion, known as the Central Highlands, possesses relatively fertile soil and has great potential for agricultural development. The highest elevations in the Annamite chain are recorded south of the Central Highlands. From heights of 6,000 to 7,000 feet, the mountains dissolve southward into the forested plain, a hilly transition zone which forms a strip between the Mekong lowlands and the southernmost mountains.

South Vietnam lies entirely below the Tropic of Cancer. Its climate is best described as hot and humid. Because the country is situated within Southeast Asia’s twin tropical monsoon belt, it experiences two distinct rainy seasons. The southwest (or summer) monsoon settles over the Mekong Delta and the southern part of the country in mid-May and lasts until early October. In the northern reaches, the northeast (or winter) monsoon season begins in November and continues through most of March. Unlike the rainy season in the south, fog, wind, and noticeably lower temperatures characterize the wet season in the north. While the reversed monsoon seasons provide an abundance of water for rice growing throughout the Mekong Delta and most of the long coastal plain, rainfall is not distributed uniformly. Parts of the central coast record only about 28 inches of annual precipitation. In contrast, other areas along the northern coast receive as much as 126 inches of rain during the course of a year. Even worse, a percentage of this rainfall can be expected to occur as a result of typhoons. The tropical storms usually lash the Annamese coast between July and November. Almost always they cause extensive flooding along normally sluggish rivers which dissect the coastal plain.

_The People_

Slightly over 16 million people currently inhabit South Vietnam. Of these, over 13 million are ethnic Vietnamese. Primarily rice farmers and fishermen, the Vietnamese have tended to compress themselves into the country’s most productive agricultural areas--the Mekong Delta and the coastal plain. Chinese, numbering around one million, form South Vietnam’s largest ethnic minority. Concentrated for the most part in the major cities, the Chinese traditionally have played a leading role in Vietnam’s commerce. About 700,000 Montagnard tribesmen, scattered across the upland plateau and the rugged northern mountains, constitute South Vietnam’s second largest minority. Some 400,000 Khmers, closely akin to the dominant population of Cambodia, inhabit the lowlands along the Cambodian border. Roughly 35,000 Chams, remnants of a once powerful kingdom that blocked the southern migration of the Vietnamese until the late 1400s, form the country’s smallest and least influential ethnic minority. The Chams, whose ancestors once controlled most of the central and southern Annamese coast, are confined to a few small villages on the central coast near Phan Rang.

[Illustration:

TERRAIN FEATURES SOUTH VIETNAM ]

South Vietnamese adhere to a broad range of religions. Between 70 and 80 percent of the country’s 16 million people are classified as Buddhist. It is estimated, however, that a much smaller percentage are actually practitioners. Roman Catholics comprise roughly 10 percent of the total population. Usually found in and around the country’s urban centers, the Catholics are products of Vietnam’s contacts with Europeans. Two so-called politico-religious sects, the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao, have attracted large segments of the rural population, particularly in the Mekong Delta.[1-A] For the most part, the scattered Montagnard tribes worship animal forms and have no organized religion, although many have been converted to Christianity.

[1-A] Founded just after World War I, the Cao Dai claims more than one and a half million faithful in South Vietnam. The religion incorporates elements of Taoism, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, and large doses of spiritualism. Its clergy, headed by a “pope,” is organized in a hierarchy modelled on that of the Roman Catholic Church. The extent of its borrowing is suggested by the fact that adherents count the French author Victor Hugo as one of their saints. Politically, the Cao Dai moved sharply in the direction of nationalism during the 1940s, organized its own army, and fought sporadic actions against the French and the subsequent French-controlled government of Emperor Bao Dai until suppressed by the Diem government in 1954.

Like the Cao Dai, the Hoa Hao is peculiarly Vietnamese. In the late 1930s, a Buddhist monk named Huynh Pho So began a “protestant” movement within the worldly, easy-going Buddhist faith then prevalent. His followers, whose ranks grew rapidly, called themselves Hoa Hao after the village where Phu So began his crusade. Like the Cao Dai faithful and Catholics, they tended to live apart in their own villages and hamlets concentrated in the very south and west of Vietnam, primarily along the Cambodian border. Intensely nationalistic and xenophobic, they were under constant attack from the French, Japanese, and Viet Minh, and by the late 1940s had recruited a large militia which was subsequently disbanded. Today their overall membership stands at about one million.

Fundamentally, South Vietnamese society is rural and agrarian. Over the centuries the Vietnamese have tended to cluster in tiny hamlets strewn down the coastal plain and across the Mekong Delta. Usually composed of a handful of closely knit families whose ancestors settled the surrounding land generations earlier, the hamlet is South Vietnam’s basic community unit. Next larger is the village which resembles the American township in function in that it encompasses a number of adjacent hamlets. The Vietnamese people have naturally developed strong emotional ties with their native villages. “To the Vietnamese,” it has been said without exaggeration, “the village is his land’s heart, mind, and soul.”[1-3] Given the rural nature of the country it is understandable that the inhabitants of the villages and hamlets have retained a large degree of self-government. “The laws of the emperor,” states an ancient Vietnamese proverb, “are less than the customs of the village.”[1-4]

Overlaying this rural mosaic are two intermediate governmental echelons--the districts and the provinces, The district, the smaller of these political and geographic subdivisions, first appeared in Vietnamese history following the earliest annexation of Tonkin by the Chinese in 111 B.C. It remained in use and was extended down the Annamese coast and into Cochinchina by the successive Vietnamese dynasties which came to power in the ensuing centuries. Provinces, larger geographic subdivisions, eventually were superimposed over groups of contiguous districts, thus adding another echelon between the reigning central government and the villages. This structure remained in existence under the French after they took control of all Vietnam in the late 19th century. In order to make their administration more efficient French colonial authorities modernized the cumbersome administrative machinery and adjusted provincial boundaries. It is essentially this French-influenced structure that exists in South Vietnam today. Still, after years of use and modification, the system seems somewhat superficial as traditional self-rule of the villages tends to nullify the efforts of provinces and districts to govern rural areas. Often the central government’s influence is unable to seep lower than the district headquarters, particularly in more remote areas.

While South Vietnam is predominantly rural, it does possess several important urban centers. As might be expected, these are found primarily in the densely populated Mekong Delta and along the coastal lowland. Saigon, the nation’s capital and largest city, presently has a population estimated at 3.5 million. Located slightly north of the Mekong River complex and inland from the coast, the city dominates the country in both an economic and political sense. Saigon has excellent port facilities for ocean-going ships, although such traffic must first negotiate the tangled Saigon River which leads inland from the South China Sea. Da Nang, located on the Annamese coast 84 miles below the northern border, is the country’s second largest city. With a population of roughly 500,000 and a protected harbor, Da Nang constitutes the principal economic center in northern South Vietnam. The old imperial capital of Hue (population of roughly 200,000), situated about 50 miles north of Da Nang, historically has exerted a strong cultural influence over the Annamese coast.[1-B] Scores of large towns, such as Quang Tri, Hoi An, Quang Ngai, Can Tho, and Vinh Long, extend down the coast and across the Mekong Delta. Often these serve as provincial capitals. A few lesser population centers, notably Pleiku, Kontum, and Ban Me Thuot, are situated in the Central Highlands.

[1-B] The population of most of South Vietnam’s cities and towns has been swollen by the influx of refugees which occurred as the Vietnam War intensified in the middle 1960s. In 1965, for example, refugee population estimates for the three major cities were as follows: Saigon--1.5 million; Da Nang--144,000; Hue--105,000.

Most of South Vietnam’s major towns and cities are connected by one highway--Route 1. Constructed by the French during the early 20th century, Route 1 originally extended from Hanoi, the principal city of Tonkin in northern Vietnam, down the coast and inland to Saigon. While Route 1 and a French-built railroad which parallels it helped unify South Vietnam’s most densely populated areas, the country’s road network is otherwise underdeveloped. A few tortuous roads do twist westward from Route 1 into the mountains to reach the remote towns there. Of these the most noteworthy are Route 19, built to serve Pleiku in the Central Highlands, and Route 9, which extends westward into Laos from Dong Ha, South Vietnam’s northernmost town. A number of roads radiate outward from Saigon to the population centers of the Mekong Delta. For the most part, however, the Vietnamese people traditionally have depended on trail networks, inland waterways, and the sea to satisfy their transportation needs. The location of the bulk of the population in the watery Mekong Delta and along the seacoast has encouraged their reliance on waterborne transportation.

_Vietnam’s Recent History_

Prior to July 1954 the expanse of mainland Southeast Asia now occupied by South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia belonged to France. Together these possessions constituted French-Indochina over which the French had exercised political control in one form or another, with one exception, since the last quarter of the 19th century. The only interruption occurred following the capitulation of France in June 1940. Exploiting the disrupted power balance in Europe, and attracted by the natural resources and strategic value of the area, Japan moved into northern French-Indochina less than four months after France had fallen. In 1941 the Vichy French government agreed to Japanese occupation of southern French-Indochina. Soon Japanese forces controlled every airfield and major port in Indochina. Under this arrangement the Japanese permitted French colonial authorities to maintain their administrative responsibilities. But as the tide of war began to turn against the Japanese, the French became increasingly defiant. The Japanese terminated this relationship on 9 March 1945 when, without warning, they arrested colonial officials throughout Indochina and brutally seized control of all governmental functions.

Six months after the dissolution of the French colonial apparatus in Indochina, World War II ended. The grip which Japan had held on most of Southeast Asia for nearly half a decade was broken on 2 September 1945 when her foreign minister signed the instrument of unconditional surrender on board the battleship USS _Missouri_. Shortly thereafter, in accordance with a previously reached Allied agreement, Chinese Nationalist forces moved into Tonkin and northern Annam to accept the surrender of Japanese forces. South of the 16th parallel, British units arrived from India to disarm the defeated Japanese. A detachment of 150 men from a small French Expeditionary Corps arrived by air in Saigon on the 12th to assist the British, who had included them only as a courtesy since France was not among the powers slated to receive the surrender of the Japanese in Indochina.

But the end of World War II and the arrival of Allied forces did not end the struggle for control of French-Indochina. Instead, it signalled the beginning of a new conflict in which the contestants were, in many respects, more formidable. One of these, the French, moved quickly to restore their former presence in Cochinchina and Annam. Reinforced with additional units, they occupied most major towns between the Mekong Delta and the 16th parallel by the end of 1945. Two months later French negotiators secured an agreement with the Chinese Nationalists whereby French units would replace the Chinese occupation forces north of the 16th parallel.

[Illustration:

MAJOR CITIES OF SOUTH VIETNAM ]

Wartime developments in French-Indochina, however, had brought about profound political changes which eventually would doom the French effort to re-establish political and economic influence in the region. During World War II, Ho Chi Minh, an avowed Communist, had transformed a relatively feeble political party into a sizable guerrilla organization. Known as the Viet Minh, the Communist guerrillas had been organized, trained, and led by Vo Nguyen Giap, a former history teacher from Annam. During the latter stages of the war, the United States had supplied the Viet Minh with limited quantities of military supplies. In return, Ho’s guerrillas had assisted downed American pilots and occasionally had clashed with small Japanese units. But the Viet Minh had wasted few men on costly major actions against the Japanese. Conserving their forces, Ho and Giap had concentrated on organization and had managed to extend their strength into the densely populated Red River Delta and along the Annamese coast. In Cochinchina, where their numbers were considerably smaller, the Communists had limited their activities almost entirely to organization and recruitment. Thus, by the end of the war Ho’s organization was able to emerge as a definite military-political force in northern French-Indochina.

Following the Japanese surrender and before the arrival of the Chinese Nationalist occupation forces, the Viet Minh seized control of Hanoi, the capital of Tonkin, and proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. At Ho’s direction the Viet Minh promptly shifted from their anti-Japanese posture and prepared to contest the French return.

Confronted with this situation in northern Indochina, the French were forced to bargain with the Communists. A preliminary agreement was reached on 6 March 1946 whereby the French agreed to recognize the newly founded but relatively weak Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a “free state within the French Union.” In return, Ho’s government declared itself “ready to welcome in friendly fashion the French Army, when in conformance with international agreement, it would relieve the Chinese forces” which had accepted the Japanese surrender in Tonkin.[1-5] Shortly after the conclusion of this agreement, French forces began reoccupying Tonkin and northern Annam. Within six months they controlled every major strategic position from the Chinese border to the Ca Mau Peninsula, Cochinchina’s southern tip.

The uneasy peace was broken in December 1946 after Viet Minh and French negotiators failed to reach a final agreement on actual political control of Tonkin and Annam. When open warfare erupted, Ho withdrew the bulk of his military forces into mountainous sanctuaries along the Chinese border, but left small groups of guerrillas scattered throughout the heavily populated Red River Delta. Reinforced with contingents from Europe and Africa, the French Expeditionary Corps initially managed to hold its own and, in some cases, even extend its control. But, drawing strength from its natural appeal to Vietnamese nationalism, the Communist movement began gaining momentum in the late 1940s. Gradually the war intensified and spread into central Annam and Cochinchina.

In January 1950, the French moved to undercut the Viet Minh’s appeal to non-Communist nationalists by granting nominal independence to its Indochina possessions. Under the terms of a formal treaty, all of Vietnam (Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina) was brought together under a Saigon-based government headed by Emperor Bao Dai. Laos and Cambodia likewise formed their own governments, whereupon all three countries became known as the Associated States of Indochina.

This new arrangement, however, had little effect on the ongoing war with the Viet Minh. In accordance with the treaties, the Associated States became members of the French Union and agreed to prosecute the war under French direction. Moreover, French political dominance in the region continued, virtually undiluted by the existence of the Associated States.

In related developments, Mao Tse-tung’s Chinese Communist armies seized control of mainland China in 1949 and Communist North Korean forces invaded the pro-Western Republic of Korea in 1950. These events added new meaning to the French struggle in Indochina as American policy makers came to view the war on the Southeast Asian mainland within the context of a larger design to bring Asia entirely under Communist domination. Following the invasion of South Korea, President Truman immediately announced his intention to step up U.S. military aid to the French in Indochina. Congress responded quickly by adding four billion dollars to existing military assistance funds. Of this, $303 million was earmarked for Korea, the Philippines, and “the general area of China.”[1-6][1-C] Thus, the Truman Administration, now confronted by the possibility that Communism might engulf all of mainland Asia, extended its containment policy to Indochina.

[1-C] The following year would see a half billion U.S. dollars allocated to support French operations in Indochina. By 1954 that figure would climb to an even one billion dollars.

Even with rapidly increasing amounts of U.S. material assistance, the French proved unable to wrest the initiative from Giap’s growing armies. Although national armies drawn from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam were now fighting alongside the French, the Expeditionary Corps was over-extended. Moreover, the French cause was extremely vulnerable to Communist propaganda. On the home front, public support for the so-called _sale guerre_ (dirty war) eroded steadily during the early 1950s as the Expeditionary Corps’ failures and casualties mounted. Finally, on 7 May 1954, the besieged 13,000-man French garrison at Dien Bien Phu surrendered to the Viet Minh, thus shattering what remained of French determination to prosecute the war in Indochina. In Geneva, where Communist and Free World diplomats had gathered to consider a formal peace in Korea along with the Indochina problem, French and Viet Minh representatives signed a cease-fire agreement on 20 July which ended the eight-year conflict.

The bilateral cease-fire agreement substantially altered the map of the Indochinese Peninsula. France agreed to relinquish political control throughout the area. Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam all gained full independence. The most controversial provision of the 20 July agreement divided Vietnam at the Ben Hai River and superimposed a demilitarized zone over the partition line. This division, intended to facilitate the disengagement of the opposing forces, was to be temporary pending a reunification election scheduled for mid-1956. In accordance with the agreement, France immediately turned over political control of the northern zone (Tonkin and the northern half of Annam) to the Communist Viet Minh. Ho promptly re-established the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) with its capital in Hanoi.

Other provisions of the Geneva Agreement called for the opposing armies to regroup in their respective zones within 300 days. Following their regroupment, the French military forces were to be completely withdrawn from the North within 300 days and from the South by mid-1956. Civilians living both north and south of the partition line were to be allowed to emigrate to the opposite zone in accordance with their political convictions. It was anticipated that thousands of Catholics living in Tonkin would seek refuge in the non-Communist South. Other articles of the agreement dealt with the creation and responsibilities of an International Control Commission (ICC) to supervise the cease-fire. Canadian, Indian, and Polish delegations were to comprise this commission.

On 21 July, the day following the bilateral agreement, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, the Peoples Republic of China, Cambodia, and Laos joined France and the Viet Minh in endorsing a “Final Declaration” which sanctioned the previously reached cease-fire agreement. The United States refused to endorse this declaration, but issued a statement to the effect that it would not use force to disturb the cease-fire.

_Post-Geneva South Vietnam_

The execution of the Geneva Agreement thrust that area of Vietnam south of the partition line into a period of profound confusion and instability. Even worse, the colonial period had done little to prepare the Cochinchinese and Annamese for the tremendous problems at hand. No real apparatus for central government existed. Likewise, the long colonial period left the area with few experienced political leaders capable of establishing and managing the required governmental machinery. Political control passed nominally to the French-sponsored emperor, Bao Dai, who was living in France at the time. For all practical purposes, leadership in the South devolved upon Bao Dai’s recently appointed pro-Western premier, Ngo Dinh Diem. The product of a prosperous and well-educated Catholic family from Hue, Diem had served the French briefly as a province chief prior to World War II. Always a strong nationalist but staunchly anti-Communist, he had been unable to reconcile his anti-French attitudes with the Viet Minh movement during the Indochina War. As a result Diem had left his homeland in the early 1950s to live at a Catholic seminary in the United States. There he remained until his appointment as premier in mid-June of 1954.

The months immediately following the Geneva agreement found Ngo Dinh Diem struggling to create the necessary governmental machinery in Saigon, the capital of the southern zone. At best, however, his hold on the feeble institutions was tenuous. A serious confrontation was developing between the premier and the absent Bao Dai, still residing in France. Further complicating the political scene was the presence of Hoa Hao and Cao Dai armies in the provinces surrounding the capital, and the existence in Saigon of an underworld organization named the Binh Xuyen.[1-D] As 1955 opened the leaders of these three politically oriented factions were pressing demands for concessions from the new central government. Among these were permission to maintain their private armies, and the authority to exercise political control over large, heavily populated areas.

[1-D] The Binh Xuyen originally operated from the swamps south of the Chinese-dominated Cholon district of Saigon. Controlling the vice and crime of the city, by 1954 they had gained control of the police under circumstances that reeked of bribery. A year later the organization was brutally crushed by Ngo Dinh Diem.

The outcome of the embryonic power struggle in Saigon hinged largely on control of the Vietnamese National Army (VNA). Although not considered an efficient military organization by even the most liberal estimates, the 210,000-man National Army was the principal source of organized power available to the quarreling leaders of southern Vietnam. Originally created by the French in 1950 to supplement their Expeditionary Corps, the VNA had since suffered from structural deficiencies. It actually had no organizational echelon between the French-controlled General Staff and the 160 separate battalions. Tied to no regiments or divisions, the Vietnamese battalions naturally were dependent on the French Expeditionary Corps for operational instructions and logistical support.[1-E]

[1-E] Selected VNA battalions were sometimes task organized into _groupes mobiles_ (mobile groups) by the French for specific offensive operations. But these groups, which were roughly equivalent to a regimental combat team, were never composed entirely of VNA battalions under a Vietnamese command group. A dearth of qualified Vietnamese officers and a degree of inattention on the part of the French compounded the problems which stemmed from the army’s structural flaw. Partially as a result of these shortcomings the morale of the VNA had deteriorated sharply in the waning stages of the French-Indochina War. At the time of the cease-fire agreement, high desertion rates were reported in almost every Vietnamese battalion. Still, it was evident that he who controlled the National Army would most likely control the government in the area south of the partition line.

The danger that the pro-Western zone might become the victim of a sudden Communist attack from the north, as had been the case on the Korean Peninsula, injected another element of uncertainty into the overall situation in southern Vietnam. The conditions which settled over the area in the immediate aftermath of the Geneva settlement suggested this possibility since they were alarmingly similar to the conditions which had prevailed in Korea prior to the North Korean invasion of 1950. Like Korea, Vietnam was divided both geographically and ideologically: the North clearly within the orbit of the Soviet Union and Communist China, and the South under the influence of the Western powers. As in Korea in 1950, there also existed a very real armed threat to the weaker pro-Western southern state. Immediately after the Geneva cease-fire, the Viet Minh army regrouped north of the 17th parallel and was redesignated the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN). American intelligence reported that the PAVN, which numbered roughly 240,000 disciplined veterans, was being reorganized and re-equipped with Soviet and Chinese weapons in violation of the Geneva Agreement. At the same time Western intelligence sources estimated that the Viet Minh had intentionally left between 5,000 and 10,000 men south of the partition line following their withdrawal. Also done in violation of the cease-fire agreement, this meant that Communist guerrillas could be expected to surface throughout the South in the event of an outright invasion.

A related condition heightened fears that a Korea-type invasion might occur in Vietnam. In South Korea a military vacuum had been allowed to form in 1949 when American units withdrew from the area. Apparently that vacuum, coupled with a statement by the American Secretary of State to the effect that the U.S. defensive perimeter in the Pacific did not include South Korea, had encouraged Communist aggression. Now, with the scheduled evacuation of French armies from Indochina by mid-1956, there emerged the distinct possibility that such a military vacuum would recur, this time in southern Vietnam. “Vietnam,” warned one American scholar familiar with the region, “may very soon become either a dam against aggression from the north or a bridge serving the communist block to transform the countries of the Indochinese peninsula into satellites of China.”[1-7]

_The American Response_

It was in the face of this uncertain situation on the Southeast Asian mainland that the Eisenhower administration moved to discourage renewed Communist military activity. First, the United States sought to create a regional international organization to promote collective military action under the threat of aggression. This was obtained on 8 September 1954 when eight nations--the United States, Great Britain, France, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand--signed the Manila Pact. The treaty area encompassed by the pact included Southeast Asia, the Southwest Pacific below 21°31′ north latitude, and Pakistan. Two weeks later the pact was transformed into the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). In a separate protocol, the member nations agreed that Cambodia, Laos, and the “Free Territory under the jurisdiction of the State of Vietnam” all resided within their defense sphere.[1-8]

Next, after several months of hesitation, the United States settled on a policy of comprehensive assistance to South Vietnam, as the area south of the 1954 partition line was already being called. As conceived, the immediate objective of the new American policy was to bring political stability to South Vietnam. The longer range goal was the creation of a bulwark to discourage renewed Communist expansion down the Indochinese Peninsula. In this scheme, military assistance was to play a key role. “One of the most efficient means of enabling the Vietnamese Government to become strong,” explained Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, “is to assist it in reorganizing the National Army and in training that Army.”[1-9] In short, the State Department’s position was that a stronger, more responsive Vietnamese National Army would help Premier Diem consolidate his political power. Later that same force would serve as a shield behind which South Vietnam would attempt to recover from the ravages of the French-Indochina War and the after effects of the Geneva Agreement.

So by early 1955 a combination of circumstances--South Vietnam’s position adjacent to a Communist state, the unsavory memories of the Korean invasion, and the impending withdrawal of the French Expeditionary Corps--had influenced the United States to adopt a policy of military support for Premier Diem’s struggling government.