Dr. Geoffrey D. T. Shaw

This is an excerpt of an upcoming book (which you can pre-order) The Lost Mandate of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam by Geoffrey D. T. Shaw by permission of the author, who is a member of VVFH.
“The fall of the dictator, greeted at the beginning with joy by the Vietnamese as the grounds for a quick peace and a better government, is regretted by many today as an unpardonable mistake which has deprived the country of its most prestigious non-communist nationalist leader.” [1. Fr. Gheddo further elaborated on this revelation in the following: “The same Buddhist bonze, Tri Quang, who was the principal architect of his downfall, no longer takes responsibility today for having overthrown him. In a long interview granted to me, he asserted that it was not his intention to have Diem fall; all he wanted was for him to concede greater democratic freedoms and not to patronize the Catholics openly. But, Tri Quang went on, Diem was overthrown by a coup d’etat of the military, supported by the Americans and not by the Buddhists (which in fact is true).The fact they contributed to Diem’s downfall is regretted by the Americans as an unpardonable error. Actually, the dictator was a convinced nationalist and did not want the Americans to gain a footing in the country. This is our war – he said frequently to the American ambassador – not yours; give us arms and military advisers, but not soldiers. In fact in November 1963, when Diem was killed, there were only 16,000 Americans in South Vietnam, principally diplomats and advisers of various kinds (military men, advisers for aid programs and agricultural development, etc.), while today there are more than half a million.” Fr. Piero Gheddo; THE CROSS AND THE BO-TREE: Catholics & Buddhists in Vietnam; New York: Sheed & Ward, 1970; pages: 134 – 135.]

Rufus Phillips, a CIA operative who had just met with Diem but a few days before the coup, was deeply saddened and distraught when he entered Gia Long Place on the day after the overthrow as it brought to his mind the immediate sense of waste and stupidity in the acts of those who were responsible for Diem’s murder: “I wanted to sit down and cry. And I was so upset when I heard that he’d been killed…That was a stupid decision and,God, we paid, they paid, everybody paid.” [2. Howard Jones; DEATH OF A GENERATION: How The Assassinations of Diem and JFK Prolonged the Vietnam War; Oxford University Press, 2003; page: 436.] At the time, Vice President Johnson had supported Nolting and other officials who had attempted to stop the coup plotting as, by all accounts, he genuinely liked Diem and thought him a superior leader. He was livid over the murder of Diem and did little to hide his contempt for those who had a hand in it and later, in 1966, when he was President, he confided to Senator Eugene McCarthy the horrible reality of what happened back in 1963, in Saigon: “We killed him [Diem]. We got together and got a goddamn bunch of thugs and we went in and assassinated him. Now, we’ve really had no political stability since then.” [3. Monique Brinson Demery; FINDING THE DRAGON LADY: The Mystery of Vietnam’s Madame Nhu; New York, Public Affairs, 2013; page: 210.] William Colby had stated nearly the same thing to this writer back in 1996 when he confided that after Diem, things never really got back on track. On November 5th, Madame Nhu stated: “Whoever has the Americans as allies does not need any enemies…I can predict to you all that the story in Vietnam is only at its beginning.” [4. Ibid. page: 214.] Her words were to be proved prescient and true.

Of course, one of the great paradoxes of the coup and murders of Diem and his brother Nhu was that it also destroyed any harmony there had been amongst the Vietnamese generals who had launched the whole process in the first place: i.e., in killing Diem they had also killed their own chances at governing as any sort of cohesive body. General Tran Van Don took an almost immediate loathing to General ‘Big’ Minh for having ordered the killings and this meant, in all practical estimations, the coup leadership was now at daggers drawn as General Don’s following was just as considerable as Minh’s. [5. Howard Jones; DEATH OF A GENERATION: How The Assassinations of Diem and JFK Prolonged the Vietnam War; Oxford University Press, 2003; page: 436.] This rancor spilled over into all of the ruling junta’s appointments and dealings thus leaving it weak and vulnerable, in turn, inviting overthrow which, inevitably, occurred in 1964. But even in this, General Don should not be given too light a pass as he knew, full well, the petty and vicious motivations of his coconspirators such as Generals ‘Big’ Minh, Kim and Xuan; moreover, he later admitted that he knew ‘Big’ Minh would most likely feel compelled to murder Diem and Nhu as, indeed, the military junta would prove itself incompetent. Thus, General Don told historian, George Mct.Kahin, if Diem and Nhu had been left alive, in about three months’ time the Americans would have ‘fired’ him (Tran Van Don) and the other generals and then they would have returned Diem and Nhu to power; probably with a sigh of relief. [6. Hoang Ngoc Thanh & Than Thi Nhan Duc; WHY THE VIETNAM WAR? President Ngo Dinh Diem and the US, His Overthrow and Assassination; Tuan – Yen & Quan –Viet Mai-Nam Publishers, 2001 [ISBN: 09675058-0-1]; page: 418.]

One of the last public comments that Ambassador Nolting made about Kennedy’s decision illustrates the longterm strategic costs of the President’s short-term tactical gains:

Now the young president was caught in a dilemma; there was no question about it. There were several things he could have done, but the worst alternative was what he opted to do. Even worse than the practical consequences of the coup were the moral effects. I will not go into the sequence of events here because I believe it is now clear that after the revolution things went from bad to worse, regardless of the number of troops that we put in and regardless of the fact that the cost went up dramatically: 57,000 American lives, eight years of dissension in our country, huge increases in public debt, and the inflation that afflicted us throughout the 1970s. The actions of the Kennedy administration set the stage for all this [7. Nolting, “Kennedy, NATO, and Southeast Asia,” Diplomacy, Administration, and Policy, Thompson, ed., 25.]

In correspondence between themselves written after the coup and murder of Diem and Nhu, General Harkins and Ambassador Nolting tended to be harder on Hilsman, Harriman, and the American press than on the President vis-à-vis responsibility for what went wrong in South Vietnam. For example, on March 27, 1964, Harkins wrote a letter to Nolting expressing his sorrow that the latter had resigned from the State Department. Harkins claimed that the removal of Diem had set the whole counter-insurgency program back about ten months, and he apportioned a good deal of blame to the press: “As you know, the press took the sails out of Diem starting last June and July to make him practically ineffective.” [8. Paul D. Harkins, “Letter to Fritz Nolting,” March 27, 1964, pp. 1 – 2 in R621/102.921, Box No.: 12, Selected Correspondence: Harkins, Paul D., The Nolting Papers.] Nolting replied to Harkins on April 7, 1964 and informed him that he and his wife, Lindsay, had gone over the tragedy of what had happened to Diem and Nhu so many times that it was driving them crazy. He told Harkins that he wished that he had been allowed to stay on in Saigon; but, in the final analysis, he had come to believe that the destruction of Diem’s GVN was inevitable. Nolting also reiterated that his reasons for resigning from the State Department in protest over the Government’s poor behaviour, which resulted in Diem and Nhu’s murders, were well-founded.

I too wish we could have stayed on there, but I doubt that would have done any good in the light of what I now know. The deliberate undercutting last summer of our Government’s and our Country Team’s position by certain elements of the State Department is now crystal clear to me. Among other things, these people were feeding to the press the very line that you and I were instructed to counteract -- i.e., the ‘can’t win with Diem’ line. As a result, our efforts have been set back by many months, as you say…This is a most unsavory story, but some day the facts will be publicly known. They already are known around Washington, but not admitted, and the press doesn’t like to eat crow…Under these circumstances, it has restored my feeling of integrity to have resigned from the Department of State. [9. Frederick E. Nolting, Jr., “Letter to General Paul D. Harkins - COMUSMACV,” April 7, 1964, p. 1 of 2 in R621/102.921, Box No.: 12, Selected Correspondence: Harkins, Paul D., The Nolting Papers. Nolting’s suspicions about the Country Team being undermined were founded on reality as would later be proved in the contents of the secret annex to the Hilsman-Forrestal Report.]

In another letter, hand-written to Nolting in 1971, Harkins enumerated the people and actions that alienated President Diem and resulted in his murder, as well as the destruction of an effective U.S. policy in Southeast Asia. Harkins placed Harriman, Hilsman, Senator Mansfield, and the American press corps in this descending order of those he believed were most responsible for this destruction. [10. Paul D. Harkins, “Hand-Written Letter to Fritz Nolting,” July 22, 1971, pp. 1–2 in R621/102.921, Box No.: 12, Selected Correspondence: Harkins, Paul D., The Nolting Papers.] In 1981, the editor of the Wall Street Journal, in “The First Lesson of Vietnam,” summed up what had happened during the Kennedy years. He singled out the coup and murder of Diem as the central pivot upon which massive U.S. involvement had hinged. Quite accurately, the editor placed the responsibility for what had occurred upon the same individuals Nolting and Harkins had identified back in 1964:

There was no slippery slope; we drove over a cliff. Once we had implicated ourselves in overthrowing the head of an allied government in the name of winning the war, no American president could turn and walk away…As Vice President, Mr. Johnson had strenuously opposed American involvement in any attempt to unseat Diem…That the coup followed a massive struggle within the U.S. government is the first of a number of things to understand about the events of 20 years ago. Averell Harriman and Roger Hilsman at the State Department and incoming Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge led the Diem-must-go faction, arguing that Diem was losing the war by not pressing internal reforms to win the hearts and minds of the people. Gen. Paul Harkins, the American commander in Saigon, outgoing Ambassador Frederick Nolting and Gen. Victor Krulak, the Pentagon’s counter-insurgency expert, warned that toppling an ally was no way to help the war effort. Mr. Hilsman pushed through the decisive cable over a weekend with most officials out of town.... The anti-Diem faction dominated the press through the efforts of three young men in Saigon - David Halberstam of the New York Times, Neil Sheehan of UPI and Malcolm Browne of APP. The pro-Diem faction was represented by Marguerite Higgins of the New York Herald Tribune, who had already covered two other wars. The significance of this is that those who championed the coup have written the popular histories of its aftermath…What is the lesson of Vietnam? No doubt there are many, but somehow the clearest also seems the hardest for the U.S. to digest. We can always see the imperfections of our friends...And of course it is easier and in the short run a good deal safer to put pressure on friends than on adversaries. We will have learned very little from the pain of Vietnam if we do not learn to beware of that temptation. Too often American policy remains, as Miss Higgins described it, ‘friendly to the neutrals, neutral to its enemies, and hostile to its friends.” [11. The Editor, “Review & Outlook: The First Lesson of Vietnam,” The Wall Street Journal, November 2, 1983, 1, in R621/102.921, Box Number: 23, Professional Papers, Newsclippings 2 of 2, The Nolting Papers.]

In March 1967, The Wheeling Register published an article entitled: “Ex-Ambassador Nolting Speaks: Refusal to Admit Blunder Trapped LBJ in Vietnam.” Therein, Nolting identified the destruction of Ngo Dinh Diem as having been the number one tactical objective of the Viet Cong. The State Department unwittingly collaborated with dissenting generals and radical Buddhist bonzes to hand this objective over to the communists. [12. Frederick E. Nolting, “Ex-Ambassador Nolting Speaks: Refusal to Admit Blunder Trapped LBJ in Vietnam,” The Wheeling Register, March 1967, 1, in R621/102.921, Box Number: 23, Professional Papers, News clippings 1 of 2, The Nolting Papers.] Nolting warned that, while he was not defeatist, it would take a very long time to build back what had been thrown away in the 1963 coup. He gave another very clear warning about those who had directed the coup: “The facts speak for themselves, I think concerning the judgement of those who encouraged the revolution in Vietnam in the fall of 1963 -- some of whom are still in key positions in our government.”[13. Ibid.]

When Nolting started to go public with his views on what had happened in Vietnam, he maintained that the ultimate responsibility for America’s blundering policy lay with Kennedy and Rusk. During a public address in Lynchburg (Va.), Nolting stated that the “fatal error” which had led America into so much trouble in Vietnam was the consequence of the decision to undermine Ngo Dinh Diem, and this decision had been taken by Secretary of State Dean Rusk and President Kennedy. [14. Ibid., 2.] Nolting recalled how Rusk had remonstrated with him over the Buddhist burnings -- “We can’t stand any more burnings” – and wryly observed, “Behind this laconic statement there lay an abysmal lack of understanding and judgement.” [15. “Nolting Finally Speaks Out,” The Danville Register, Danville, VA, April 4, 1968, 1, in R621/102.921, Box Number: 23, Professional Papers, Newsclippings 2 of 2, The Nolting Papers]

Even Nolting’s departure from Vietnam became a point of acrimony and controversy in the aftermath of Diem’s murder. Dean Rusk would later try to absolve himself from any connection to the coup and murder of Diem by claiming that he had asked Nolting to stay on in Saigon and that Nolting was the one who insisted on going home. Rusk’s implications were clear, and Nolting discerned them immediately upon hearing rumor of them: that Nolting had deserted his post during a crucial and tough period. Rusk’s position, however, cannot be sustained by the facts, and the weight of evidence is certainly on Nolting’s side on this issue. First of all, as the cable traffic and memoranda from the State Department’s files show, Harriman and Hilsman wanted Nolting out of Saigon as rapidly as possible and, as previously noted, even if this meant there was no Ambassador at the post. Hilsman had been given the authority by President Kennedy to determine the departure date of Nolting. Accordingly, he acted upon this authority in short order. The weight of documents supporting this is substantial and lends support to Nolting in manifest manner. Secondly, and relatedly, at the time Nolting had placed a request to stay on as Ambassador and for the obvious reasons just mentioned, his request was denied. (16)

On March 18, 1964, Nolting wrote to Rusk about the controversy surrounding his leaving Saigon and his subsequent resignation from the State Department. The key issues which had found their way into the public forum and which the Ambassador was concerned about and required explanation for, were as follows:

1. That he had been unwilling to go along with the State Department’s policy while serving as US Ambassador in Viet Nam.
2. That he had refused Rusk’s personal request to extend his tour of duty in Saigon beyond two years.
3. That he had been over-zealous after his return from Saigon in urging in U.S. government councils that they should continue to support South Viet Nam through the Diem government, and in opposing actions which would weaken that government. [17. Correspondence to Dean Rusk, p. 1 of 2 in R621/102.921; Box Number: 13; Selected correspondence, The Nolting Papers.]

Rusk wrote a very terse letter back to Nolting on April 9, 1964. He admitted that there was “not an iota of truth in the first” rumour that the Ambassador had brought to his attention and then stated, “And you and I know to what extent there is anything in the other two.” [18. Letter from the Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, to The Honorable Frederick E. Nolting, Jr., April 9, 1964, p. 1 of 1 in R621/102.92; Box Number: 13; Selected Correspondence - Dean Rusk, The Nolting Papers.] Nolting responded immediately to Rusk’s brief note and spelled-out the specific details of how he was treated with regard to being informed about Henry Cabot Lodge replacing him and the timing of his being sent home and there was no covering up the fact that the State Department had wanted him out of the way. [19. “On the second point, I am quite sure that I never received a personal request from you to stay on in Saigon. If I had, I would have stayed. After our initial exchange of letters on this subject (December 2, 1962, and January 17, 1963), I had a further exchange with Averell Harriman, who approved our plans for home leave in May, 1963, and added that, due to the time required to find a replacement, it would be necessary for me to return to Viet Nam after home leave. This I agreed to do, and so notified Diem, on instructions. The next word from Washington on this subject was the public announcement of Lodge’s appointment, while we were en route home on leave and consultation.” Letter From Frederick Nolting to The Honorable Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, April 14, 1963, p. 1 of 2 in R621/102.92; Box Number: 13; Selected Correspondence - Dean Rusk, The Nolting Papers.]

Nolting heard no more from Rusk on this issue, at least directly, until late summer of 1964, when more than just rumors began to reach the Ambassador’s ears. A member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (Nolting does not give his name) told him that testimony given by Rusk to his committee indicated that Nolting had refused to stay on as Ambassador in Viet Nam in 1963. Even this committee member noted that Rusk’s implication was clear: that Nolting had quit when the going got rough and was therefore to blame for the deterioration of the situation in Viet Nam during that year. [20. Draft of Letter to The Honorable Dean Rusk, Secretary of State, from Frederick Nolting, September 24, 1963, p. 1 of 5 in R621/102.92; Box Number: 13; Selected Correspondence to Dean Rusk, The Nolting Papers.] The committee member told Nolting that he believed Rusk had made an unfair charge. Nolting concurred and promptly took Rusk to task in a five page letter which concerned itself with all the pertinent issues related to his departure from South Vietnam. Accordingly, Nolting told Rusk, straight out, that he was disappointed that he had chosen not to talk to him in a direct manner about these issues -- something that the Ambassador had requested. [21. “This is the third time I have heard reports of remarks attributed to you to which I take strong exception. Your reply to my letter several months ago was not conclusive or satisfactory from my point of view, and I was frankly disappointed that, after our long association, you did not respond to my suggestion that we should clear up any misunderstanding by face-to-face talk.” Ibid.]

Nolting then proceeded to lay out an accurate chronology of events and correspondence related to his permanent return to the United States. The Ambassador also pointed out that regardless of the serious problems that erupted with the Buddhists when he was on leave in Europe, no one informed him. None of this was reported to Nolting, even though his deputy, Trueheart, and the State Department in Washington had been instructed to let him know immediately if a real problem came up, as he would have cut his vacation short and returned to Saigon had he known. [22. “On the substance of the matter, the facts as I know them are these. Correspondence on the duration of my tour of duty in Viet Nam began with my letter to you from Saigon in December 1962, at a time when things were going well in Viet Nam, requesting you to bear in mind my desire, for family reasons, to be relieved after about two years - the period of time you and I had discussed before my departure to Viet Nam. Following your interim reply in January 1963, there was a series of correspondence with others in the State Department, the upshot of which was an understanding that I should come home on leave and consultation at the end of May 1963 and then return to Saigon for an indefinite period, pending the selection of a successor and an orderly transfer of responsibility. I was instructed to tell the Vietnamese government that I would return to my post after six weeks of leave and consultation, and I did so inform President Diem. On State Department orders my family and I left Saigon on May 23 for leave in Europe and consultation in Washington. While we were on vacation, the so-called Buddhist crisis broke out in Viet Nam, in June last year. I was not informed of this dangerous development, although my clear travel instructions had been left with my deputy in Saigon to notify me of any change in the situation. The sudden adverse development in Viet Nam clearly warranted my being notified. Yet neither the State Department nor Embassy Saigon did so.” Ibid. 1-2 of 5.] Further implicating the Department’s attempts to keep him uninformed, Nolting was not even told about Henry Cabot Lodge’s appointment as new United States Ambassador to South Vietnam. Instead, he first heard about it over the ship’s radio on his way back from Europe at the end of his vacation. Once in Washington, both the State Department and Diem requested his further presence in Vietnam. He promptly returned there, only to find relations between the U.S. government and the GVN all but destroyed and in serious jeopardy. As such, he set to work with Diem, as opposed to the Harriman/Hilsman instructions of table pounding which Trueheart had carried out in his absence. Thus Nolting was able to stabilise the situation so that by the date that he was actually recalled and went home to the United States, affairs were much calmer.

Nolting pointed out that the renewed agitation of the Buddhists and the subsequent crack-down of the GVN occurred when he had already left Vietnam and Henry Cabot Lodge had not yet arrived. The facts, as Nolting stated, cleared his name and placed the onus on the State Department. He went further than this by clearly implicating Harriman as the leading force in ensuring a revolt broke-out in South Viet Nam. He noted that when arrived back in Washington for consultations, in early July of 1963, he had to report first to Harriman who immediately back-handed him with the blunt statement that if it had been up to him, Nolting would have been relieved of his post after a two year term in Saigon and that, regardless of Nolting’s wonderment at not being informed of the troubles that erupted while he was on leave, he would not have been able to help the situation anyway. Thus, in Nolting’s mind, Harriman was making it crystal clear that he wanted to see Diem’s government overthrown and there was nothing that he, the ambassador, could do to stop it. Naturally enough, this admission of Harriman’s caused Nolting to suspect that it had been Harriman who arranged for him to go on his home leave when it occurred and that he had overseen the decision not to inform him when matters were getting out-of-hand in Saigon. In short, Harriman wanted things out-of-hand and Diem gone as a result. [23. “I have my own views as to why this matter was handled the way it was. The reason, I think, lies in the uncontrolled plotting going on in Washington at that time. When I arrived in Washington for consultation in early July 1963, I reported first to Averell Harriman. He opened the conversation by saying that if he had had his way, I would have been relieved of my post in May, at the expiration of a two-year tour of duty. I said that, however that might be, I could not understand the State Department’s failure to let me know about the troubles that had broken out in Viet Nam when I was on vacation, which threatened the whole basis of our policy there. He replied that he did not think that my presence in Viet Nam would have helped the situation in any way. The implication was clear - he wanted to see a revolution there. It is noteworthy in this connection that it was Harriman who controlled the correspondence respecting the duration of my tour of duty, the timing of my home leave and, I suspect, the decision not to notify me when things began to get out of hand in Saigon.” Ibid., 3-4 of 5.]

Nolting went on to tell Rusk what he believed and thought to be the major defects which had led up to the debacle in Saigon; and he had apportioned a fair amount of blame to State Department misjudgements and actions. [24. “To me it is clear that the divided counsels in the Department of State on this critical issue, our government’s susceptibility to press pressures, the lack of co-ordination in Washington and plain bad judgement contributed greatly to the deplorable coup d’etat in Viet Nam last November 1 and the subsequent events which underlie our country’s grave predicament now.” Ibid., 5 of 5.] But, not all of Ambassador Nolting’s experiences leaving Vietnam were as sordid as his treatment at the hands of the State Department. Ironically, the Vietnamese seemed to have sincerely appreciated his mission to Saigon. A very moving and relatively accurate article appeared in The Times of Viet-Nam on August 12, 1963, just a couple of days before Nolting left, and it was concerned with the ambassador’s tenure in Saigon. Maybe the saddest and most profound indictment ever made of the out-of-control American press was alluded to in this article, which noted that the American newsmen had accomplished what the Viet Cong had been unable to do, and that was get rid of Nolting. [25. “The first American Ambassador to Vietnam really worthy of being addressed by this title is being recalled from Vietnam…The Nolting era in Vietnam has been marked by the kind of friendship capable of sustaining differences of opinion and direct attack of the Viet Cong propaganda machine, but apparently the criticism and ridicule of the American press was too much…For the past eight months the American press has apparently been out to get Nolting. Their antipathy for President Ngo Dinh Diem, his family and his government is nothing new and it has rubbed off heavily on Ambassador Nolting. He has been attacked and offended consistently by the American press...The why is not a pretty story. The Ambassador has exhibited the courage to do his job without pandering to any press. In return they discredit his considered evaluations of the situation in Vietnam. They scorn him because he does not try to run the show as a good imperialist should…And now the Buddhist leaders are profiting from the image of Nolting projected abroad by the press to attack him for an honest, reasoned, intelligent statement, attacking him with an insidious and not so subtle appeal for ‘good’ Americans to identify themselves in opposition to Nolting. This would, of course, serve well the interests of those toting neutralism as the ‘solution to the Vietnam problem,’ which is exactly what the Viet Cong want…But in Free Vietnam Nolting will be remembered as the symbol of an era when, nation to nation, the United States and Viet Nam found the basis of understanding which resulted in a workable collaboration for the national interests of both countries and the interests of the Free World. Ambassador Nolting somehow seemed intuitively to know how to represent in its Sunday best the greatest power of the Free World in this newly independent nation while always showing the respect for Vietnam’s national integrity.... Henry Cabot Lodge is to represent the United States in Vietnam, but he will have mighty big shoes to fill.” The Editors, ”Big Shoes To Fill,” The Times of Viet-Nam: A Chronicle of the Nation’s Progress, August 12, 1963, p. 4 in R621/102.92; Box Number: 23; Professional Papers: Newsclippings 1 of 2, The Nolting Papers.]

Later, President Lyndon Baines Johnson revealed that he thought Nolting’s recall was a serious mistake. Johnson noted that Nolting had the courage of his convictions and could not be cajoled into a contrary position by influential reporters like David Halberstam. More importantly, Johnson believed that Nolting’s judgement was sound. [26. “Interview With President Johnson,” p. 10 of 10 in R621/102.92; Box Number: 28; Professional Papers: Historical Background Records, The Nolting Papers.]

David Halberstam and his editors at The New York Times, recognized, astutely enough, that Nolting’s removal, more than Lodge’s appointment, represented the undoing of the official policy toward Diem. This was because, in their relatively accurate estimation, Frederick Nolting had become “the symbol for all-out American support for the anti-Communist cause and for Mr Ngo Dinh Diem personally.” [27. David Halberstam, “Some U.S. Officials In Saigon Dubious About Diem Regime,” The New York Times, July 3, 1963, 1.]

What makes the Nolting ambassadorship so worthy of examination, and why it has been called upon with some regularity in this work to reveal the truth about what happened to President Ngo Dinh Diem, is the compelling fact that his advice was the opposite of those encouraging President Kennedy toward the active support of a coup against Diem because Nolting’s position was grounded in realism – and he was right! William Colby, in his Foreword to Frederick Nolting’s, memoirs rendered the best overall analysis, which sums up the Nolting era in American policy toward South Vietnam:

Nolting’s task was to support the Southern government and to understand its need to assert its nationalist credentials even against the United States, on whom it depended. He did a superb job. He developed the closest of relations with the leadership of the new nation and influenced it by persuasion as a friend, not pressure by an adversary…But Nolting had to contend with another constituency -- the Kennedy administration that had sent him to Vietnam and its natural sensitivity to American public opinion. This constituency found flaws in the Mandarin regime Diem exemplified as failing to match the democratic standards the United States held up for itself and insisted on for its clients and dependents.... The eventual result, against Ambassador Nolting’s advice, was American complicity in the overthrow and murder of Diem, and a period of political chaos and confusion in Vietnam that President Lyndon Johnson felt compelled to respond to by the commitment of a massive American expeditionary force… As the drama unfolded, Nolting retained a clear and persistent view that the United States should support the constituted authority in Vietnam which Diem represented and that it should persevere in the strategy of helping the Diem government to win its own struggle against the Viet Cong, through such programs as the strategic hamlets. He fought for his policies from Saigon to Washington and against some of the towering figures of the Kennedy administration. In the end he lost the battle, but his story of it is a necessary piece of American history. It is made more important because in retrospect it is clear that the policies he fought against proved to be massively mistaken and engulfed America in a war which shook it internally and which it lost...this account by a farsighted Virginia gentleman of our early Vietnam experience deserves particular attention. [28. William E. Colby, “Foreword,” in Frederick Nolting’s, From Trust To Tragedy: The Political Memoirs of Frederick Nolting, Kennedy’s Ambassador to Diem’s Vietnam (New York: Praeger, 1988), xi-xii.]

Nolting’s entire argument was consistent and straightforward down through the years. From his early letters and cables sent from the embassy in Saigon to the State Department, to his very last arguments at White House meetings; from his early private letters to friends and associates, immediately after the fact in 1964, to his late 1980’s interviews; the consistency of his testimony is remarkable. Hence Nolting’s account of his mission to South Vietnam is of particular value, enhanced, ironically, by the inconsistencies of those who railed against him in the Department of State. The inconsistencies of the testimonies and recollections of the Harriman faction have been made manifest in this work and stand in stark contrast to that which Nolting stood for. From Halberstam et al. in the news media, who attempted to hide behind a veneer of journalistic objectivity, but then openly admitted to wanting to bring down the Diem government, the contradictions are clear. From Harriman and Hilsman, publicly declaring, after the fact, that they had no intention of seeing Diem destroyed, to the transparent coup plotting machinations of their cables and instructions to both Nolting and Lodge, a distinct picture of arrogance, deceit and duplicity is driven home. Indeed, this direction of the Harriman group becomes so unmistakable as to undermine any claim to the truth that they may have had. From Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge we even have an incredible and blatantly inconsistent testimony. He was the diplomat who, after the fact, stated that the cable sent from Washington, which had called for a coup, was a terrible mistake. In his own words, he stated that these instructions had left him “thunderstruck,” but his cables at the time told the Kennedy administration, with compelling urgency, that they had better not back down from overthrowing Diem.

The record of Department of State meddling in South Vietnamese internal affairs, and the department’s internal clash over the issue of promoting a coup against Diem is abysmal and the consequences speak to this directly. Nevertheless, there are a few positive things that can be said, which are made plain for the reader in this work, which indicate that the American government had, in Frederick Nolting, placed the right man for a very difficult task in Vietnam. For one has to consider, quite apart from his work as a diplomat, that Nolting had to have the imagination and mental dexterity to discern that the war America was facing in Vietnam was something new. He recognized that the fight against the communists was not so much that of guns and bombs as it was one of political legitimacy. He discerned that Ngo Dinh Diem had a true political legitimacy that spoke to something much deeper in the Vietnamese soul than mere democracy. Democracy was a foreign political construct that held little meaning, and had virtually no historical tradition, in the centuries-old customs of Vietnam. Accordingly, Nolting intuited that the most valuable gifts America could give the struggling GVN under Diem were patience and time. In this sense then, Nolting was not only a great American diplomat but a military strategist of some substance.

A gifted military mind is naturally drawn to a strategy wherein appropriate weapons and tactics suited to the needs demanded by the terrain, political and otherwise, bring about the defeat of the enemy. In this regard, Frederick Nolting, unlike many in the Kennedy administration, never lost sight of what the fight was about and where it locus lay. His clear-sightedness and steadiness of purpose exemplified a fine and tough moral character beneath the self-effacing Virginian manner on display in his public demeanour. Given that the Kennedy years and U.S. policy were replete with ironies and contradictions, it is fitting that the final irony of this study should be an article written in The New York Times. For this sang praises to Nolting’s steadfast moral qualities at the beginning of his mission to South Vietnam in 1962:

Spirits are noticeably higher in Washington about the fate of Southeast Asia, especially the still precarious struggle for South Vietnam. One reason for the lift is what someone today described as the country-doctor manner of Fritz Nolting: gentle but firm, a bit of old Virginia mixed with broad colloquialisms, lyrical and hard-headed - just about what you would expect of a brilliant philosophy student and a member of a musical, old-line Virginia family…When President Ngo Dinh Diem’s associates went into fits over what they thought was excessive United States pressure to reform their government, their economy and their war, Mr. Nolting spent long patient hours explaining that Washington wanted for them only what they wanted for themselves…His first pleas everywhere in Washington have been against fits of temper over the besieged Vietnamese. These are good but troubled people, he says in effect…Sniping from Washington, he suggests, will not kill one additional guerrilla for them. That, associates here say, is typical of the Ambassador’s steady performance in Saigon…Of all Nolting’s traits, his associates emphasize his courage. [29. Special to The New York Times, “Courageous Envoy: Frederick Ernest Nolting, Jr.” (January 13, 1962), p. 1 in R621/102.92; Box Number: 23, Folder Dates and Heading: Professional Papers, News Clippings 1 of 2, The Nolting Papers.]

Postscript

Frederick Nolting proved to be as resilient as he was courageous as he rebounded from his lonely fight in the State Department to a prestigious position in private business. After having served in the Department of State for eighteen years, he resigned in protest over the destruction of Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu. [30. Nolting, From Trust to Tragedy, 134-35] His official letter of resignation was sent to President Lyndon Baines Johnson on February 25, 1964 and it read as follows:

“Dear Mr. President,
I am sorry to have been unable to get an appointment to see you, for I have wanted for several months to talk with you about Vietnam and related matters. I believe you and I have seen the issues in Vietnam in much the same light from the time of your visit there in May, 1961; at least, I have that impression from talks we have had in the past. I know, therefore, how heavily this problem must now weigh on your mind, as indeed it does on mine also, and I earnestly hope that, despite certain irrevocable errors that I think have been made, a way can yet be found to fulfill our national interests there with honor.

I take the liberty of sending this letter, Mr. President, because I feel an obligation as well as a desire to tell you frankly and directly about my future course of action, which is likely to be interpreted in the press and elsewhere as being related to my tour of duty in Vietnam.

I have today sent to the Secretary of State a request to be granted retirement from the Foreign Service, in order to accept an offer in private business. That my decision has been influenced by my strong disapproval of certain actions which were taken last fall in relation to Vietnam, with predictable adverse consequences, I do not deny. Nor do I deny that I have been uncomfortable in my association with the Department of State since returning from Vietnam six months ago.

Under these circumstances it seems sensible for me to accept a position in private business. As a private citizen, I shall continue to do my best to contribute to our country’s success.

I solicit your understanding, Mr. President, and I wish you, as you know, personal happiness and all success in looking after the affairs of our nation.

Sincerely and respectfully yours,
Frederick E. Nolting

Nolting went to work for Morgan Guaranty Trust in Paris as its Vice-President. [31. Mrs. Nolting informed this writer that her husband had no special contacts within Morgan Guaranty Trust and that he secured the position through a combination of luck, experience in the family banking business, and his manifest intellectual capabilities. Telephone interview conducted with Mrs. Nolting, February 4, 1999.] He worked at this post in Paris from 1964 until 1969, when he became Assistant to the Chairman in New York City. In 1973, he became a consultant to the company and was able to maintain this position until 1976. All along and simultaneous to his business career, he re-established his academic contacts.

Thus from 1971 to 1973 Nolting served at the University of Virginia as Diplomat-in-Residence. He went on to hold teaching and administrative posts as Olsson Professor of Business Administration in the Darden School of Business (from 1973 to 1976). He also became Professor in the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs and helped found the Miller Center of Public Affairs, of which he became the first Director. He went on to serve as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation and as a member of the Center for Advanced Studies and the International Management and Development Institute.

He retired from his full-time academic commitments at the University of Virginia in 1982 and began the painstaking process of compiling documents for his critical analysis of the Kennedy administration’s blunders in Vietnam. This work produced his political memoirs, From Trust To Tragedy, a work that devastates many of the popularly held myths about the Kennedy–Diem period. Because of its unrelenting precision, it will stand as a testament to his gentlemanly yet bold role in American diplomatic and military policy toward Diem’s GVN.

Frederick Nolting died on December 14, 1989, at the age of 78, only a year after From Trust To Tragedy was published. [32. Ibid., 2.] His wife, Mrs. Lindsay Nolting, and four daughters -- Mary, Lindsay, Jane, and Francis -- survived him (although Francis died in 1995). [33. Telephone interview with Mrs. Nolting, February 4, 1999.]

William Colby would go on to become the Director of the CIA (1971 – 1975) under Presidents Nixon and Gerald Ford but his penchant for seeing things clearly, naturally enough, never made him a likely candidate for an even higher political post after this prestigious appointment. The travail of South Vietnam’s war years never really left him alone and, indeed, in his retirement years he went on to become one of the founding executives of the Vietnam Center at Texas Tech University. Some of us who knew him always held a small thread of doubt in our minds as to why he perished so suddenly after returning home from a Vietnam Center conference in 1996; for this was the conference wherein Bill Colby actually went after some of the senior figures who had been involved in the escalation of the war. Within less than a week of his return home, his body was found floating in the Chesapeake as he had gone missing when he went out on a solo canoe trip thereupon. Mrs. Nolting, Ambassador Nolting’s widow, told this writer straight-out that many of their diplomatic friends believed that Colby had indeed been assassinated.

As for the martyred Ngo Dinh Diem, General Nguyen Khanh told me that most of the Buddhists who were in full support of the coup, and even the subsequent killing of the man, that took place on November 1-2nd, 1963, have since changed their minds in the intervening decades and now regard his murder as a mistake of unparalleled proportion for South Vietnam. [34. Transcript of tape-recorded conversation with General Nguyen Khanh (Premier of South Vietnam, CinC ARVN) and Geoffrey DT Shaw; Recorded on June 16th, 1994 at the USAF Special Operations School, Hurlburt Field, Florida; transcript is available at the Indochina Archives @ Texas Tech University’s Vietnam Center in Lubbock, Texas; transcript page: 62.] And, as things would turn out, after the war it was revealed by Communist sources that their agents had indeed infiltrated the Buddhists. This resulted in the campaign to get rid of Diem that was pursued with an ideological impetus well beyond the normal means of the regular bonzes which, in turn, caused the Americans, through the auspices of their well-biased press to play right into the Communists’ hands: i.e., by persuading the Americans to get rid of Diem and Nhu for being, amongst other things, so ‘oppressive’ in their treatment of the radical Buddhist bonzes. [35. Monique Brinson Demery; FINDING THE DRAGON LADY: The Mystery of Vietnam’s Madame Nhu; New York, Public Affairs, 2013; pages: 216 – 217.]

One of the most fitting tributes given for Diem came from Cardinal Josef Frings, the Archbishop of Cologne when, in 1965, he stated: “Only today, in the midst of these grave incidents (in Vietnam), do we realize that the greater part of the world has not given just recognition of this noble man.” [36. The Sunday Examiner; Hong Kong, July 30th, 1965; page: 12.] In his pastoral letter, Cardinal Frings went on to note that those who thought the death of Diem would bring peace and plenty to South Vietnam had learned to repent in leisure, and through great sorrow and tragedy, for what they had wrongly assumed in haste. [37. Fr. Piero Gheddo; THE CROSS AND THE BO-TREE: Catholics & Buddhists in Vietnam; New York: Sheed & Ward, 1970; page: 136.] Diem’s memory is kept alive, unto this day, by devout Vietnamese Roman Catholics and all those who know the truth of what transpired in Vietnam, now half a century ago.

So often the story of Viet Nam is told from a singular point of view.  Only part of the story is told, and that part impacts people's lives in multiple negative ways because the truth is not known.  One of the most impactful photographs of the 2nd Indochina War is the famous Eddie Adams photograph of Brig. General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing Bay Lop.


When this photograph hit the front page of the New York Times there was universal outrage.  The brutality of the act repelled people.  The New York Times continued to condemn Loan's actions after he became a US citizen.  Not once did they ever mention what Bay Lop had done to deserve execution.

However, what the media didn't report might have completely changed the reaction of people worldwide.  Had they published this picture, the execution of Bay Lop might have been put in a different context and changed the reaction to the photo of his execution.


The caption under the photo explains the scene.  Before Bay Lop was executed, he and his fellow Viet Cong executed an entire family because the father, Lt. Col. Nguyen Tuan, refused to give them the information they wanted. Lt. Col. Tuan was decapitated, and his wife and six children were murdered with machine guns.

Eddie Adams, who took the famous photograph and won a Pulitzer Prize for it said, years later, "I won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for a photograph of one man shooting another. Two people died in that photograph: the recipient of the bullet and GENERAL NGUYEN NGOC LOAN. The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera."
This next photo is an ARVN Major who came home to find his entire family slaughtered by the same group that slaughtered Col. Nguyen and his family.


The communists admitted to this atrocity in a document that was captured after Tet.[1. Department of Defense Intelligence Information Report re: VC Assessment of the Tet Offensive on Saigon - Support Document from Project CHECO Report #193, 21 May 1968, Folder 0132, Box 0006, Vietnam Archive Collection, The Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University. Accessed 16 Dec. 2017 <https://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive/items.php?item=F031100060132>.]

The units from the North could not arrive in time; therefore they attacked the Armor and Artillery [Camps] at Go Vap, killed the entire family of an Armor Colonel. Then coordination was effected among friendly troops in order to attack the Quang Trung [Training Center] and the [RVNAF] Joint General Staff.

This is a photo of the family's burial after Tet, including the small coffins of the children.

One of the children, Nguyễn Từ Huấn, survived and emigrated to the United States. He recently became the first Vietnamese-American Rear Admiral in the US Navy.

Bay Lop was the leader of that operation and was captured and executed shortly after for the murders.  Before his capture, he used civilians as a human shield, the second war crime he had committed that day. (The first was the murders of the Tuan family.)

Brig. General Nguyen Ngoc Loan's execution of Bay Lop, although brutal, was legal under international law.  Assassins in civilian clothes do not enjoy any of the protections of international law and are subject to immediate execution if captured.

This story is a microcosm of what went on in Vietnam.  The communists routinely committed war crimes yet the media seldom reported them.  The legal actions taken by the South Vietnamese and their allies, however, were often described as war crimes and routinely criticized as inhumane.  This perspective affected the way people worldwide thought about the war and the actions of the South Vietnamese and their allies.

If you're interested in all things Vietnam, you may already be familiar with the Saigon Arts, Culture and Education Institute.  If you're not, you may want to pay them a visit.  I'll bet you end up bookmarking the site.  Filled with interesting articles about Vietnam, many of them concerning the view of the 2nd Indochina War and its aftermath from the perspective of the Vietnamese, the site provides a unique, South Vietnamese perspective of that fateful time in history.

The South Vietnamese, more than anyone else, are painfully aware of what being "liberated" by communists means.  They suffered the loss of many loved ones, the lengthy imprisonment of others and the tragic loss of their freedom under the iron hand of their rulers.  Many have died, and continue to die, in their struggle to free their country from the yoke of tyranny.

Their mission is "1. to collect songs, tapes, books, artworks and memorabilia related to the diasporic society, 2. to promote Vietnamese arts and culture through workshops, discussions, exhibitions and shows, 3. and to research, publish articles and books about the diaspora."  They do it quite well.  There is a cornucopia of arts and culture at the site, and the interested visitor can spend days wandering through the site enjoying what it has to offer.

The site also offers newsletters, the most recent one being #81, and a forum which is their official journal, published quarterly.   Some of our members have been honored as Man of the Year.

Visiting the site will fill you with pride and a sense of melancholy for what was lost in Vietnam.

by LEWIS SORLEY Copyright © 2006
—o—
A Lecture Delivered at the Vietnam Center Texas Tech University Lubbock, Texas

No one account could hope to address all the many aspects of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam’s performance in such a long and complex endeavor as the Vietnam War. This morning, then, I would like to speak to selected aspects, and to do so in the form of eight chunks, two sidebars, and a very brief conclusion.

The South Vietnamese government awarded campaign medals to Americans who served in the Vietnam War. Each decoration had affixed to the ribbon a metal scroll inscribed “1960- .“ The closing date was never filled in, for obvious reasons, but for our purposes 1960 will serve as a suitable starting point (one of several that might have been chosen). From that point forward increasing and eventually large-scale American involvement in the Vietnam War provided an excellent vantage point for evaluation and appreciation of the performance rendered by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the period 1960-1975.

Some years ago I published an analysis of ARVN’s performance in the 1972 Easter Offensive. I called the piece “Courage and Blood,” and it appeared in Parameters, the journal of the Army War College. The late Douglas Pike commented in a subsequent issue of his periodic Indochina Chronology: “Slowly but steadily the effort goes on to rectify the record and rescue the reputation of the South Vietnamese soldier,” he wrote, “those so casually trashed by the ignorant commercial television reporter and the academic left-winger bent on some ideological mission. Sorley’s writings amount to historical revisionism and he is a sturdy yeoman plowing this particular patch.”1

I have always been grateful for that encouraging assessment, and wish Professor Pike could be with us now to observe how the emerging historical record sustains an increasingly well documented and objective appreciation of the heroic and ultimately successful maturation and performance of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. Only when the United States defaulted on its commitments to South Vietnam, while North Vietnam’s communist allies continued and indeed greatly increased support to their client state, were our unfortunate sometime allies overwhelmed and defeated.

Thus far there has never been a full-scale evaluation of ARVN’s evolution and performance over the years of its expansion and development that has been based solely on the record broadly considered. In the limited time available here, I hope to provide the beginnings of a corrective to the incomplete, unfair, and ideologically tainted view of ARVN that until now has largely constituted the conventional wisdom.

Americans know very little about the Vietnam War, even though it ended over three decades ago. That is in part because it has been seen by those who opposed the war, or at least opposed their own participation in it, as in their interests to portray every aspect of the long struggle in the worst possible light, and indeed in some cases to falsify what they have had to say about it. James Webb identified the media, academia, and Hollywood as groups that “have a large stake in having the war remembered as both unnecessary and unwinnable.”2 That they also to a large degree dominate the public dialogue helps explain why many have such a distorted view of the war even three decades after the fact.

Such distortions extend from wholesale defamation of the South Vietnamese and their conduct throughout a long and difficult struggle to Jane Fonda’s infamous claim that repatriated American prisoners of war who reported systematic abuse and torture by their captors were “liars” and “hypocrites.”

It is time to move beyond the unrelentingly negative, often slanderous, and overwhelmingly politicized denunciations of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam—the ARVN—that have characterized so much of the dialogue since the war.

* * *
Chunk 1: ARVN in the Earlier Years

This was a period of American dominance in conduct of the war, with the South Vietnamese basically shoved aside, relegated to pacification duty (which was itself a facet of the war pretty much ignored by the American command) and given little in the way of modernized equipment or combat support.

Many people, including some Americans stationed in Vietnam, were critical of South Vietnamese armed forces during this period. But such criticisms seldom took into account a number of factors affecting the performance of those forces. American materiel assistance in these early years consisted largely of providing cast-off World War II American weapons, including the heavy and unwieldy (for a Vietnamese) M-1 rifle. Meanwhile the enemy was being provided the AK-47 assault rifle by his Russian and Chinese patrons.

“In 1964 the enemy had introduced the AK47, a modern, highly effective automatic rifle,” noted Brigadier General James L. Collins, Jr. in a monograph on development of South Vietnam’s armed forces. “In contrast, the South Vietnam forces were still armed with a variety of World War II weapons....” Then: “After 1965 the increasing U.S. buildup slowly pushed Vietnamese armed forces materiel needs into the background.”3

Thus South Vietnamese units continued to be outgunned by the enemy and at a distinct combat disadvantage. General Fred Weyand, finishing up a tour as commanding general of II Field Force, Vietnam, observed in a 1968 debriefing report that “the long delay in furnishing ARVN modern weapons and equipment, at least on a par with that furnished the enemy by Russia and China, has been a major contributing factor to ARVN ineffectiveness.”4

It was not until General Creighton Abrams came to Vietnam as deputy commander of U.S. forces in May 1967 that the South Vietnamese began to get more attention. Soon after taking up his post Abrams cabled Army Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson. “It is quite clear to me,” he reported, “that the US Army military here and at home have thought largely in terms of US operations and support of US forces.”

As a consequence, “shortages of essential equipment or supplies in an already austere authorization has not been handled with the urgency and vigor that characterizes what we do for US needs. Yet the responsibility we bear to ARVN is clear.” Abrams acknowledged that “the ground work must begin here. I am working at it.”5

Abrams spent most of his year as the deputy trying to upgrade South Vietnamese forces, including providing them the M-16 rifle. By the time of Tet 1968 he had managed to get some of these weapons into the hands of South Vietnamese airborne and other elite units, but the rank and file were still outgunned by the enemy. Thus Lieutenant General Dong Van Khuyen, South Vietnam’s senior logistician, recalled that “during the enemy Tet offensive of 1968 the crisp, rattling sounds of AK- 47s echoing in Saigon and some other cities seemed to make a mockery of the weaker, single shots of Garands and carbines fired by stupefied friendly troops.”6

Even so, South Vietnamese armed forces performed admirably in repelling the Tet offensive. “To the surprise of many Americans and the consternation of the Communists,” reported Time magazine, “ARVN bore the brunt of the early fighting with bravery and elan, performing better than almost anyone would have expected.”7 Nobody mentioned that the ARVN had achieved these results without modern weapons that could match those of the enemy.

In February 1968 retired Army General Bruce C. Clarke made a trip to Vietnam. Afterward, Clarke wrote up a trip report which, by way of General Earle Wheeler, made its way to President Lyndon Johnson. Clarke stated in the report that “the Vietnamese units are still on a very austere priority for equipment, to include weapons.” That adversely affected both their moral and effectiveness, he observed. “Troops know and feel it when they are poorly equipped.”

After reading the report, LBJ called Clarke to the White House to discuss his findings. Then, recalled Clarke, “within a few days of our visit to the White House a presidential aide called me to say the President had released 100,000 M-16 rifles to ARVN.”8 President Johnson referred to this matter in his dramatic 31 March 1968 speech. “We shall,” he vowed, “accelerate the re-equipment of South Vietnam’s armed forces in order to meet the enemy’s increased firepower.”9 It was about time.

Clarke made another visit to Vietnam in August 1969, when he “found that the ARVN had 713,000 M-16s and other equipment and had made great progress since 1968 Tet.”10 Now ARVN, and the Territorial Forces, were getting not only the most modern rifles, but also M-79 grenade launchers, M-60 machine guns, and AN/PRC-25 radios, equipment the U.S. forces had had all along.

U.S. divisions were not only better armed, but larger than South Vietnam’s, resulting in greater combat capability. While he was serving as deputy U.S. commander, recalled his aide-de-camp, General Abrams “had a study done of comparative combat power of U.S. and South Vietnamese divisions. It turned out to be something like sixteen to one due to the superior firepower possessed by the U.S. units. Abrams used that as a point to try to get more resources into the ARVN divisions.”11

To the further disadvantage of the South Vietnamese, during these early years the U.S. hogged most of the combat support that increased unit effectiveness. This included such things as allocation of B-52 bombing strikes, provision of helicopter and fixed-wing gunship support, artillery, and intra-theater troop transport.

Abrams noted that during the period of the enemy’s “Third Offensive” in August and September 1968 “the ARVN killed more enemy than all other allied forces combined.” In the process, he noted, they also “suffered more KIA, both actual and on the basis of the ratio of enemy to friendly killed in action.” This was a function, he told General Wheeler, of the fact that the South Vietnamese “get relatively less support, both quantitatively and qualitatively, than US forces, i.e., artillery, tactical air support, gunships and helilift.”12

Under these conditions of the earlier years, criticism of South Vietnamese units was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Given little to work with, outgunned by the enemy, and relegated to what were then viewed as secondary roles, South Vietnam’s armed forces missed out for several years on the development and combat experience that would have greatly increased their capabilities.

Later Robert McNamara, who as Defense Secretary had presided over the American war effort in those same years, wrote disparagingly of the Vietnamese, earning a searing rebuke from William Colby. “He should not be contemptuously slandering Vietnamese who gave their lives and efforts to prevent Communist rule,” wrote Colby, “but who saw their great-power protector wash its hands of them because of the costs of McNamara’s failed policies. The cause,” affirmed Colby, “was indeed ‘noble.’ America fought it the wrong way under McNamara, and lost it in good part because of him.”13

* * *
Chunk 2: Tet 1968

The widespread fighting at Tet of 1968 was ARVN’s first great test. To the surprise of many, it turned in a valorous performance. Later, at West Point to receive the Thayer Award, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker took the opportunity to praise this accomplishment. “The Vietnamese armed forces,” he noted, “though below strength, fought well—as General Abrams said, they fought probably better than they thought they could. There were no uprisings or defections, the government did not fall apart. On the contrary,” recalled Bunker, “it reacted strongly, quickly and decisively. It set about the task of recovery with great energy.”14

The outstanding performance of South Vietnamese forces during the Tet Offensive in 1968 was absolutely crucial to their country’s future. “The result,” observed Ambassador Bunker, “was to set in motion a whole series of developments which contributed significantly to the strengthening of the government, to increasing the confidence of the people in its ability to cope with the enemy, and to a determination by the government to take over more of the burden of the war.”15

John Paul Vann agreed, saying in 1972 that Tet had “precipitated those actions which have now paid off so handsomely in government expansion of control in South Vietnam.” Vann cited full manpower mobilization, permitting expansion of the armed forces as U.S. troops were withdrawn, and emphasized in particular increases in the Territorial Forces which provided for an enduring government presence in the countryside.16

At the time of the enemy’s “Third Offensive” in the autumn of 1968, having by then taken command of U.S. forces in Vietnam, Abrams cabled General Earle Wheeler and Admiral John McCain. “I am led to the conclusion that the cited results,” referring to a recent six-week period during which the ARVN had killed more enemy than all other allied forces combined, “indicate progress in ARVN leadership and aggressiveness.” Abrams also commented on the price the ARVN was paying for these successes. “The lower ratio of enemy to friendly KIA, which I attribute in part to thinner combat support,” he said, “is a further argument for expediting the upgrading of ARVN equipment.”17

When senior American and South Vietnamese officials met on Midway Island in June 1969, a prominent topic was expansion and upgrading of South Vietnam’s armed forces. An initial increase in structure to 820,000—later to expand to 1.1 million as a result of this and subsequent agreements—was approved, “along with projects to equip the RVNAF with new weapons such as the M-16 rifle, M-60 machine gun and LAW rocket,” recalled ARVN Brigadier General Tran Dinh Tho.18 That such weapons as the M-16 were still being negotiated at this late stage shows how long the South Vietnamese had been left to fight underarmed in comparison to the enemy.

* * *
Sidebar: Some Comparisons

Here are some of the things the ARVN did not do:

+ Have as many as fifty men a day desert while under the direct supervision of their commander-in-chief. That was General George Washington’s army at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-1778.19
+ Have to put artillery into the streets to quell civilian anti-draft riots. That was what President Abraham Lincoln was forced to do in New York City in April 1865 during the American Civil War.
+ Show up for the climactic battle of the war at about half strength because of desertions. That was American General George Meade’s Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg. “He expected to find 160,000 soldiers, but instead found only 85,000 because 75,000 had deserted. During the [American] Civil War, the average Union desertion rate was 33 percent, and for the Confederates, 40 percent.”20

+ Conduct a general strike in which soldiers in half the divisions of the army refused to attack. That was the French Army in 1917, after which 554 soldiers were condemned to death by courts-martial and 49 were actually shot.21

+ Be unique in having some units fail in the face of the enemy. On Bougainville during World War II Company K of the U.S. 25th Infantry “broke and ran.” Commented historian Geoffrey Perret: “There was hardly a division in the Army that didn’t have at least one company that had done the same.”22

+ Have a unit in which its assistant division commander was relieved, four senior staff were fired, two of the original battalion commanders were captured, and the remaining nine were replaced. That was the U.S. 36th Infantry Division at Salerno in World War II.23

+ Conduct an unrelenting campaign of shelling, assassinations, kidnapping, and impressment against innocent civilians. That was the work of the communist enemy throughout the Vietnam War.

+ Commit massacres of friendly civilian elements such as those at Thuy Bo and My Lai. Those were the deeds of American troops in Vietnam during 1967 and 1968.

Additional examples could be amassed almost without limit. The point is that, in comparison to other forces both then and historically, the ARVN during its war conducted itself respectably and loyally, attributes for which it has never gotten the credit it deserves.

Documentation of individual ARVN heroism and professional performance is abundant, although thus far little used by historians and all but ignored by journalists. In the National Archives are the records of thousands and thousands of U.S. awards to South Vietnamese for valor and service.24

Such heroism and devotion to duty are revealed as all the more admirable when it is considered that many South Vietnamese soldiers spent a decade or more at war, in many cases essentially their entire adult (and adolescent) lives. As one insightful American once observed, the South Vietnamese had no DEROS (the “date eligible for return from overseas” of Americans on a one-year tour of duty in Vietnam). Instead, they soldiered on, year after year after year, with incredible devotion and stoicism. Many, after the communist “liberation” of the south, spent another decade or more struggling to survive the ordeal of incarceration by the communists in the murderous so-called re-education camps.25

* * *
Chunk 3: Territorial Forces

Following the enemy’s offensive at the time of Tet 1968, the American command changed. General Creighton Abrams replaced General Westmoreland and brought to bear a much different outlook on the nature of the war and how it should be prosecuted. Abrams stressed “one war” of combat operations, pacification, and upgrading South Vietnam’s armed forces, giving those latter two long-neglected tasks equal importance and priority with military operations.

Those military operations also underwent dramatic change. In place of “search and destroy” there was now “clear and hold,” meaning that when the enemy had been driven from populated areas those areas were then permanently garrisoned by allied forces, not abandoned to be reoccupied by the enemy at some later date. In perhaps the most important development of the entire war, greatly expanded South Vietnamese Territorial Forces took on that security mission.

Major General Nguyen Duy Hinh called “expansion and upgrading of the Regional and Popular Forces” “by far the most important and outstanding among US contributions” to the war effort.26 Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong noted that such achievements as hamlets pacified, the number of people living under GVN [Government of Vietnam] control, or the trafficability on key lines of communication were possible largely due to the unsung feats of the RF and PF.”27

When General Abrams arrived in Vietnam in May of 1967, the South Vietnamese armed forces consisted of army, navy, marine and air force elements. Separate and apart were what were called the Territorial Forces, consisting of Regional Forces and Popular Forces. These latter were dedicated to local security, with the Regional Forces under control of province chiefs and the Popular Forces answering to district chiefs.

These Regional Forces and Popular Forces, which remained in place in their home areas, were what put the “hold” in “clear and hold” operations. By 1970 they had grown to some 550,000 men and, integrated at that time into the regular armed forces, constituted more than half the total strength.

By coincidence, last evening Bing West and another guest were on the PBS “News Hour with Jim Lehrer” to talk about the current situation in Iraq. One of them cited “Condeleeza Rice’s concept of ‘clear and hold.’ “ If anyone cared to trace the etymology of that concept they would find a straight shot from the Territorial Forces in South Vietnam to General Creighton Abrams to General Harold K. Johnson and the PROVN Study to Colonel Jasper Wilson.

As early as October 1968 William Colby, newly installed as deputy to General Abrams for pacification support, explained the importance of these elements: “For territorial security, our main focus is on improvement of the Regional and Popular Forces, which are almost half of the army now.” “We started last October. General Abrams had a conference here, identified some thirty steps to take,” including “sending out small military advisor teams to work with the RF companies and PF platoons. We now have some 250 of those five-man teams scattered around the country.”

Three months later Colby noted the rapid buildup of and the improved training and armament being provided the RF and PF: “There’re about 91,000 more of them today than there were a year ago.” About 100,000 now had M16s, which they didn’t have a year ago. And 350 advisory teams were living and working with RF and PF units.

Abrams had, soon after taking command, deliberately channeled the new rifles to these elements. “The RF and PF, a year ago,” he said in August 1969, “received the highest priority of anybody. That’s where the first M16s went, before ARVN.” “They’ve been given, for over a year, the very highest priority. And, to be perfectly frank, it’s like anything else. I mean, you put your money in soldiers’ deposits, you get 10 percent [interest] and so on. Goddamn it, we made an investment here, and there ought to be—. That’s priority, above anybody else in the country, over a year ago!”

As the RF and PF improved in capabilities—and performance— Abrams wanted to see them get credit for what they were accomplishing. “One thing I’ve been chafing under,” he said at the WIEU, “—when we brief visitors, the role of the RF and PF in this war is substantially submerged.

There’s a tendency to talk about the ARVN, and for some time now the RF and PF have borne the brunt of casualties and this sort of thing, and the toll that they’re exacting from the enemy is substantial —I mean, if you just want to deal in that sort of thing. But if we get talking about the security of the people this is a big part of this whole thing. This is where it is.”

About that same time he took a stance prompted by the good performance of these elements: “I don’t know if I would really favor any more rifle companies in the ARVN. If the manpower was available, I think the investment in Territorial Forces would be of greater value.”

At the end of 1969 Abrams, contemplating a chart displaying “the trend in what’s happened the last three or four months in who’s making a contribution—weapons, KIA,” had this to say: “It’s kind of interesting. In terms of results, which is enemy killed, weapons captured, caches, and so on, the ARVN contribution stayed at about the same—26 percent, 27 percent. And U.S. and Free World percent has gone down. And, at least percentage-wise, that slack has been taken up by the Territorial Forces. And this has happened since August.”

Someone: “It’s the nature of the war.”

Abrams: “Yes, that’s right. But it’s also—you know, I was always wondering about what the hell would we get for that investment in those 300,000 M16s—you know, all that? Well, it’s commencing to show.”

They were hanging on to those weapons, too. As Bill Colby pointed out in July 1970, for the Territorial Forces the weapons gained/lost ratio was then about three enemy weapons taken for every friendly weapon lost; five years ago just the opposite had been the case.

Abrams’s comment: “Territorial Forces?” “Ah, these rabbits are coming along good!” And finally, at a Commanders WIEU in October 1971: “One of the things that, and it’s been for a long time, the RF and PF are carrying the major burden of the war.”

Senior Vietnamese officers agreed. “Gradually, in their outlook, deportment, and combat performance,” said Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong, “the RF and PF troopers shed their paramilitary origins and increasingly became full-fledged soldiers.” So decidedly was this the case, Truong concluded, that “throughout the major period of the Vietnam conflict” the RF and PF were “aptly regarded as the mainstay of the war machinery.”28

Expanded in numbers and better armed and better trained, the Territorial Forces came into their own, earning the respect of even so tough a critic as Lieutenant General Julian Ewell. “They were the cutting edge of the war,” he said admiringly.

* * *
Chunk 4: Perennial Problems

Three important problems confronted the ARVN throughout the war: insufficient qualified leadership, widespread corruption, and desertions.

Leadership in adequate amounts of sufficient quality continued to be a problem for ARVN throughout the war. Given the continuing expansion of the forces, finally reaching a peak of 1.1 million men, the situation could not have been otherwise. Combat losses, themselves a testimonial to South Vietnam’s small unit leaders, of course further aggravated the shortages caused by expanding the structure.

Strenuous training and recruitment campaigns were undertaken to produce new leaders and move up those proved effective in combat. After Lam Son 719, for example, General Abrams attended a ceremony in Hue. “It really was something,” he later told the staff. “They had a promotion thing, and noncoms got promoted. And noncoms to aspirants. And aspirants that had been noncoms going to first lieutenant. And President Thieu said up there that this was just a token—that there were 5,000 promotions involved, down right in the ranks. And these promotions are real battlefield promotions.”

Abrams liked what he had seen. “They’re what happened in Laos,” he noted. “And I just don’t know of any way to get to a military organization any better than going down and promoting some guys that did a good job.”29 (This approach of developing effective leaders from scratch was also undertaken with respect to elected civilian hamlet and village officials, who were put through a course in the training center at Vung Tau designed to help them develop the management and leadership skills they would need to do their jobs.)

Some of South Vietnam’s most senior leaders were among the least forgiving critics of the leadership. Wrote General Cao Van Vien after the war: “During the decade I served as chairman of the RVNAF Joint General Staff, I had witnessed all the successes and failures of our leadership. Even though this leadership had done its best, it still proved inadequate for this most difficult episode of our nation’s history.”30

Desertions from ARVN divisions also plagued the South Vietnamese throughout the war. Significantly, however, these were not desertions to join the other side, but largely to escape combat or just to go home. They differed radically from the cases of deserters from the Viet Cong and NVA. Ralliers to the government from the enemy side in many cases became part of the allied armed forces. Deserters on the allied side, in contrast, often rejoined their own side at a local level. As Anthony Joes observed, this phenomenon constituted “a shift of manpower from the army to the militia. Among the militia units defending their native villages or provinces,” he noted, “desertion rates were close to zero, despite casualty rates higher than ARVN’s.”31

Corruption was another problem never really solved, although the impact of it on the outcome of the war was never as significant as critics claimed. General Cao Van Vien, however, concluded: “As to corruption, although it was not directly accountable for the collapse of the nation, its effect certainly debilitated professional competency and[,] by extension, the war effort.”32

CIA’s Tom Polgar commented perceptively on the matter, arguing that the country “could have survived with a corrupt South Vietnamese government, just as the Philippines survived with a corrupt Philippine government—or South Korea does—or Thailand—or anywhere. In any country where you do not pay your civil service adequately, you can expect corruption,” said Polgar. “It’s a way of life.” But, he continued, “that was not the trouble. The trouble was that there was just no margin in the resources of that government to cope with a military invasion.”33

Colonel William LeGro, who was there until the last days with the Defense Attaché Office, agreed. “Corruption was not the cause of the collapse,” he stated. “The reduction to almost zero of United States support was the cause.” LeGro added one further observation: “We did a terrible thing to the South Vietnamese.”34

* * *
Sidebar: Nguyen Van Thieu

This sidebar is about the late Nguyen Van Thieu, South Vietnam’s former President and de facto commander-in-chief of its armed forces.

President Thieu led his country during years of exceptional difficulty. While fighting against an external invasion and an internal insurgency, both supported and supplied by China and the Soviet Union, he put in place elected governments from the national level down through villages and hamlets, greatly expanded and—with American materiel and advisory support—improved the armed forces as they progressively took over the entire combat burden from withdrawing U.S. forces, personally led a pacification program which rooted out the covert infrastructure that had through coercion and terror dominated the rural population, instituted genuine land reform which gave 400,000 farmers title to 2.5 million acres of land, and organized four million citizens into a People’s Self-Defense Force armed with 600,000 weapons.

Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, who headed the American embassy in Saigon for six years, saw a great deal of Nguyen Van Thieu and formed some settled judgments of the man and his performance. “He has handled problems with a very considerable astuteness and skill,” Bunker observed. “He is an individual of very considerable intellectual capacity. He made the decision in the beginning to follow the constitutional road, not to rule with a clique of generals, which many of them expected he would do. He has been acting more and more like a politician [Bunker meant this as a compliment], getting out into the country, following up on pacification, talking to people, seeing what they want.” Bunker approved, and on another occasion compared the President to his principal rival for political leadership. “I thought that Thieu was a wiser, more solid person,” Bunker stated.35

Thieu was also realistic, telling Ambassador Bunker that “unfortunately we do not have many real generals who know how to command more than a division,” a category in which he modestly but accurately included himself.36

Given that most of the administrative ability in his country resided in the military establishment, and most of the political power as well, Thieu was agonizingly constrained in replacing the corrupt and the incompetent in high places, and likewise felt himself obliged to retain some who were loyal, if not all that able. Early in his presidency Thieu explained the situation to a senior American officer who reported the conversation this way: “Judging a wholesale purge of South Vietnamese officers as simply impossible, Thieu warned that each major command change would have to be carefully planned and orchestrated. The army could not be removed from politics overnight. The military establishment had been and still was his major political supporter and the only cohesive force holding the country together.”37

Ambassador Bunker and General Abrams understood this, and were both patient and sympathetic, but they also made very pointed recommendations about senior officers who were not measuring up. Often their advice was accepted, even if some time elapsed while the political groundwork was laid. Over time, then, some major changes took place in South Vietnamese leadership, both civil and military, sometimes forced by battlefield crises. But there was never a wholesale housecleaning, nor could there have been. Not only would political chaos have resulted, but the requisite numbers of more viable replacements were simply not available. Producing them in the necessary abundance would have taken more time than there turned out to be.

The top Americans recognized President Thieu’s importance in, particularly, the pacification campaign. Abrams observed that “he knows more about pacification than any other Vietnamese” and William Colby called him “the number one pacification officer.” A history of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff identified as Thieu’s most important attribute that “he recognized clearly the cardinal importance of the pacification campaign and of the establishment of effective institutions of local government.”38

On a number of occasions Thieu invited Ambassador Bunker to go along on visits to the countryside, where Bunker heard him emphasize restoring local government, holding village and hamlet elections, training local government officials, and land reform. At Vung Tau 1,400 village chiefs, representing about three-quarters of all the villages in South Vietnam, went through training during the first nine months of 1969. President Thieu visited every one of those classes, giving the village chiefs the incomparable cachet of being able to go home and speak about what “President Thieu said to me—.” By late 1969 the situation had improved so dramatically that John Paul Vann, the legendary figure who played a prominent role in the pacification campaign, would tell an audience at Princeton that the “U.S. has won the military war, and is winning the political war via Thieu.”39

In April 1968 President Thieu, against the advice of virtually all his advisors, activated what was called the People’s Self-Defense Force. Thieu argued that “the government had to rest upon the support of the people, and it had little validity if it did not dare to arm them.” Ultimately some four million people, those too old or too young for regular military service, were enrolled in the self-defense force and armed with 600,000 weapons. Establishing conclusively that the Thieu government did have the support of its own people, the self-defense forces used those weapons not against their own government but to fight against communist domination.

In document after document the enemy kept predicting and calling for a “popular uprising” amongst the South Vietnam, but in fact there was never any popular uprising in support of the enemy in South Vietnam. To any objective observer that does not seem too surprising in view of the enemy’s record, year after year, of assassinations, kidnappings, terror bombings, impressments, and indiscriminate shellings of population centers throughout South Vietnam, actions hardly calculated to win the hearts and minds of the victims.

In October of 1971, in the midst of a bitter war, President Thieu ran unopposed for reelection. Many criticized him for that, suggesting that his victory was somehow not legitimate given the absence of opposition. But in that election, despite enemy calls for a boycott and warnings that voters would be targetted, an astounding 87.7 percent of eligible voters went to the polls, and 91.5 percent of them cast their ballots for President Thieu. (Some 5.5 percent handed in invalid ballots.)40 That constituted the largest voter turnout in Vietnamese history. If it didn’t matter (since there was no opposition), or if the people did not approve of Thieu’s leadership, why would they turn out in droves, often at real or potential personal risk, to express their support for his reelection? The answer is that, various critics notwithstanding, a very large majority of his countrymen valued Thieu’s service and wished to see him continue in office.

“The basic fact of life,” said John Paul Vann in January 1972, “and it is an inescapable one, is that the overwhelming majority of the population—somewhere around 95 percent—prefer the government of Vietnam to a communist government or the government that’s being offered by the other side.”41

Sadly, many South Vietnamese today are critical in their outlook on President Thieu. I have spoken about this with many Vietnamese friends now living in America. Recently one man in particular, an intelligent and educated person, shocked me by saying that the Vietnamese think President Thieu lied to them. I asked him in what way. “He knew the Americans were going to abandon us, and he didn’t tell us that,” responded my friend.

I find that a harsh judgment, and a debatable one. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker recalled personally giving President Thieu three letters from President Nixon in which “he made a commitment” to come to the assistance of South Vietnam “in case of any major violation of the treaties by the other side.” But, observed Bunker, “the Congress...made it impossible to carry out those commitments.” The result? “I think really it was a betrayal of the South Vietnamese,” Bunker stated unequivocally.42 It is difficult for me to understand how President Thieu could be expected to have foreseen such an ignominious course of American action.

Mr. Thieu resigned the presidency a few days before the fall of Saigon, hoping to facilitate a negotiated settlement of the war. In his valedictory, he was understandably bitter about the outcome of the long years of struggle. That performance alone should serve to demonstrate that he was as stunned as any that the sometime American ally would, in a time of such crisis, turn its back on South Vietnam (and on all the sacrifices Americans had made there).

My view is that Nguyen Van Thieu performed heroically over long years of an extremely difficult war, in the process earning—whether he is accorded them or not—the respect and gratitude of all those who wished South Vietnam well.

* * *
Chunk 5: Lam Son 719

Virtually all accounts of Lam Son 719, ARVN’s 1971 incursion into Laos, depict it as a devastating defeat for the South Vietnamese. The reality, however, is quite different. We now know, thanks to the Abrams tapes and other sources, that the North Vietnamese were badly hurt by the operation, further delaying their readiness to mount a major offensive against the South and providing additional time for Vietnamization to succeed.

At the WIEU on 30 January the first indications that the enemy sensed an impending cross-border operation were reported. That was eight days before the operation was scheduled to begin. “COMINT [communications intelligence] reveals the enemy’s concern over anticipated friendly operations in northern MR-1 [Military Region 1] and the contiguous areas of Laos,” reported a briefer. Messages intercepted since 24 January reflected enemy concern that South Vietnamese forces “might strike across the border in an effort to interdict the enemy’s logistic corridor system.” There were other indications that the enemy was concerned about an amphibious invasion of North Vietnam, about an invasion of Laos from carriers standing off the coast, and so on.43

On 8 February ARVN elements crossed the border into Laos, using the east-west axis of Route 9. The attacking force comprised armor, airborne, ranger, marine and infantry units. By the end of the first week some 10,600 ARVN troops were in Laos. At the same time, two other ARVN cross-border operations involving 19,000 troops continued in Cambodia.44

When Admiral McCain, the CINCPAC, came out for a briefing on 19 February, the briefer told him that “in Laos, the ground contacts have remained at a relatively light level, with company-size and smaller contacts reported throughout the AO. Also, attacks by fire have remained at a relatively low level.” As of that date MACV was carrying six enemy regiments committed against ARVN forces in Laos. No American forces were permitted on the ground in Laos, but U.S. elements flying air support had thus far lost 21 helicopters while flying nearly 7,000 sorties. (By the end of the operation, six weeks later, losses would have risen to 108 for a loss rate of 21 per 100,000 sorties.)45

Major General William E. Potts, the MACV J-2, summed up for Admiral McCain: “The real significance of that Lam Son operation is the enemy has everything committed, or en route, that he has, with the exception of the 325th Division and the 9th Regiment out of the 304th. So if they’re hurt, he’s really going to be beat for a long time.” Added General Abrams: “And of course we’re trying to welcome them all, best we can.”46

Still, by 20 February, nearly two weeks into the operation, only six enemy regiments were committed in the Lam Son AO. In fact, stated the briefer at a Commanders WIEU on that date, “the first significant enemy counterattack occurred on the night of 18 February.” Meanwhile ARVN had about an equivalent force, eighteen battalion-size task forces, continuing search and clear operations.47

General Abrams emphasized to the staff and subordinate commanders the importance of giving the South Vietnamese every thing they needed to succeed in this crucial battle. “It’s an opportunity to deal the enemy a blow which probably hasn’t existed before as clearly cut in the war,” he stressed. In a comment that would later prove significant, when certain recriminations were advanced in Washington, Abrams also noted: “The risks in getting it done were all known and understood in the beginning, and it was felt that it was time to take the risks.” Ambassador Bunker then reviewed all the elements taken into account in the course of such an evaluation during his recent visit to Washington.48

By 24 February MACV was still carrying six enemy regiments (a figure increased to seven three days later) in the Lam Son AO and the briefer at an update for General Abrams stated that four enemy battalions, of the eighteen subordinate to the committed regiments, were believed to have been rendered combat ineffective. As of that date enemy KIA were estimated at 2,191, while ARVN had sustained 276 KIA.49

At this point, just over two weeks into the operation, a serious crisis of helicopter availability suddenly arose. Route 9, the east-west highway leading into the area of operations, had turned out to have many deep cuts, some reaching a depth of twenty feet, rendering the road much less useful for resupply than anticipated. In particular the 5,000-gallon fuel tankers proved unable to negotiate the route. Aerial resupply had had to take up the slack, which was in turn putting an extremely heavy burden on the helicopter fleet. Apparently intensive management and maintenance got the situation corrected, for when Lieutenant General Julian Ewell, not noted for an uncritical attitude, later visited, he reported “their OR [operational readiness] rate when I was up there Sunday was 79 percent, which I considered astronomical.”50

Simultaneously a major enemy attack, including tanks, overran Objective 31 and a brigade headquarters of the 1st ARVN Division located there. Subsequently enemy losses in that attack were reported as 250 KIA and 15 tanks destroyed against 13 friendly KIA, 39 WIA, and three armored personnel carriers damaged.51

Another enemy regiment was assessed as committed by 1 March, bringing the total to eight (and of the 24 battalions they constituted the equivalent of six were considered combat ineffective). Observed General Abrams: “It’s still a hell of a struggle.” At an update on 4 March the briefer recalled that the first indications of the enemy’s shifting to an offensive posture had come on 11 February, but that it was not until 18 February that the first major enemy counterattack occurred. Now the enemy was considered to have lost the equivalent of seven maneuver battalions in personnel losses, while his remaining tanks were down to 65-70 from an original 100.52

At this point the enemy was assessed as having approximately 13,000 combat forces in the area of operations, plus 8,000-10,000 rear service personnel. Opposing them ARVN had sixteen maneuver battalions.53

When a prisoner from the 24B Regiment described heavy casualties suffered in fighting along Route 92 north of Ban Dong, MACV J-2 reduced the enemy’s effective strength by two more battalions, for “a total of 10 battalions effectively lost out of the 30 battalions of the 10 regiments committed against ARVN forces in the entire AO.” Said General Abrams, “I’m just more and more convinced that what you’ve got here is maybe the only decisive battle of the war.” Added General Potts: “He’s lost half of his tanks, half of his AAA [anti-aircraft artillery], and 10 of his 30 battalions.”54

At a Commanders WIEU on 20 March Ambassador Bunker described Lam Son 719, then winding down, as “extremely helpful, this whole operation.” General Abrams responded: “It was a hard fight, but its effects for the rest of this year, I think, are going to be substantial. He [the enemy] committed a lot to that Lam Son operation, and it’s getting pretty badly hurt.”55

Just how badly was summarized on 23 March, by which time the enemy had committed an eleventh regiment. The briefer reported that nine of the eleven regiments had received heavy casualties and estimated that the enemy retained the equivalent of only 17 maneuver battalions (of the 33 committed), and that he had also lost some 3,500 rear service elements.56 When this was subsequently briefed at a WIEU, Potts added: “That’s not just ineffective battalions, sir. That’s a complete loss of those battalions.”57

The South Vietnamese also experienced severe losses, including a reported 1,446 KIA and 724 MIA.58 Much equipment was also destroyed or left behind in Laos during a somewhat precipitous final withdrawal. And in his after action assessment Lieutenant General Sutherland noted that “a long-standing shortfall has been the RVNAF staff capability to conduct timely preplanning and coordination of air assets and both air and ground fire support means, but they have learned a great deal on this operation.”59

The South Vietnamese public’s support for the operation turned out to be extraordinary. When Sir Robert Thompson visited in late March, he was briefed on results of a survey just taken in 36 provinces. The results were 92 percent in favor of operations such as Lam Son 719, 3 percent opposed, and the rest no opinion. That represented the highest percentage ever recorded on any question on any of these periodic surveys.60

Altogether ARVN operated for 42 days in Laos. MACV’s modest summary, rendered for the visiting Secretary of the Army Stanley Resor in late April, was that the operation “tested RVNAF against a determined enemy in cross-border operations, and undoubtedly interrupted his [the enemy’s] supply schedule.”61 In the United States the operation was widely proclaimed a disaster for the South Vietnamese. Hanoi’s propagandists were only too glad to agree.

Abrams, however, perceived the results of the operation as decisive in favor of the South Vietnamese. “It’s gone over [beyond] the point,” he observed, “where I think the North Vietnamese can be successful against them. The war won’t stop, but North Vietnam has now got a much tougher problem than they ever had before.”62

* * *
Chunk 6: A War That Was Won

Contrary to what most people seem to believe, the new approach during the Abrams era succeeded remarkably. And, since during these later years American forces were progressively being withdrawn, more and more it was the South Vietnamese who were achieving that success.

As control of more and more territory was seized from the enemy, large numbers of enemy “rallied” to the allied side. This reached a peak of 47,000 in 1969, with another 32,000 crossing over in 1970.63 Given the authorized 8,689 strength of a North Vietnamese Army division,64 this amounted to enemy losses by defection equivalent to about nine divisions in those two years alone.

There came a point at which the war was won. The fighting wasn’t over, but the war was won. The reason it was won was that the South Vietnamese had achieved the capacity to, with promised American support (similar to the support still being rendered to American allies in West Germany and South Korea), maintain their independence and freedom of action.

As early as late 1969 John Paul Vann, a senior official in the pacification program, wrote to former Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge to say that “for the first time in my involvement in Vietnam, I am not interested in visiting either Washington or Paris because all of my previous visits have been with the intention of attempting to influence or change the policies for Vietnam. Now I am satisfied with the policies. In spite of ourselves,” Vann wrote with impressive prescience, “I believe we are accomplishing our objectives, that we will practically eliminate the tragedy of additional US deaths in Vietnam beyond 1972 and that the costs of the war (a war which I think will continue indefinitely) will be drastically reduced and will eventually be manageable by the Vietnamese with our logistical and financial assistance.”65

Besides taking over combat responsibilities from the departing Americans, the South Vietnamese had to deal with multiple changes in policy. General Abrams was clear on how the South Vietnamese were being asked to vault higher and higher hurdles. “We started out in 1968,” he recalled. “We were going to get these people by 1974 where they could whip hell out of the VC—the VC. Then they changed the goal to lick the VC and the NVA—in South Vietnam. Then they compressed it. They’ve compressed it about three times, or four times—acceleration. So what we started out with to be over this kind of time”—indicating with his hands a long time—“is now going to be over this kind of time”—much shorter.

“And if it’s VC, NVA, interdiction, helping Cambodians and so on— that’s what we’re working with. And,” Abrams cautioned, “you have to be careful on a thing like this, or you’ll get the impression you’re being screwed. You mustn’t do that, ‘cause it’ll get you mad.”66 Among the most crucial of the policy changes was dropping longstanding plans for a U.S. residual force to remain in South Vietnam indefinitely in a solution comparable to that adopted in western Europe and South Korea.

After a three-year absence from Vietnam, Thomas J. Barnes returned to work in the pacification program in the autumn of 1971. “I have been struck by three principal improvements,” he told General Fred Weyand, “rural prosperity, the way the Regional and Popular Forces have taken hold, and growing political and economic autonomy in the villages. One of our greatest contributions to pacification has been the re-establishment of the village in its historic Vietnamese role of relative independence and self-sufficiency.”67

Even earlier, in mid-March 1971, it was apparent that it was the South Vietnamese who were carrying the combat load. “The emphasis General Abrams is putting on it now is almost a hundred percent towards pacification and into this saturation campaign,” a briefer told Lieutenant General Ewell. “We’re just about out of business in large U.S. force operations.” 562

Testimony from the enemy side was confirmatory of what the South Vietnamese had achieved. “In Nam Bo,” wrote Luu Van Loi and Nguyen Anh Vu in a book published by Hanoi’s World Publishing House, “by the end of 1968 the strategic hamlets and contested areas had been reoccupied by the Saigon army.” And: “By the end of 1968, we had suffered great losses.” And: “The enemy concentrated its forces to pacify the rural areas, causing great difficulties to us in 1969-1970.” “Since the introduction of U.S. troops into South Vietnam, we had never met with so many difficulties as in these two years. Our bases in the countryside were weakened, our positions shrank. Our main [force] troops were decimated and no longer had footholds in South Vietnam and had to camp in friendly Cambodia.” And finally: “We fell into a critical situation in the years 1969, 1970, 1971. From the second half of 1968 on, the enemy concentrated their attacks against the liberated zone to annihilate and drive away our main forces.”68

In January 1972 Vann told friends that “we are now at the lowest level of fighting the war has ever seen. Today there is an air of prosperity throughout the rural areas of Vietnam, and it cannot be denied. Today the roads are open and the bridges are up, and you run much greater risk traveling any road in Vietnam today from the scurrying, bustling, hustling Hondas and Lambrettas than you do from the VC.” And, added Vann, “this program of Vietnamization has gone kind of literally beyond my wildest dreams of success.”69 Those were South Vietnamese accomplishments.

* * *
Chunk 7: 1972 Easter Offensive

The widespread success of Vietnamization and the pacification program in South Vietnam meant that, by 1972, it had become apparent to the enemy that some alternative approach must be found for conduct of the war. That revised approach was revealed in what came to be known as the Easter Offensive. “No longer,” wrote Douglas Pike, “was it revolutionary war. Rather it became, in General Giap’s eyes, a limited, small-scale, conventional war, more like the Korean War than anything Vietnam had ever seen.”70

In January 1972 John Paul Vann, on a brief leave in the United States, described for an academic audience the situation then pertaining in South Vietnam. “These people now have recourse to their own elected hamlet and village officials, as the economy has improved, as security has improved, as the war has shifted out of South Vietnam and into Cambodia and Laos...the basic fact of life, and an inescapable one, is that the overwhelming majority of the population—somewhere around 95 percent—prefer the government of Vietnam to a communist government or the government that’s being offered by the other side.”71

The PAVN history of the war reveals that “the combat plan for 1972 was approved by the Central Military Party Committee in June 1971.” The stated goal was “to gain decisive victory in 1972, and to force the U.S. imperialists to negotiate an end to the war from a position of defeat.”72

Pike graphically described the offensive as anything but limited from the North Vietnamese perspective, “a maximum strike...in men, weapons and logistics. By mid-summer all 14 PAVN divisions were outside of North Vietnam. PAVN was employing more tanks than in the ARVN inventory. PAVN had more long-range artillery than ARVN and was lavish in expenditure of ordnance.”73

When, in late March of 1972, the enemy mounted a conventional invasion of South Vietnam by the equivalent of twenty divisions, a bloody pitched battle ensued. The enemy’s “well-planned campaign” was defeated, wrote Douglas Pike, “because air power prevented massing of forces and because of stubborn, even heroic, South Vietnamese defense. Terrible punishment was visited on PAVN troops and on the PAVN transportation and communication matrix.” But, most important of all, “ARVN troops and even local forces stood and fought as never before.”74

The North Vietnamese Army suffered more than 100,000 casualties in its attacking force of 200,000—perhaps 40,000 killed—and lost more than half its tanks and heavy artillery. It took three years to recover sufficiently from these losses to mount another major offensive, and in the meantime General Vo Nguyen Giap found himself eased out as NVA commander. By way of contrast, the South Vietnamese lost some 8,000 killed, about three times that many wounded, and nearly 3,500 missing in action.

General Giap had been proceeding on flawed premises and paid a horrific price for his miscalculations. Pike concluded that Giap “underestimated the determination and effective resistance which he would be offered by the South Vietnamese. He underestimated ARVN’s staying power.”75

Later critics said that South Vietnam had thrown back the invaders only because of American air support. Abrams responded vigorously to that. “I doubt the fabric of this thing could have been held together without U.S. air,” he told his commanders. “But the thing that had to happen before that is the Vietnamese, some numbers of them, had to stand and fight. If they didn’t do that, ten times the air we’ve got wouldn’t have stopped them.”76

The critics also disparaged South Vietnam’s armed forces because they had needed American assistance in order to prevail. No one seemed to recall that some 300,000 American troops were stationed in West Germany precisely because the Germans could not stave off Soviet or Warsaw Pact aggression without American help. Nor did anyone mention that in South Korea there were 50,000 American troops positioned specifically to help South Korea deal with any aggression from the north. And no one suggested that, because they needed such American assistance, the armed forces of West Germany or South Korea should be ridiculed or reviled.

Only South Vietnam (which by now was receiving only air support, not ground forces as in Germany and Korea) was singled out for such unfair and mean-spirited treatment.

South Vietnam did, with courage and blood, defeat the enemy’s 1972 Easter Offensive. General Abrams had told President Thieu that it would be “the effectiveness of his field commanders that would determine the outcome,”77 and they had proven equal to the challenge. South Vietnam’s defenders inflicted such casualties on the invaders that it was three years before North Vietnam could mount another major offensive. By then, of course, dramatic changes had taken place in the larger context.

The extent to which the ARVN had become a professional, agile and determined military shield for its country has for long been obscured by negative accounts, amounting to slander, from those who opposed American involvement in the war, or at least their own involvement, or who favored the communist side. Contrary evidence abounds, much of it to be found in the battlefield performance of the late spring and summer of 1972.

* * *
Chunk 8: Abandonment

This chunk deals with the situation after the Paris Accords were signed in January 1973. To induce the South Vietnamese to agree to the terms, viewed by them as fatally flawed in that they allowed the North Vietnamese to retain large forces in the South, President Nixon told President Thieu that if North Vietnam violated the terms of the agreement and resumed its aggression against the South, the United States would intervene militarily to punish them for that. And, said Nixon, if renewed fighting broke out, the United States would replace on a one-for- one basis major combat systems (tanks, artillery pieces, and so on) lost by the South Vietnamese, as was permitted by the Paris Accords. And finally, said Nixon, the United States would continue robust financial support for South Vietnam. In the event, the United States defaulted on all three of these promises.

Meanwhile North Vietnam was receiving unprecedented levels of support from its patrons. From January to September 1973, the nine months following the Paris Accords, said a 1994 history published in Hanoi, the quantity of supplies shipped from North Vietnam to its forces in the South was four times that shipped in the entire previous year.78 Even so that was miniscule compared to what was sent south from the beginning of 1974 until the end of the war in April 1975, a total during those sixteen months, reported the Communists, that was 1.6 times the amount delivered to the various battlefields during the preceding thirteen years.79

If the South Vietnamese had shunned the Paris agreement, it was certain not only that the United States would have settled without them, but also that the U.S. Congress would then have moved swiftly to cut off further aid to South Vietnam. If, on the other hand, the South Vietnamese went along with the agreement, hoping thereby to continue receiving American aid, they would be forced to accept an outcome in which North Vietnamese troops remained menacingly within their borders. With mortal foreboding, the South Vietnamese chose the latter course, only to find—dismayingly—that they soon had the worst of both, NVA forces ensconced in the south and American support cut off.

Former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird explained the consequences. For two years after signing of the Paris Accords, he wrote, “South Vietnam held its own courageously and respectably against a better-bankrolled enemy. Peace talks continued between the North and the South until the day in 1975 when Congress cut off U.S. funding. The Communists walked out of the talks and never returned. Without U.S. funding, South Vietnam was quickly overrun. We saved a mere $257 million a year and in the process doomed South Vietnam, which had been ably fighting the war without our troops since 1973.”80

Many Americans would not like hearing it said that the totalitarian states of China and the Soviet Union had proven to be better and more faithful allies than the democratic United States, but that was in fact the case. William Tuohy, who covered the war for many years for the Washington Post, wrote that “it is almost unthinkable and surely unforgivable that a great nation should leave these helpless allies to the tender mercies of the North Vietnamese,” but that is what we did.81

Until the progressive and draconian reductions in assistance began to have drastic effects, the South Vietnamese fought valiantly. In the two years after the January 1973 signing of the Paris Accords, South Vietnamese forces suffered more than 59,000 killed in action, more in that brief period than the Americans had lost in over a decade of war. Considering that such losses were inflicted on a population perhaps a tenth the size of America’s,82 it is clear how devastating they must have been, and the intensity of the combat that produced them.

Merle Pribbenow has pointed out that North Vietnam’s account makes it clear that during the 55 days of the final offensive much hard fighting took place. This is a tribute to the South Vietnamese, who had to know at that point what the eventual outcome would inevitably be. Noted PAVN Lieutenant General Le Trong Tan, during the final campaign “our military medical personnel had to collect and treat a rather large number of wounded soldiers (fifteen times as many as were wounded in the 1950 border campaign, 1.5 times as many as were wounded at Dien Bien Phu, and 2.5 times as many as were wounded during the Route 9-Southern Laos campaign in 1971.” Pribbenow calculates that “this would put PAVN wounded at 40,000-50,000 at the very minimum, and possibly considerably higher, not the kind of losses one would expect in the total ARVN ‘collapse’ that most historians say occurred in 1975.”83

Colonel William LeGro served until war’s end with the U.S. Defense Attaché Office in Saigon. From that close-up vantage point he saw precisely what had happened. “The reduction to almost zero of United States support was the cause” of the final collapse, he observed. “We did a terrible thing to the South Vietnamese.”84

Near the end, Tom Polgar, then serving as CIA’s Chief of Station, Saigon, cabled a succinct assessment of the resulting situation. “Ultimate outcome hardly in doubt,” he reported, “because South Vietnam cannot survive without U.S. military aid as long as North Vietnam’s war- making capacity is unimpaired and supported by Soviet Union and China.”85

The aftermath of the war in Vietnam was as grim as had been feared. Seth Mydans writes perceptively and compassionately on Southeast Asian affairs for The New York Times. “More than a million southerners fled the country after the war ended,” he reported. “Some 400,000 were interned in camps for ‘re-education’—many only briefly, but some for as long as seventeen years. Another 1.5 million were forcibly resettled in ‘new economic zones’ in barren areas of southern Vietnam that were ravaged by hunger and extreme poverty.”86

Former Viet Cong Colonel Pham Xuan An later described his immense disillusionment with what a communist victory had meant to Vietnam. “All that talk about ‘liberation’ twenty, thirty, forty years ago,” he lamented, “produced this, this impoverished, broken-down country led by a gang of cruel and paternalistic half-educated theorists.”87

North Vietnamese Army Colonel Bui Tin has been equally candid about the outcome of the war, even for the victors. “It is too late for my generation,” he says, “the generation of war, of victory, and betrayal. We won. We also lost.”88

The price paid by the South Vietnamese in their long struggle to remain free proved grievous indeed. The armed forces lost 275,000 killed in action.89 Another 465,000 civilians lost their lives, many of them assassinated by Viet Cong terrorists or felled by the enemy’s indiscriminate shelling and rocketing of cities, and 935,000 more were wounded.90

Of the million who became boat people an unknown number, feared to be many, lost their lives at sea.91 In Vietnam perhaps 65,000 others were executed by their self-proclaimed liberators. As many as 250,000 more perished in the brutal ‘reeducation’ camps. Two million, driven from their homeland, formed a new Vietnamese diaspora.

No assessment of the ARVN would be complete without some mention of its expatriate veterans, and their families, who have made new lives in America. That is yet another story of heroism, determination, and achievement. Having learned only too well the nature of their supposed “liberators” during long years in which they had systematically murdered, wounded, kidnapped and impressed many thousands of South Vietnamese civilians, the populace fled in large numbers as resistance collapsed

Fortunately many made their way to new lives, and to freedom. America is blessed with perhaps a million expatriate Vietnamese, a rich accretion to our culture and our material well-being. With incredible industry and determination, these new Americans have educated their children, nurtured their families, and made full use of the opportunities this country provides all who are willing to work for them. These are the same people who populated the ranks of the ARVN, and who for year after bloody year fought for freedom in their country of origin. We abandoned them then, and their sacrifices went forfeit, but there may be some measure of atonement in our accepting them here in subsequent years.

* * *
Conclusion

By way of conclusion, I will just state my conviction that the war in Vietnam was a just war fought by the South Vietnamese and their allies for admirable purposes, that those who fought it did so with their mightiest hearts, and that in the process they came very close to succeeding in their purpose of enabling South Vietnam to sustain itself as a free and independent nation. A reporter once remarked that General Creighton Abrams was a man who deserved a better war. I quoted that observation to General Abrams’s eldest son, who immediately responded: “He didn’t see it that way. He thought the Vietnamese were worth it.” So do I.

All told, the balance sheet on ARVN, to include very prominently the Regional and Popular Forces integrated into the army in 1970, is positive. The victory ultimately was not won, but the spirit and dedication and courage and determination of those who sought it have found productive new soil here in America. We are all the better for it.

_____
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lewis Sorley served in Vietnam as executive officer of a tank battalion operating in the Central Highlands. A third-generation graduate of the United States Military Academy, he also holds a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University. During two decades of military service he led tank and armored cavalry units in the United States and Germany as well as Vietnam, served in staff assignments in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Office of the Army Chief of Staff, and was on the faculties at West Point and the Army War College.

He is the author of two biographies, Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times and Honorable Warrior: General Harold K. Johnson and the Ethics of Command, and a history entitled A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam. He has also transcribed and edited Vietnam Chronicles: The Abrams Tapes, 1968-1972.

1 Douglas Pike, “Bibliography: Periodicals,” Indochina Chronology (April-June 1999), p. 1.
2 James Webb, “History Proves Vietnam Victors Wrong,” Wall Street Journal (28 April 2000).
3 Brigadier General James Lawton Collins, Jr., The Development and Training of the South Vietnamese Army, 1950-1972 (Washington: Department of the Army, 1975), p. 101.
4 Lieutenant General Fred C. Weyand, Senior Officer Debriefing Report, CG II Field Force, Vietnam, 29 March 1966 – 1 August 1968, MHI [U.S. Army Military History Institute] files.
5 Message, Abrams to Johnson, MAC 5307, 040950Z June 1967, CMH [U.S. Army Center of Military History] files.
6 Lieutenant General Duong Van Khuyen, RVNAF Logistics (Washington: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980), p. 57.
7 Time, 19 April 1968.
8 Letter, General Bruce C. Clarke to Brigadier General Hal C. Pattison, 29 December 1969, Clarke Papers, MHI.
9 As quoted in Joint Chiefs of Staff, The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1960-1968, Part III (Washington: JCS Historical Division, 1 July 1970), p. 51-7.
10 Letter, General Bruce C. Clarke to Brigadier General Hal C. Pattison, 29 December 1969, Clarke Papers, MHI.
11 Brigadier General Zeb B. Bradford, Jr., Interview, 12 October 1989.
12 Message, Abrams to Wheeler and McCain, MAC 13555, 071007Z October 1968, CMH files.
13 William E. Colby, “Vietnam After McNamara,” The Washington Post (27 April 1995).
14 Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, Thayer Award Address, West Point, New York, as printed in the Congressional Record (28 May 1970), p. E4732.
15 Ibid.

16 John Paul Vann, Remarks, Lexington, Kentucky, 8 January 1972, Vann Papers, Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky.
17 Message, Abrams to Wheeler and McCain, MAC 13555, 071007Z October 1968, CMH. 18 Brigadier General Tran Dinh Tho, The Cambodian Incursion (Washington: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1979), p. 2.
19 Thomas Fleming, Society of the Cincinnati Lecture, Washington, D.C., 28 October 2005.
20Anthony Joes, Resisting Rebellion (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004), p. 139. Joes cites as sources Bruce Catton, Glory Road, pp. 102 and 255, and Allan Nevins, The War for the Union: The Organized War to Victory, 1864-1865, p. 131.
21 John Keegan, The First World War (New York: Vintage Books, 2000), pp. 329-331. 22 Geoffrey Perret, There’s a War to Be Won (New York: Ivy Books, 1991), p. 453.
23 Ibid., p. 205.
24 Message, Cliff Snyder, National Archives, to Sorley, 20 May 2002: “We have 123 boxes of Awards to Vietnamese and Free World Military Forces, 1965-1970. We also have 62 boxes under Awards to Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces Personnel, 1971- 1973. Lastly, we have the MACV general orders themselves, 48 boxes for 1964-1973. Each box may contain up to 1,000 pages.”
25 An example is Colonel Cau Le, regimental commander of the 47th ARVN Infantry Regiment, who spent a dozen years in combat and another thirteen years (five of them in solitary confinement) as a prisoner of the communists and was awarded the U.S. Silver Star and Bronze Star Medal for valorous combat leadership. Le and his family established a new life in America after his wife, Kieu Van, had worked as a nurse to support their five children until her husband’s release from captivity. See Robert F. Dorr and Fred L. Borch, “U. S. Medals,” Army Times (13 March 2006), p. 52.
26 General Cao Van Vien et al., The U.S. Adviser (Washington: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980), p. 142.
27 Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong, Territorial Forces (Washington: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1978), p. 134.
28 Ibid., p. 34.
29 General Creighton Abrams at Weekly Intelligence Estimate Update, 18 April 1971, in Lewis Sorley, ed., Vietnam Chronicles (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2004), p. 592.
30 General Cao Van Vien, Leadership (Washington: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981), p. 170.
31 Joes, Resisting Rebellion, p. 138.
32 Vien, Leadership, p. 169.
33 Thomas Polgar, as quoted in J. Edward Lee and Toby Haynsworth, ed., White Christmas in April (New York: Peter Lang, 1975), p. 73.
34 Colonel William LeGro, as quoted in Lee and Haynsworth, White Christmas in April, p. 67.
35 Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, Oral History Interview, Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, p. I:11.
36 Quoted in Jeffrey J. Clarke, Advice and Support: The Final Years (Washington: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1988), p. 312.
37 As reported by Major General George I. Forsythe following a 20 January 1968 meeting with President Thieu, quoted in Clarke, Final Years, p. 307.
38 Joint Chiefs of Staff, The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, p. 52-43.
39 Notes by Vincent Davis of a telecon during which Vann described his 15 December 1969 presentation at Princeton, Vann Papers, Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky.
40 Lester A. Sobel, ed., South Vietnam: U.S.-Communist Confrontation in Southeast Asia, Volume 6: 1971 (New York: Facts on File, 1973), p. 211.
41 Remarks, Lexington, Kentucky, 8 January 1972, Vann Papers.
42 Ellsworth Bunker Interview, Duke University Living History Project, Durham, North Carolina, 2 March 1979.
43 Weekly Intelligence Estimate Update, 30 January 1971, in Sorley, Vietnam Chronicles, p. 525.
44 Ibid., COMUS Update, 16 February 1971, p. 535.
45 Ibid., COMUS Briefing with Admiral McCain, 19 February 1971, and Weekly Intelligence Estimate Update, 27 March 1971, pp. 535, 577. A number of years later Lieutenant General Sidney B. Berry wrote a Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post (18 May 1995) in which he said: “I was privileged to command the American helicopter force that supported Lam Son 719, and I directed the study and analysis of its helicopter support. Herein, I report the correct figures of American helicopters lost to hostile action during that operation.” Berry continued: “The U.S. Army’s after-action analysis shows that 107 helicopters were lost to hostile action during Lam Son 719. These losses occurred during 353,287 sorties and 134,861 flying hours.”
46 Ibid., COMUS Briefing with Admiral McCain, 19 February 1971, p. 537.
47 Ibid., Commanders Weekly Intelligence Estimate Update, 20 February 1971, pp. 538- 539.
48 Ibid., p. 542.
49 Ibid., COMUS Update, 24 February 1971, pp. 543-544.
50 Ibid., Lieutenant General Ewell Update, 16 March 1971, p. 562.
51 Ibid., COMUS Update, 4 March 1971, p. 551.
52 Ibid., COMUS Update, pp. 550-551.
53 Ibid., COMUS Update, p. 551.
54 Ibid., COMUS Update, pp. 557-558.
55 Ibid., Commanders Weekly Intelligence Estimate Update, 20 March 1971, pp. 564- 565.
56 Ibid., COMUS Update, 23 March 1971, p. 566.
57 Ibid., Weekly Intelligence Estimate Update, 27 March 1971, p. 577.
58 Message, Lieutenant General James W. Sutherland to Abrams, QTR 0567, 281140Z March 1971, Special Abrams Papers Collection, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.
59 Message, Lieutenant General James W. Sutherland to Abrams, QTR 0446, 211040Z March 1971, Special Abrams Papers Collection.
60 COMUS with Sir Robert Thompson, 25 March 1971, in Sorley, Vietnam Chronicles, p. 569.
61 Ibid., Secretary of the Army Brief, 26 April 1971, p. 608.
62 Ibid., COMUS with Sir Robert Thompson, 25 March 1971, p. 570.
63 Major General Nguyen Duy Hinh, Lam Son 719 (Washington: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1979), p. 5.
64 Military History Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam, trans. Merle L. Pribbenow (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), p. 29.
65 John P. Vann, Letter to Henry Cabot Lodge, 9 December 1969, Vann Papers.
66 Weekly Intelligence Estimate Update, 30 October 1971, in Sorley, Vietnam Chronicles, p. 686.
67 Message, Barnes to Weyand, PKU 0378, 100736Z March 1972, MHI files.
68 Luu Van Loi and Nguyen Anh Vu, Le Duc Tho-Kissinger Negotiations in Paris (Hanoi: World Publishing House, 1996), pp. 66-67.
69 Remarks, Lexington, Kentucky, 8 January 1972, Vann Papers. Vann suggested that, to put Vietnam in perspective, it was useful to know that during 1971 there were 1,221 U.S. servicemen killed in Vietnam and during the same year 1,647 people were killed in New York City.
70 Douglas Pike, “A Look Back at the Vietnam War: The View from Hanoi,” Paper Written for the Vietnam War Symposium, The Wilson Center, Washington, D.C., 7-8 January 1983, p. 17.
71 John Paul Vann, Remarks, Lexington, Kentucky, 8 January 1972, Vann Papers.
72 Military History Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam, p. 283.
73 Douglas Pike, “The View from Hanoi,” p. 17.
74 Douglas Pike, PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam (Novato: Presidio Press, 1986), p. 225. 75 Douglas Pike, “The View from Hanoi,” p.17.
76 Commanders Weekly Intelligence Estimate Update, 22 April 1972, in Sorley, Vietnam Chronicles, p. 826.
77 Message, Abrams to Laird, MAC 04039, 020443Z May 1972, CMH files.
78 Military History Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam, p. 338.
79 Ibid., p. 350.
80 Melvin R. Laird, “Iraq: Learning the Lessons of Vietnam,” Foreign Affairs (November/December 2005), p. 26.
81 The Washington Post (28 December 1968).
82 James L. Buckley, “Vietnam and Its Aftermath,” in Anthony T. Bouscaren, ed., All Quiet on the Eastern Front (Old Greenwich: Devin-Adair, 1977), p. 84.
83 Merle L. Pribbenow, Message to Sorley, 1 May 2002. The estimates of wounded cited are from Lieutenant General Le Trong Tan, Several Issues in Combat Guidance and Command (Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1979), p. 353.
84 In Lee and Haynsworth, p. 67.
85 As quoted in Todd, Cruel April, p. 145.
86 Seth Mydans, “A War Story’s Missing Pages,” The New York Times (24 April 2000).
87 Vietnam Magazine (August 1990), p. 6.
88 The Boston Globe (30 April 2000).
89 Colonel Stuart Herrington, “Fall of Saigon,” Discovery Channel, 1 May 1995.
90 Douglas Pike, PAVN, p. 310n5.
91 Australian Minister for Immigration Michael MacKellar was quoted as saying that “about half the boat people perished at sea,” basing this conclusion on “talks with refugees and intelligence sources.” Thus, he said in 1979, “we are looking at a death rate of between 100,000 and 200,000 in the last four years.” The Age Newspaper, The Boat People: An Age Investigation (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1979), p. 80. According to James Banerian, the International Red Cross estimated that 300,000 boat people perished in their attempts to reach safety. Losers Are Pirates, p. 2.

By Uwe Siemon-Netto