Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume I, Vietnam, 1964

58. Telegram From the Commander, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (Harking) to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Taylor)¹

Saigon, February 21, 1964—4:15 p.m.

MAC 665. Subj: CAS third appraisal.² Ref JCS 734, DTG 182258Z Feb.³

1. Except for the spectacular and eye catching lead sentence, I have no quarrel with most of the statements contained in the CAS survey team appraisal. Where the statements are clean-cut, the supporting information was usually provided by my field personnel and reflected in reports already sent to Washington by this headquarters. Where the statements are sweeping, they are based on opinion or an unfortunate penchant for generalizing from the specific. My detailed comments follow and are geared to the specific paragraphs of the CAS message.

A. Area vs. People. Since August there has been a steady, gradual erosion of GVN control of territory, this erosion has become progressively worse and more noticeable subsequent to 1 Nov 63. In 23 RVN provinces the VC dominate in over 50 percent of the area. Report is in error where it states Binh Duong is 80 percent VC controlled; degree of control by VC is 45 percent. However, Phnoc Tuy in which the area is over 80 percent controlled by the VC is not mentioned in the report. All this has been reported by MACV. It is still considered here that GVN control is complete or predominant over 70 percent of the people in the rural area, while VC control is complete or predominant over 18 Percent. There is another 3 percent over which neither GVN nor VC have dominance. Then there are also the 1,687,000 in the major cities which are definitely under GVN control.

B. National level direction of most, but not all, programs has been weak since 1 November. It is difficult to have direction without an effective government. Khanh, however, is meeting now with [regarding?] a national pacification plan today or by Monday. The effectiveness of military operations may be low but they do proceed according to the national plan and are certainly not without direction. It is logical for the corps to do the derivative planning within assigned areas and to direct and control the operations of its major subordinate units. The divisions within a given corps face different problems in terms of terrain, enemy and population. As regards military civic actions, the program began to get excellent backing in early January to include directives to the field and addresses by top members of the MRC. In a sharp departure from prior practices, twenty million plasters were allocated to the corps for military civic actions. Officials charged with administering the Chieu Hoi program are convinced it will become functional again under General Khanh’s leadership.

C. E. F. Concur with contents. In this connection; see US Mission monthly status reports for December and January respectively; Section V and Annex X thereto of US Mission quarterly evaluation for period ending [end?] of December, and pare 6E, MACV headway reports since 8 January.⁴

D. The experienced Embassy official assigned to monitor and support youth activities states it is not entirely accurate to say that GVN is inactive in their appeal to youth since active programs are carried on by USIS and USOM with the active cooperation of appropriate ministries of GVN. It is true there are no programs carried on to the vast extent of the Cong Hoa or Combatant Youth under the Diem regime. As a matter of fact, GVN propaganda mechanisms are quite active. The statement that “no newspapers are produced outside of Saigon” is not only ill-advised, but false. For example, 183 village district newspapers are operating (of the 200 programmed by USOM). The average circulation per newspaper is 450 three times weekly. These are widely read as demonstrated by requests received last week from Kien Giang, Kian Hoa, and Chaong Thzen for additional paper supplies to increase circulation. Kien Quoc, a provincial newspaper, is produced in four different editions weekly for the key provinces of Quang Ngai, Tay Ninh, Binh Duong and Long An with a provincial circulation of 35,000 each. Periodicals are numerous; for the population alone, USIS produces Huong Que (Rural Life-125,000 copies monthly) and Gioi Tu Do (Free World-150,000 copies monthly) aimed at the student population.

G. The statement “presence of Russian-designed carbines” is misleading. It is true that originally the carbine was Russian-designed—20 years ago. However, the weapon in question is ChiCom PE 53 carbine, which is obsolete in the Chinese Communist army. No knowledge here of Czech submachine guns. Reference is probably to ChiCom 7.62 mm modified K–50 submachine guns. ARVN has a habit of calling this weapon Czech. No information available in this headquarters regarding VC abandonment of weapons during the incident in Quang Tri; it is very unlikely this happened, since VC are not that fat in weapons. The friendly forces are not outmanned & outgunned by the enemy in IV Corps, although certain VC elements in this area such as the 96th and 306th Battalions are considered well trained, aggressive and competent units and they have given good accounts of themselves in several instances. The VC through massing of forces can achieve temporary numerical superiority in areas of their choosing but overall they cannot approximate the RVN strength in either manpower or materiel. The heaviest weapon of the VC is the 81 mm mortar. The VC [have] no 105 or 155 howitzers, no APC’s or armored cars, no support aircraft and no heavy river craft.

H. Concur.

2. As a general comment this message appears to be a combination of rehashing old information previously reported, plus the reporting of unevaluated individual observations not necessarily in consonance with an overall analysis of the situation in a division tactical area. I am concerned over the disregard of the terms of reference for this group that is demonstrated by the scope of this report. JCS message 362–64 [?] January 1964,⁵ indicates that the role of this group is to “assist in developing techniques to improve [less than 1 1ine of source text not declassified] intelligence collection.” This example of unilateral reporting on matters outside their quarter and competency, without the benefit of the advice of this headquarters and other interested agencies can only be detrimental to the achievement of a joint, inter-agency intelligence effort and more important, is likely to introduce misleading, if not incorrect, information into the national decision making process.

We have nothing to hide but do have updated info on many of the problems covered by the [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] team report, and feel that such reports should be coordinated before being dispatched.

1. Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 330, McNamara Files: FRC 71 A 3470, South Vietnam. Top Secret; Eyes Only. The JCS sent copies of this cable to McNamara, Gilpatric, Anthis, and William Bundy.
2. Document 50.
3. In this telegram, the Joint Chiefs requested Harkins’ views on the third appraisal. (National Archives and Records Administration. RG 213. ICS Files)
4. None found.
5. Not printed. (National Archives and Records Administration, RG 218, JCS Files)