Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
in advance of U.S. commitment to intervene with own combat forces.... We are resolved not to get drawn in to training program to reverse situation training program has virtually no chance of success...."13 Although O'Daniel repeatedly requested a reversal of this decision, going as far as to request his plea by passed on "to the highest authority" on 26 June,14 the denial stood to the end of the Indochina war.
5. This prolonged involvement with the problem of affording U.S. assistance in training of the Vietnamese National Army lost hardly any of the momentum given it by General O'Daniel during the final days of the Indochina war in spite of the U.S. decision to stop all aid shipments to Indochina on 30 July 1954 and to reconsider the entire problem of U.S. actions relating to Indochina.15 On 27 July, General O'Daniel again urged that the U.S., without French interference, undertake a priority program for training the Vietnamese Army, and took steps to expand the authorized roster of MAAG personnel prior to the Geneva–imposed strength ceiling deadline of 11 August without Washington approval of the program.16 It is believed that this momentum, generated in Saigon and supported by the Department of State, was of itself of considerable importance in the actual taking of the decision to organize and train Vietnamese forces.
- B. How was the decision to organize and train Vietnamese forces taken?
Ambassador Heath and his superiors in the Department of State "strongly concurred" with General O'Daniel's recommendation of 27 July that the U.S. undertake a priority program to train the Vietnamese Army.17 The JCS, however, recommended that "before the United States assumes responsibility for training the forces of any of the Associated States certain preconditions were four' in number: "a reasonably strong, stable civil government in control"; a request from each of the Associated States that the U.S. "assume responsibility for training their forces and providing the military equipment, financial assistance, and political advice necessary to insure internal stability"; arrangements with the French "granting full independence to the Associated States and providing for the phased orderly withdrawal of French forces, French officials, and French advisors from Indochina"; and "the size and composition of the forces...should be dictated by the local military requirements and the over-all U.S. interests."18 These recommendations were transmitted by the Secretary of Defense to the Secretary of State by letter.19
In response to this letter, Secretary Dulles indicated that Cambodia had already met the recommended conditions, and that although Vietnam had not yet done so, the U.S. should nonetheless undertake a training program since strengthening the army was in fact prerequisite to stability ("one of the most efficient means of enabling the Vietnamese Government to become strong is to assist it in reorganizing the National Army and in training that Army.")20 Although in approving
