Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
assistance was withheld for almost two years. In January 1959, Diem agreed to transfer the CG to the Minister of the Interior, and the U.S. agreed to go ahead with the aid program. The new Public Safety Division of USOM assumed responsibility for training the CG in June, but the impasse over the concept of the CG continued until December 1960, when Diem, at MAAG's urging, transferred the CG to the DOD.111
The Self-Defense Corps (SDC),like the CG, was armed with non-U.S. weapons surplus to the army's requirements. Established by Diem as a part of the DOD, the SDC received U.S. assistance from its inception in the form of a $6 million per year subsidy for salaries. All reports indicate that the SDC was in even worse shape than the CG. The controversy that engulfed both these organizations for five years produced two paramilitary units that, far from being adequate to free the army for "combat," were confusingly organized, inadequately equipped, poorly trained, and badly led — even when compered with ARVN.112
According to the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College "Study on Army Aspects of the Military Assistance Program in Vietnam," published in June 1960,113 "The Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam are anxious to take the offensive and 'march to Hanoi.' The Chief, MAAG, and his principal assistants who come in direct contact with the Vietnamese high command must be constantly alert to detect this desire and any evidence of preparations therefor, as the consequences of such a premature act, not only to the numerically inferior South Vietnamese Armed Forces,but also to the entire region and possibly the whole world, could be most serious." Given the deficiencies remaining in the seven standard division regular army that would do the marching, and the state of the paramilitary forces, the authors of this study were well advised to add, parenthetically and perhaps wistfully: "(Eventual reunification through 'peaceful means' is to be hoped for.)"
