Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
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society. This desired by the Vietnamese, who want to be independent in the fullest sense, and by the Americans, who conceive their aid as helping people to help themselves toward a condition where they can continue progress by their own efforts.
The recommendations which our two groups, working jointly together, have thus prepared call for major increases in the level of effort of both Viet Nam and the United States.
These increases reflect our sincere conviction that the subversive, intensive warfare being waged today in South Viet Nam can be brought to a successful conclusion only by the prompt application of effective military power, coupled with large-scale economic and social action reaching every part of the country, especially the rural areas. From the financial standpoint, we believe it far less costly to provide fully adequate resources today than to attempt to match Communist initiatives with just enough strength to meet each new threat. The first course offers a real possibility of early victory and thus and end to the tragic waste of human life and of the material assets so sorely needed for the economic development of the country. The second, while less costly in terms of current budgets, will not provide sufficient resources to achieve a decisive defeat of the Viet Cong organization and therefore will, in the long run, prove more expensive as the war drags on with increased intensity year after year.
Accordingly, the intensified program which we recommend our two countries adopt as a basis for mutual actions over the next several years
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