Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
Enclosure No. 2
Despatch 205
From Saigon
- (f) this, in turn, will lead to better intelligence; and
- (g) better intelligence will result in more kills.
Protection, confidence, intelligence and kills should become a sonstantly expanding circuit.
Communist reaction
35. The Communists will not be slow to react and will make a determined effort to prevent the framework being established particularly at the village and hamlet level. This requires that there should be careful judgement and timing in its establishment. As it grows, so break it. That is the time for the security forces, and particularly the Army, to get them. Once the communist rank and file starts to break the leaders will attempt to withdraw, preferably over the frontier where they will be safe, but, if that is denied to them, then into the more inaccessible mangrove swamps in the coastal area where they can be steadily starved out and eliminated.
Priority Areas
36. Even within the Delta itself these measures cannot all be carried out simultaneously in every Province or District. First priority should be given to the Provinces along the Mekong with the intention of clearing a corridor through the middle of the whole area along its easiest axis. In fact regrouping should start there as soon as possible in order to take advantage of the damage caused by the floods. The main intention in this area, however, would be initially to prevent further infiltration and subsequently to deny the frontier as a safe refuge. The final aim should be to push the communists back into the Mangrove swamps along the coast where they can do little harm and where they can then be starved out and eliminated.
Summary of Expected Achievements
37. (a)The first achievement should be a cleared corridor along the line of the Mekong followed by
- (b) the declaration of 'white' areas in the provinces concerned which will raise t he morale of the whole country;
- (c) the safeguarding of the rice crop;
- (d) the release of troops from the Delta area for the more specific military operations North of Saigon and in the Highlands;
/(e) the
