Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
IV. A. 4.
U.S. TRAINING OF THE VIETNAMESE NATIONAL ARMY,
1954–1959
- A. Why did the U.S. undertake the training of ARVN?
Underlying the U.S. decision to train the ARVN were broad political objectives and beliefs relating to Asia, together with narrower considerations relating to methods of achieving U.S. objectives in Southeast Asia. Both broad and narrow considerations had their origins in the post–World War II chaos in Asia; both stemmed from the overall U.S. aim to deter or defeat communist aggression wherever and whenever it might occur; and both became pillars of U.S. Indochina policy with the fall of Mainland China to the communists in 1949.
On the broader level, the U.S. decision to train the Vietnamese armed forces was viewed as necessary to preserve the independence and freedom of Vietnam south of the 17th parallel, an essential prerequisite to the containment of communism. Containment—lately a function of SEATO as well as of the U.S.—was viewed as essential to the preservation of the rest of Southeast Asia from communist domination and control. Communist domination of the area was viewed as the outcome associated with the fall of Free Vietnam by the proponents of the domino theory, which continued as a major influence on U.S. foreign policy throughout the period examined here. "In view of the importance of Vietnam to all of Southeast Asia, I am convinced that the United States should expend the funds, materiel, and effort required to strengthen the country and help it retain its independence," reported General J. Lawton Collins. "If the chances of success are difficult to calculate, the results of a withdrawal of American aid are all too certain, not only in Vietnam, but throughout Southeast Asia. Such a withdrawal would hasten the rate of communist advances in the Far East as a whole and could result in the loss of Southeast Asia to communism. In my opinion, the chance of success is not only worth the gamble; we cannot afford to let free Vietnam go by default."3
On the narrower level, several considerations tended to urge an affirmative decision concerning a training role for the U.S.:
1. Throughout the French–Indochina war, U.S. authorities continually urged the French to create and train a Vietnamese National Army. This measure was pressed not only because the U.S. believed it to be a necessary political gesture (evidence of the true independence of the Associated States), but also because U.S. experts viewed it as a military measure vital to the successful prosecution of the war.4
