Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
2. The U.S. was never satisfied with French efforts concerning the Vietnamese National Army and was continually frustrated by apparent French reluctance to act on this score. Particularly disturbing to U.S. officials were French inaction concerning formation of the VNA into divisional units, French training procedures, and French reluctance to develop a Vietnamese officer corps: in short, acute frustration was caused by French refusal to initiate changes U.S. officials believed, rightly or wrongly, that the U.S.,could and would initiate if the U.S. were in charge.
3. The U.S. had the capability to train "native armies," as demonstrated by Korean forces. Although U.S. pressure on the French culminated in a French visit to Korea to observe U.S. training methods and procedures, the French were most impressed with the unsuitability of Korean forces and the methods used to train them to the situation in Indochina.5
4. The U.S. had been considering the idea of U.S. training of Vietnamese forces since early in the Indochina war; in fact, the U.S. had been asked as early as 1950 to participate in a Vietnamese plan for a Vietnamese National Army trained and equipped by the U.S. without French participation.6 The U.S. attitude was ambivalent. As early as April 1952 the Service Secretaries suggested that the U.S. expand the Indochina MAAG to undertake training and equipping of a national army should the French declare their intention to withdraw from Indochina;7 in January 1954 General Erskine suggested elevating MAAG to the status of a mission "to help in training."8 On the other hand, although the theme of U.S. training of Vietnamese forces became increasingly prominent from early 1953 on, a high-level committee in Defense recommended against seeking direct American participation in training in January of that year, and the JCS agreed with this recommendation, which stemmed from French opposition to any such role for the U.S., relatively higher French qualifications to train the local armies, and from the language problem.9 As the war neared its close, however, CHMAAG General O'Daniel, in face of firm and consistent opposition from the French, pressed harder and harder for a direct American involvement in the training of Vietnamese forces; in May 1954 General Ely, the French High Commander, apparently succumbed to O'Daniel's pressure to agree to U.S. training of, and the positioning of U.S. advisors with, Vietnamese units.10 On 9 June 1954, Ely, through O'Daniel, requested the U.S. to organize and supervise the training of Vietnamese divisions, and to do the same for all other Vietnamese training.11 By this time, however, U.S. decisionmakers believed that the "situation in Vietnam has degenerated to point where any commitments at this time to send over U.S. instructors in near future might expose us to being faced with situation in which it would be contrary to our interests to have to fulfill such commitments,"12 and they feared that, "It may be that in effort to draw U.S. into conflict without having U.S. conditions on intervention met, French military may now seek U.S. training
