Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
- However, if it is considered that political considerations are overriding, the Joint Chiefs of Staff would agree to the assignment of a training mission to MAAG, Saigon, with safeguards against French interference with the U.S. training mission.25
With this crack in the Defense position, the OCB recommended, and the NSC approved a limited and interim training program for Vietnam. On 22 October a Joint State-Defense message was dispatched to Saigon authorizing Ambassador Heath and General O'Daniel to "collaborate in setting in motion a crash program designed to bring about an improvement in the loyalty and the effectiveness of the Free Vietnamese forces,"26 and on 26 October the Secretary of Defense, in accordance with the request of the President, instructed the JCS to prepare a "long-range program for the reorganization and training of the minimum number of Free Vietnamese forces necessary for internal security (paragraph 10d/1 of NSC 5429/2)."27 The decision, subject only to refinement, negotiation with the French, and reexamination in the light of redevelopments, had been taken—and had been taken largely on the basis of an opening in the position of the Department of Defense which, far from dealing with the specific and reasonable objections to U.S. training of Vietnamese forces, simply avoided those objections by making the concession on totally different grounds.28
The impact of the President's decision not to assist the French by bombing at Dien Bien Phu and of his refusal to permit the landing of a U.S. force in the Hanoi-Haiphong area after the fall of Dien Bien Phu as recommended by the Chairman of the JCS also seems to have contributed to this concession. As reported by James Gavin, "...there was a compromise. We would not attack North Vietnam, but we would support a South Vietnamese government that we would provide a stable, independent government that was representative of the people. As I said before, we saw ourselves as the good guys. The French had let us down, but we would continue the battle. Also, we in the Army were so relieved that we had blocked the decision to commit ground troops to Vietnam that we were in no mood to quibble over the compromise."29
The refinement of the decision to organize and train the national army, dealing with missions and force levels, was completed by the JCS on 17 November 1954; in an interesting change of position (see note 28), the Joint Chiefs asserted that "MAAG Indochina is capable of furnishing training assistance to develop the Internal security Army and Navy forces, provided: a. A maximum portion of the MAAG military personnel is devoted to training; and b. The cooperation and collaboration of the French MAAG is secured."30
Negotiations with the French were completed when the agreed minute of understanding between General J. Lawton Collins and General
