Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
- e. Periodic visits by U.S. forces into the area as demonstrations of intent, and for joint and combined training exercises.
- f. Availability of appropriate mechanism for the employment of U.S. forces in support of friendly indigenous forces in support of friendly indigenous forces in the general area.
- 6. The concept of prompt retaliatory attacks does not envisage attacks on targets within the aggressor country other than on military targets involved in the direct support of the aggressor action. If authorized, atomic weapons would be used, even in a local situation, if such use will bring the aggression to a swift and positive cessation, and if, on a balance of political and military consideration, such use will best advance U.S. security interests. Under the alternative assumption that authority to use atomic weapons cannot be assured, the above concept would not require change, but this assumption would not permit the most effective employment of U.S. armed forces, and consequently might require greater forces than the U.S. would be justified in providing from the over-all point of view.57
The clear intent of this concept — in accordance with SEATO objectives — is deterrence of and response to overt aggression against South Vietnam, among other countries; in view of limited U.S. resources, and of the recognition of this problem in NSC 162/2, which "envisages reliance on indigenous ground forces to the maximum extent possible,"58 and in view of the psychological pressure generated by the powerful VPA, the logical consequence of assignment of the mission "to countery external aggression" to local South Vietnamese forces is virtually unavoidable. Therefore, the JCS stated their view — and held to it throughout the period 1954–1960 — "that the ultimate objectives of the military forces of the Associated States should be:
- VIETNAM — to attain and maintain internal security and to deter Viet Minh aggression by a limited defense of the Geneva Armistice demarcation line.59
Although it was not until the publication of NSC 5612/1 in mid-1956 that approved U.S. policy recognized this mission by stating that the U.S. should "assist Free Vietnam to build up indigenous armed forces, including independent logistical and administrative services, which will be capable of assuring internal security and of providing limited initial resistance to attack by the Viet Minh,"60 unofficial U.S. policy, from the JCS in Washington through the MAAG in Vietnam,61 had set in motion programs which implicitly assigned a mission of limited, initial resistance to Vietnamese forces which attempted to be both responsive to SEATO requirements and cognizant of.U.S. resource limitations.
