Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
"The JCS also recommended that the Secretary of Defense initiate the action to obtain such U.S . Government support of counter-insurgency operations in Laos and Vietnam." (CINCPAC study and JCS memorandum 232-60, June 6, 1960, enclosed in letter, Rear Admiral E. J . O'Donnell, USN (Director, Far East Region, ISA, Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense), to J. Graham Parsons (Assistant Secretary of state for Far Eastern Affairs), September 16, 1960, secret (file 611.5lK); cited in Department of State, Division of Historical Policy Research, Research Project No. 630, January 1965, Recent American Policy and Diplomacy Concerning Vietnam, 1960-1963, pp. 10-11)
In a subsequent memo for the Secretary of Defense (JCSM-382-60, dated August 30, 1960) the JCS asserted that
"'encouraging the Government of South Vietnam to adopt a national course of action designed to reduce the growing threat of Communist insurgent actions' was vital to the continued freedom of that country and an important action 'to preclude the necessity for implementing U.S. or SEATO war plans.'" (Cited in Department of State Research Project No. 630, January 1965, "Recent American Policy … ," op. cit.)
The draft plan fonvarded to MAAG stressed organizational matters, including the formation of a National Emergency Council and a Director of Operations to integrate civil and military efforts and formulate the Vietnamese National Counter-Insurgency Plan, with sub-councils at regional, provincial and village levels, but concluded with a concept of operations:
"(1) Politico/Military Operations. In order to provide protection which the people require, it is necessary to exercise more than an ordinary degree of control over the population. Among the more important operations required are those for exercising control in such manner as to isolate insurgents and sympathizers from the support of the populace. Such techniques as registration and identification, food control, and control of movement, should be implemented as offering the best prospects for success. Control measures instituted should require support by psychological warfare and information programs to gain and maintain popular confidence and support.
"(2) Military Operations. An effective continuing defensive system should remain in place, with a capability for reinforcing the permanent local security establishment since it is not sufficient temporarily to defeat or suppress insurgents or to establish control in one area and then move the counter-insurgency forces to a new area thus allowing insurgents to
