Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
we approve force level increase and his action raising civil guard ceiling by 10,000. While I still believe it absolutely essential he adopt more liberal programs, it is not certain from his attitude and remarks that he will take effective action in these matters, although I learned later he has agreed to engage the services of a public relations expert suggested by CAS to make a survey of GVN foreign public relations needs." (Ibid., pp. 3-4)
4. The Counterinsurgency Plan (CIP)
The expectations of the Department of Defense for the amelioration of Diem's security Situation, as well as those of State and the Embassy, were embodied in a Counterinsurgency Plan for Vietnam (CIP), prepared over the months April to December 1960, and forwarded to Washington for approval on 4 January 1961 (Saigon despatch 276, date cited). The CIP represented a considerable evolution in the U.S. concepts of how to cope with Vietnam's internal security. During 1959 and early 1960, Diem, recognizing the precariousness of his position, had begun to experiment with the structure of his security forces, seeking to find a mix of police, paramilitary, and regular military forces capable of countering the Viet Congo The U.S. MAAG, Vietnam, though constantly handicapped by personnel ceilings imposed out of respect for the Geneva Accords, had labored to build a modern national army, capable of both delaying invading forces from North Vietnam and of coping with internal threats; in the pre-1960 MAAG view, Diem was trifling with his army.[1] In early 1960 the US decided,
- ↑ The MAAG "Country Statements" for the period 1956-1960 record a concentration on developing the staff and logistiC superstructure of ARVN, and on U.S. Army-type training programs; throughout, it is clear that the MAAG looked increasingly to the Self Defense Corps, the Civil Guard, and the National Police to meet the "Viet Minh" internal threat in order to free ARVN for conventional combat training. See especially U.S. Military Assistance AdviSOry Group, Vietnam, "Country Statement on MDAP, Non-NATO COUl1tries," paragraphs I, 5, 6, and Section C, of the reports 15 January 1956, 20 July 1956, 21 January 1957, 15 July 1957; also, same headquarters, "Narrative Study," dated 24 August 1958, and "Narrative Statement," dated 25 November 1958 with changes dated 10 May 1959, 9 August 1959, and 8 November 1959· Cf., Shaplen, Ope cit., 117-119, 137; Warner, op. cit., 129-136; Scigliano, op. cit., 162-167; Nighswonger, op. cit., 43-48; David Halberstam, The Making of a Quagmire (New York: Random House, 1965), 60-66.
