NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive
already under Diem's personal direction, would be responsible on all emergency matters to the reinforced III Corps Headquarters (to be called the Combined Headquarters), but continue as before with respect to routine administration. 39/
Thompson presented this Delta plan as a program of wide potential:
…It should lead by stages to a reorganization of the government machinery for directing and coordinating all action against the communists and to the production of an overall strategic operational plan for the country as a whole defining responsibilities, tasks and priorities. At the same time it will lead to the establishment of a static security framework which can be developed eventually into a National Police force into which can be incorporated a single security intelligence organization for the direction and coordination of all intelligence activities against the communists. I agree with Your Excellency that it would be too disruptive at the present moment to try to achieve these immediately and that they should be developed gradually. Using a medical analogy, the remedy should be clinical rather than surgical. 40/
III. DEVELOPING A CONSENSUS AMONG THE ADVISORS
A. Initial Reaction of U.S. Military Advisors
It is not difficult to imagine the shocked reaction to Thompson's proposals, especially in U.S. military circles. In fact, one need not imagine them; General McGarr has recorded a detailed rejoinder to Thompson's proposals. He was, to begin with, upset about the lack of prior coordination:
Following Mr, Thompson's medical analogy…we have the case of a doctor called in for consultation on a clinical case, actually performing an amputation without consulting the resident physician -- and without being required to assume the overall responsibility for the patient. 41/
General McGarr's unhappiness with Thompson was not simply a case of injured feelings. He had four related categories of disagreements with the plan proposed by the British Advisory Mission. First, Thompson's recommended command arrangements, if adopted, would demolish the prospect of a unitary chain of command within ARVN, an objective toward which McGarr had been working for over a year. Additionally, the Thompson proposals would leave Diem as the ultimate manager of an operation dealing with only a portion (the Delta) of RVN. The elimination of practices such as this had been an explicit objective of the entire U.S. advisory effort for a long time.
