NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET
NSC 218th Meeting
22 October 1954
ITEM 4 (For Information)
INDOCHINA
1. This will be an oral report on the subject by the Chairman of the OCB Herbert Hoover, Jr., or someone designated by him. It will probably include a summary of the recent U.S.-French discuss ions on Indochina as well as of the current situation there.
2. The OCB, at its 6 October meeting, requested its special Working Group on Indochina to prepare a program of economic and military aid to the three Associated states to include both direct aid and aid to be granted in coordination with the French, these aid programs to be based on the tentative force goals developed by the JCS. This program is now being developed. The JCS recommended force goals are attached as TAB A; state comments thereon as TAB B.
3. At its meeting of 13 October, the OCB agreed that State and Defense, as a matter of urgency, should develop guidance on U.S. training of Free Vietnamese forces for approval by the Board at its meeting on 20 October. Mr. Cutler has expressed considerable concern at OCB meetings over the failure on the part of the U.S. to get a military training program underway in Vietnam. The JCS, however, have been dubious regarding this sort of U.S. military involvement in Indochina because of the unstable political situation and the limitations on the, size of the MAAG imposed by the Geneva Agreement and recommended against such training unless political considerations were overriding (see TABS C and D). At the OCB meeting of 20 October, State said political considerations are, in fact, overriding and the OCB is, we understand, directing immediate commencement of U.S. military training in Vietnam. The OCB's draft recommendations are at TAB E.
4. This OCB action may have broken the log-jam of inactivity regarding Vietnam which has gripped the U. S. Government since Geneva. However, there are many other possible psychological and political action programs which may deserve a try in a real effort to keep free Indochina from being assimilated by the Communists. Therefore, continued, streamlined efforts by the Departments and Agencies concerned, given highest priority, seem necessary.
RECOMMENDATIONS
5. It is recommended that you suggest that the Council:
- a. Discuss whether the current U. S . approach to the problems of Indochina is yet fully adequate to achieve our objectives there.
- b. Reaffirm its belief that the development and implementation of effective programs with regard to Indochina be given highest priority attention within the Departments and Agencies concerned and that the present action machinery be streamlined to the extent possible.
TOP SECRET
