Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
are willing to fight and die for their freedom, not withstanding the temptations to neutralism and its false promises of peace being drummed into their ears daily by the communists.
In the light of this situation, the council of generals concluded. that additional forces numbering slightly over 100,000 more than our new force level of 170,000 will be required to counter the ominous threat of communist domination. The 100,000 reservists to be called up according to the plan of my council of generals were to meet the requirement for an augmentation of the Vietnamese Army by nine infantry divisions plus modest naval and air force increases. First priority called for one division to reinforce each of the three Army Corps in Vietnam plus a two divisional general reserve for a total of five divisions. In second priority, an additional division for each of the three Army Corps plus one in general reserve brought the total to nine new divisions. With the seven existing divisions, fragmented in anti-guerilla operations, the Army of Vietnam would thus have a strength of 16 divisions of slightly less than 10,000 men each plus appropriate combat and logistic support units.
We have now had an opportunity to review this initial force requirement with General McGarr and the MAAG staff who have recommended certain modifications which are basically in consonance with our plan and with which we agree.
After considering the recommendations of our generals and consulting with our American military advisors, we now conclude that to provide even minimum initial resistance to the threat, two new divisions of approximately 10,000 strength each are required to be activated at the earliest possible date. Our lightly held defensive positions along the demilitarized zone at our Northern border is even today being outflanked by communist forces which have defeated the Royal Laotian Army garrisons in Tchepone and other cities in Southern Laos. Our ARVN forces are so throughly committed to internal anti-guerilla operations that we have no effective force s with which to counter this threat from Southern Laos. Thus, we need immediately one division for the First Army Corps and one for the Second Army Corps to provide at least some token resistance to the sizeable forces the communists are capable of bringing to bear against our Laotian frontier. Failing this, we would have no recourse but to withdraw our forces southward from the demilitarized zone and sacrifice progressively greater areas of our country to the communists. These divisions should be mobilized and equipped, together with initial logistic support units immediately after
