Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
- d. Most importantly, in Malaya the British were in actual command, with all of the obvious advantages this entails, and used highly trained Commonwealth troops.
- e. Finally, it took the British nearly 12 years to defeat. an insurgency which was less strong than the one in South Vietnam.
3. Furthermore, as you well know, the success of the counterinsurgency operations in Malaya is not unique. Major terrorist activities have been defeated in both the Philippines and Burma, and in neither place was the police organization used as the framework for coordination and control. In the Philippines, for example, the military framework used was highly successful.
4. Closely associated with the allegation that the MAAG is "overtraining" the Vietnamese Army is the concern frequently expressed over the length of time required to train military officers and NCO's. No one knows better than you do that well-trained officers and NCO's are not produced in brief training programs. I am sure you will want to discuss this in detail with General McGarr when you visit Saigon. It is most important to note that the heaviest casualties in the Vietnam insurgency have been suffered by the Civil Guard previously trained as police. Almost without exception, the Viet Cong have attacked the untrained Civil Guard rather than the better trained Army units. This has resulted in a heavy loss of weapons and equipment to the Viet Cong. Untrained Civil Guard units have, in fact, been an important source of weapons and supplies for the Viet Cong, and their known vulnerability has been an invitation for the Viet Cong to attack. General McGarr believes that reversion of the Civil Guard to police control would set back the counterinsurgency operation in South Vietnam by at least a year.
5. With respect to training the Vietnamese Army for the "wrong war", it seems clear that in recent months the insurgency in South Vietnam has developed far beyond the capacity of police control. All of the Vietnamese Army successes this past summer have met Viet Cong opposition in organized battalion strength. Even larger Communist units were involved in the recent Viet Cong successes north of Kontum. This change in the situation has not been fully understood by many U.S. officials.
