NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive
charged with securing implementation by the two-month old Quat government of a 21-point military program, a 41-point non-military program, a 16-point Rowan USIS program and a 12-point CIA program. Now this new cable opens up new vistas of further points as if we can win here somehow on a point score. We are going to stall the machine of government if we do not declare a moratorium on new programs for at least six months. Next, it shows a far greater willingness to get into the ground war than I had discerned in Washington during my recent trip…
My greatest concern arises over para 6 reftel [the civil affairs experiment proposal] which frankly bewilders me. What do the authors of this cable think the mission has been doing over the months and years? We have presumably the best qualified people the Washington agencies (State, AID, DoD, USIA and CIA) can find working in the provinces seven days a week at precisely the task described in paragraph 6. Is it proposed to withdraw these people and replace them by Army civil affairs types operating on the pattern of military occupation? If this is the thought, I would regard such a change in policy which would gain wide publicity, as disastrous in its likely efforts upon pacification in general and on US/GVN relations in particular.
Mac, can't we be better protected from, our friends? I know that everyone wants to help, but there is such a thing as killing with kindness. In particular, we want to stay alive here because we think we're winning -- and will continue to win unless helped to death. 151/
Shortly after sending this cable, the Ambassador sent still a third message, this one suggesting certain steps that might be taken in Washington to facilitate his implementation of the many and rapidly changing policies and programs that had been decided upon in Washington since his visit. The problem was winning not only the acquiescence, but the support and active cooperation of the South Vietnamese government. He suggested the kind of instruction that Washington should provide him to present to the GVN -- the new policy of third country participation in ground combat. Taylor's proposed instructions are quoted in full here because they provide, for better or worse, an internally consistent rationale for the shifting policies of that month:
The USG has completed a thorough review of the situation in South Vietnam both in its national and international aspects and has reached certain important conclusions. It feels, that in recent weeks there has been a somewhat favorable change in the overall situation as the result of the air attacks on the DRV,
