NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive
Many of the actions described in the succeeding paragraphs fit right into the framework of the [Pacification] plan as announced by Khanh. Wherever possible, we should tie our urgings of such actions to Khanh's own formulation of them, so that he will be carrying out a Vietnamese plan and not one imposed by the United States, [Emphasis supplied] 63/
The discussion of the situation in Vietnam began with the statement that the military tools and concepts that had been adopted were sound and adequate. But much needed to be done in terms of a more effective employment both of military forces and of the economic and civic action means already available. This improved effort might require some selective increases in the U.S. presence. These increases were not considered to be necessarily major in nature and not in contradiction to "the U.S. policy of reducing existing military personnel where South Vietnamese are in a position to assume the functions…"
No major reductions of U.S. personnel in the near future were expected, but it continued to be the basic policy that there would be gradual U.S. withdrawal from participation. This was considered to be sound because of its effect "in portraying to the U.S. and the world that we continue to regard the war as a conflict the South Vietnamese must win and take ultimate responsibility for." And along this line there was the continued hope that "substantial reductions in the numbers of U.S. military training personnel should be possible before, the end of 1965. (The language here suggested a beginning retreat from NSAM 273).
It was conceded, however, that "the situation has unquestionably been growing worse, at least since September…" Forty percent of the territory was then under the Viet Cong control or predominant influence, and twenty-two of the forty-three provinces were controlled fifty percent or more by the Viet Cong. Other indications of the continuing deterioration were that large groups of the population displayed signs of apathy and indifference, while frustration was evident within the U.S. contingent. Desertion rates within the ARVN and the Vietnamese paramilitary were particularly high and increasing -- especially in the latter. Draft-dodging was high; but the Viet Cong were recruiting energetically and effectively. The morale of the hamlet militia and of the SDC, upon which the security of the hamlets depended, was poor and falling. The position of the government within the provinces was weakening.
The machinery of political control extending from Saigon down to the hamlets had virtually disappeared following the November coup. Of forty-one incumbent province chiefs on November 1, thirty-five had been replaced. Nine provinces had had three province chiefs in three months, and one province had had four. Lesser officials had been re-
