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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-05424 to 363-05427.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-05424 to 363-05427
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Title
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Article about the failures of the pacification program
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Description
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Original title: "Pacification", Keever's title: "Pacification 'Program is as Impossible as Trying to Drive a Car with Square Wheels,': Saigon Official," Article about Vietnamese commanders and their American advisors failure to get the floundering pacification program back on the right track, published for North American Newspaper Alliance
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AI Usage Disclosure
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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
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Transcript
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- Page 1
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Beverly Ann Deepe
64A Hong Thap Tu
Saigon, Vietnam
November 18, 1966
Pacification--page 1
SAIGON, VIETNAM--Vietnamese commanders and their American advisors
have totally failed in the first major joint government effort in recent
months to get the floundering pacification program back on the right track.
"This whole program is as impossible as trying to drive a car
with square wheels," one high-ranking Vietnamese official explained in
disgust after the major set-back. "The Vietnamese Armed Forces since the
Manila Conference (Oct. 24-26) are supposed to be responsible for the
pacification program-but none of the Vietnamese commanders in the field
are interested in it and the Vietnamese leaders in Saigon are just
interested in political intrigue or getting rich."
High-placed officials, speaking privately, I believe that if the
pacification program fail--and it is currently failing in their view--American
bogged down in a "can't win" war in Vietnam.
will be
"The R pacification program will be the basis on which American
foreign policy about Vietnam will be made in the most next seven months,"
one high-ranking official predicted.
made in the pacification program,
"If there are not substantial gains
Washington will be tempted to seek
an accommodation with the X Communists."
(More)
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Deepe
Pacification--page 2
The major setback for the American and Vietnamese governments
in the pacification field came ten days after the Manila Conference,
Vietnamese sources revealed today. Then, on November seventh,
the Vietnamese and American governments, ☑Xxxx following a month of
joint gomaxmxhm military planning,
were to hold the first two-week
training course for an assigned enrollment of two hundred key Vietnamese
staff officers and commanders from all over Vietnam. The purpose was to
initiate a program to revamp the Vietnamese armed forces from an offensive
conventional army into one that would pacify the countryside against
Viet Cong guerrillas, 3 a eradicate the Viet Cong political cells in
each village and to regain the confidence of the rural population living
in the rear of the American-screened areas.
HAVE TAKEN
American combat troops
Take almost exclusive control of the large-scale offensive operations
against Communist "hard-hat" main force units.
(More)
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Deepe
Pacification--page 3
However, the high-ranking trainees were supposed to arrive in
Saigon on Saturday, November 5--which is a notorious bad luck day in
Vietnam, as is the twenty third day of any lunar month of the Vietnamese
calendar. It is a day in which one should stay near his home or hometown,
according to Vietnamese superstition. That's what many of the delegates
did.
The four Vietnamese corps commanders, ten division commanders and the
general reserve forces commanders were sent invitations to come to thei
inauguration of the course-but none of them he showed up.
Even worse,
each division commander was supposed to send majors and colonels to
under-go the two-week training; then they would rat re-train and re-orient
the battalions out in the field for pacification work. However, the
division commanders sent only third lieutenants, lieutenants and a handful
of captains and majors "who are the useless type," one Vietnamese officer
explained. Two hundred high-ranking delegates were scheduled to come to the
training course--but only 150 low-ranking ones appeared.
In addition, the ministeries in Saigon were supposed to send
high-ranking officers to be the instructors and lecturers for the training
course-but again, only third Mote lieutenants were sent,
according to
reliable Vietnamese sources.
(More)
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Deepe
Pacification--page 4
After such a "bad luck" beginning, the two-week training course was
a slightly more
temporarily cancelled and rescheduled for December 1,
auspicious lunar day.
TNAMESE
"We sent alot of nasty cables to the Vietnamese corps commanders,"
"The Vietnamese generals at the
one senior military source explained.
High Command were furious that they didn't obey orders.
And the American
generals and pacification experts were in a state of shock. They couldn't
believe the Vietnamese had so little interest in the pacification program,
even though they had been warned beforehand."
"By July we are supposed to have 275,000 Vietnamese regular troops
"But
trained for pacification work," the source said with exasperation.
how can we do it if they send us only third lieutenants to do the training! "
Many Vietnamese officers have voiced resentment that the Vietnamese
armed forced on the whole will be used for pacification, rather than
offensive combat operations,
which they feel makes the Vietnamese
much as the Vietnamese
an auxiliary force to the American combat troops,
were of secondary importance to the French troops during the French
Indo-China War twenty years ago.
30-
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Date
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1966, Nov. 18
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Psychological warfare; Civilians in war; United States. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. Civil Operations and Rural Development Support; Tactics
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6311
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B188, F6
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
