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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04593 to 363-04603.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04593 to 363-04603
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Title
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Second article about the Honolulu Conference and its legacy
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Description
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Original title: "historic", Keever's title: "'It was [?]- But it was Hollow' - 1st Honolulu Conference in 1966 [?]" Article draft about the conditions, primarily militarily, behind both Honolulu Conferences. Written for the Christian Science Monitor
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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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historic 1 (normass/deepe)
(This is the second of a three-part review of developments from the
1966 Honolulu Conforones to the second one hold this weak).
SAIGON, JULI 20--The first Honolulu Conference was often described
as "historio". It wasn't. The truly historic decision had been made
several months carlier.
The
Once the American policy decision was made to commit U. S. combat
troops to Vietnam, the great watershod decision--the great dividing
line of the whole war-was then how the troops would be utilized.
decision, probably made by General William C. Westmoreland and his command
staff officers,
consisted of this choices to concentrate American units
on using American units to fight the Commist Communist main-force units-
when they were relatively the weakestor to concentrate on the Communist
infrastructure which gave them control of the count peasantry, while simply
holding off the main-force threat.
The American comma military command chose the
concentrate on the main-force war and this decision froze the whole Allied
This was to become the most critical decision
pattern of conducting the war.
made within Vietnam channels; the much-publicized decisions of Ilonolulu
were not historie in comparison; the policy enunciated at Honolulu could
and
a contradiction
.
never be strategically implemented-it became a more appendage to Westmoreland's
PARAVEL
war strategy and not a complimentary second front to it.
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historic 2 (normass/deepe)
CAME
two years hatRes
The second great watershed point of the Vietnam war who the Communist
Tet offensives
more precisely, the Tet offensive was the consequence of
Westmoreland's watershed decision.
And, Paring
requence of. Bet the Paris peace talks were the
consequence of Tot. Late JANUARY this year.
Ono knowledgeable American source explained:
"In early 1965, the American troop buildup began and then
continued to the point where the Communists could no longer overthrow
the Vietnamose government armed forces. So, by pure military presence
and firepower, the American battalions stopped the Communist advance.
"Then, there was an intellectual crisis in the American militery
circles which way to co? More and More more big-battalion operations or
the spoolf Special Forces route, of placing small groups of American
troops in the villages for security and improving the standards of living?
"But by 1965, Special Forces were disliked. They had been President
(John F.) Kennedy's special child, did Kennedy was gone and Special Forces
got kicked around. Almost as a matter of professional gravitation,
the American commend rejected the Special Foc Forces route and was sucked
into the big-unit path.
SHOULD
Strategically, the question was did Westmoreland
tay to destroy the Communist main force and let the infestano infrastructure
problem to be dealed with later and at Feris leisure?
Or did ho concentrato
on the infrastructure and merely try to hold off the m Communist main-force?
For almost emotional reasons,
concentrate on the main-force?"
the American commandors chose the main to
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Strategically, the
Communist military loadors
also faced gigantic tacks caused by the American build-up of troops, as
their captured documents now reveal. In order to succeed, they had to
follow through on at loast two fundamental principles of guerrilla
warfare. First, they had to sustain their forward momentum of their military
forces for them, "it was like riding a bicycle," one source explained.
"if they continue moving forward, they'd flop of over.
11
They sustained
this momentum with their invasion from North Vietnam, which meant
politically sacrificing thei "national liberation" image of the Southern
Viet Cond Second, they could sustain their mountin invasion and
main-force buildup only at the rate their people's base--their insurgency
movement-could support it, with Recruits, food FAND
entall
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Forst
For the Communists, they could not win the war by simply conquoring
the countrysides they had to break the will of the cities, which were the
sources and seats of Vietnamese government strength. But, for the Allies
to win, merely holding the cities was not enough; they had to roll back
the Communist grip on the countryside, and again bring Allied security
to the peasants. In simplest form, this security of the countryside
consisted of two facets. First, to provide as many geographically important
vaillges with enough forces to fend off large-scale attacks from the
these
ous outside. And second, to province provide security within each village-
that is to prevent the Communist clandestino infrastructure and gut-cor
village from collecting taxes, recruiting and
guerrillas already in t
psychological (and politically dominating his neighbors.
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This then was the backdrop of the military problems at the time of
the first Honolulu Conference, when President Lyndon Johnson and some of
his senior advisors and Cabinet members met with the Vietnamese government.
Of relevance to the countryside, the Honolulu Conference was to target
against the Communist insurgency problem in the countryside; the
assumption was that Gee General Westmoreland's main-force war would
proceed satisfactorily.
The
ef nub of the decisions at Honolu the conference were
issuedt ind idealistic terms in the famous "Declaration of Honolulu"
and the final communique. For the countryside,
the official messages
promised a social revolution,
building democracy in the rural areas,
providing rural construction while fighting,
developing a better material
life, in increasing food production and eradicating illiteracy and discess
disease.
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"At the rico roots level, the Americans did make a tremendous effort
PLEDGE,
to live up to their Honolulu plego,
lego mostly by furnishing the tools
for the Vietnamese government to finish the job. Ky of these Honolulu
ideals wore pulled together in one program the revolutionary development
program which became highly computerised and highly controversial.
had the side-effects of serving
.
The Honolulu Conference did sorve as a valuable propaganda weapon to
outside of Vietnam
war policy.
More significantly, it put the Viet Cong on the propaganda defensive
HAJ
amongst the villagers. The Viet Cong prope propagandists who once told
the peasants that American G.I.'s ato Viothanese babiesy and roasted and
ate Vietnamese babies, were incapable of explaining discredited hw whon
the peasants o saw the GI's treating their blchildren for headsores and
giving thom beefo baths and candies.
dempen the criticion against the Johnson Administration's
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historic 7 (normass/deepe)
"With the luxury of 20-20 hindsight," as one American observed,
these were the defieino deficiencies in the policies and programs
outlined in that first Honolulu Conference two and half years ago!
Ap
1. The programs did not fails they had barely been born.
one diplomat observed at the time, it should be called the 100
Hollow-lulu Conference. It was a lulu-but it was hollow." Or
"Thore was nothing wrong with the
as another source explained recently,
Honolulu decisions--but the decisions were just words.
The Allied
cation was minimal because of the distraction of the main--force war.
And the White House never intellectually acknowledged to itself that the
co only controlling element here was the American military commend (ACV).
General Westmoreland was running the war--not the Ambassador or the Vietnamess
govemment. We had a military commander, but no real loados to tie the knots
together. And MACV was geared in all one direction."
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HE
One Amorioan provincial advisor who failed to receive a special
million Et as an additional fund to get his province
request for
ticking, explained," "Everyone says nak
military ones
this is the a political and economie war as well as a
that revolutionary development is essential. But the
problem is wo don't put our mont money where our mouth is. At boat
we spend $3 billion ropest billion dollars on the non-military side of
the war-out of $26 billion dollar expenditure."
2. In to small number of assigned villages,
schools, bridges and
dispensaries were built for the people. But not until mid-1967
were Vietnamese regular battalions assigned to previn provide security
for against large outside Communist forces. At et no time was proper
attempte made to come to grips with the Communist infrastructure within
each village. So, while the villager might be able to send his child to
school, at no time did he fool fimm secure from outside Communist
attacks or free of fear of his omni neighbors so might assassinate him
for helping the government. By late 1967, the revolutionary development
program had stallod; it became apparent "you can't buy soourity,"
dispensaries books, nch and "those Christmas goodies,"
was no substitute for security-and the villagers knew it.
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A schoolhouse
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historic 9 (normass/deepe)
Now, the slogan of oft-repeated slogan of "winning the hearts and
minds of the poople" has become rephrased, "grab then by their throasts
throats and their hearts and minds will follow."
the
throughout
In short, tacticall, tactically, within each village,
program never really got off the ground; atratog strategically,
the countryside, the progren failed to re-gain the countryside from the
Comm
Communists, and honoe indirectly--but not directly-load to the Tet
to LAUNCH the ++ offens
AB.
offensive,
3. A social revolution did hit the Vietnamese countryside-but not
the one proclaimed at Honolulu, In simplest terms, the main-force war
fought by the North Vietnamese and the Americans destroyed the countryside
and the villages faster than all the lolul Honolulu converts could put it back
together. A mass rural migration flod to the cities, creating refugees
problems in the cities, Rice planters became taxi drivers in the urban centers.
All the American fertilisers and mineolol I IB-8 "miracle" rice seed
could not stop the decrease in rice procurement,
In 1967 both 1967
AS AM
and 1968, Amerion imported three times more rice to Vietnam than the once-
rico predu country once exported,
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If the Honolulu Confermece Conference of 1966 provided only peripe
periphereal answers, or non-answers, to the problems of the Vietnamese
General Westmoreland's main-force war was also bogged down
peasantry,
in statistics, mirages and self-deceptions.
At best, General Westmoreland
was applying half-measures in attempting to defeat the Communist main-force.
In black-and-white terms, the only "total" solution to the invasion
problem was hermetically sealing the borders of South Vietnam, making it
Virtually
vientually an island detached from the continent--much like the French
electric currents and half-mile-wide mifie
did with barbed wire fences,
mine fields in Algeria.
This course was rejected;
the electronic McNamara
line was but a half-step in that direction,
but it is not so much of a line
a series of outposts through which the North Vietnamese somehow manage to
squeeze through undetected. Westmoreland's strategy of using American
battalions to search and then destroy the Communist main-force became a
Lutle
During 1967, for example, two-thirds of the
ne race on a treadmill.
Communists killed by the American units were annhiliated when the Communist
chose to stand and fight-not when the Americans surprised them and forced te
the Communists were determining most of the pacing of
them to fight. Hence,
OWN
the war and their rate of attrition.
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By the end of 1967, the American command could claim that
American nanouvor battalions had pushod the Communist into the border
areas and away from the populated areas. In the year-end report of 1967,
the command rotos More enony were killed then over before. By year-
year's end, onomy military strength was at the lowest level since late
1965 or early 1966. And about 30 per cent of his monouver battalions vore
considered not combat offective." But, 29 days later, the Communist
main force unite around the country swept past the Honolulu inopirod
villages that had boon computerized as pro-govornont, and wore fighting
in 103 Vietnamese cities, district and provincial towns and ri
noarby military installations.
Tomorrows A flashbook to Honolulu *66.
(Hanks I'll filo the third article Sunday or Monday. Sorriest this
The other ono will be shortor.
one is so long, but its the most important one.
Noxt week, I plan to stay in Saigon to soo which way the wind blown on
this offensive.oto. I'll try to send you some meilors without any cabling,
excopt for foous, unless you'd like a cabled zoopager Saigon mood pieco,
status of Vietnamoso
focusing on Honolulu, Paris, Clifford, U. S. elections,
ARV Azmy oto. It will take until the end of the wock to get that pulled
tochor toghor togothor and then I could cable it. I think an airmailer would
be outdated. Please advise. Regards Bov)..
ond router
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Date
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1968, Jul. 20
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Peace; Vietnam--Foreign relations--United States; Honolulu Conference (1966 : Honolulu, Hawaii)
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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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B10, F38
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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
