Losing Vietnam (2 page)

The conflict in South Vietnam greatly affected many of the Southeast Asian nations. In fact, the wars in South Vietnam and Cambodia were always intermingled. Both countries were fighting a common enemy. The deputy commanders of the two armed forces met face to face on a monthly basis to exchange information and intelligence and to ensure cooperation when necessary. In 1970, when the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong (NVA/VC) attacked the Cambodian armed forces, it was obvious that the United States would have to initiate actions to prevent the communists from taking over Cambodia, which would have been very detrimental to the ongoing Vietnamization efforts in South Vietnam. Consequently, the United States organized and equipped the Cambodian armed forces. Concurrently the NVA initiated efforts to organize and field Khmer communist units. For several years the fledgling Cambodian army fought the communists to a standstill—until, as in South Vietnam, Congress drastically reduced its funding for Cambodia.

These severe congressional reductions portended the ultimate defeats of both South Vietnam and Cambodia, and although the warning signs of potential collapses were definitely evident and reported by USSAG, they were generally ignored by superior headquarters. Both countries were doomed—abandoned by the United States' lack of financial support and resolve.

The purpose of this book is to relate the major circumstances leading to the defeats of South Vietnam and Cambodia and to discuss the U.S. military's withdrawals from Laos and Thailand as well as to indicate the value of analytical studies to quantify elusive facets of combat, providing responsible commanders with a basis for decision making to improve military operations. The material contained herein was taken from information and data on hand at Headquarters USSAG, during the period 1973–1975 and is considered to be of historical significance.

As USSAG deputy commander, I was the recipient of the early flow of all Southeast Asia operational reports, reconnaissance activities, and electronic intercepts. I also conducted frequent visits with the senior military echelons of South Vietnam and Cambodia. Consequently, it is believed that as much as anyone, I was in a position to assess the conflicts in Southeast Asia.

It was with great anticipation that the people of the United States heralded the “Agreement in Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam”—the so-called cease-fire agreement. Most Americans, myself included, thought that this agreement was the prelude to a stable and lasting peace. I, for one, tried to put the Vietnam War out of mind. The newspapers and television journalists would occasionally cover stories concerning the continuing conflict between the South and North Vietnamese; however, the extent of the ongoing cease-fire violations did not fully register with me. So, in the late summer of 1973 when I was made USSAG deputy commander, to be stationed at the Royal Thai Nakhon Phanom Airbase in northeast Thailand, the successor to the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), which had the responsibility for supervising U.S. contributions to the wars, I had to get up to speed on the situation in Southeast Asia.

I received a thorough joint staff briefing at the Pentagon; this included the situations in Cambodia, South Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand as well as North Vietnamese logistics. There were also operations and air force briefings and a joint conference at the state department with the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and others.

At my Pentagon briefings I learned of two subjects that required looking into. One, Cambodians were apparently utilizing too much artillery with respect to the funding authorizations, an indication that the Pentagon was already concerned about the adequacy of Southeast Asia funding. Two, the North Vietnamese were stating that the South Vietnamese were habitually violating the cease-fire agreement. A recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff study noted: “Lack of respect for the Agreement is so widespread that it is impossible to apportion
responsibility for the continued fighting.” Which side was initiating the armed conflicts? For propaganda purposes, in their regular weekly news conferences the Viet Cong (VC) always brought up the subject of South Vietnam's cease-fire violations. For example, as late as 20 August 1974, Col. Vo Dong Giang, deputy chief of the VC military delegation to the Two-Party Joint Military Commission, said, “It was obvious that the U.S. Government continues to help Thieu to prolong the war of aggression against South Vietnam.” He claimed that from 16–20 August 1974, the Saigon government had committed four thousand cease-fire violations—including 664 land-grabbing operations, 2,593 police and pacification operations, 219 shellings, and 216 bombings, and reconnaissance—bringing the total number of violations since January 1973 up to 428,165.
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By any type of reckoning, this was an amazing number of cease-fire violations, and it clearly showed that the war had never ended. The cease-fire agreement prohibited all acts of force and hostile acts; both sides were to avoid armed conflict and refrain from using the territory of Cambodia and Laos to encroach upon the security of one another. North Vietnam blatantly violated almost all aspects of the cease-fire agreement.

When the cease-fire agreement was signed on 28 January 1973, and U.S. combat forces were evacuated from South Vietnam, many of the responsibilities of MACV were assigned to the USSAG, which was joined with the U.S. Seventh Air Force (USSAG/7AF). It was a multiservice integrated staff established under a U.S. Air Force commander with a U.S. Army deputy. Our headquarters was under the operational control of the commander in chief of the Pacific (CINCPAC), and its mission
³
was five-fold: to plan for the resumption of an effective air campaign in Southeast Asia; to establish and maintain liaison with South Vietnamese armed forces (RVNAF) joint general staff (JGS); to exercise command over the Chief, Defense Resource Support, and Termination Office, Saigon, usually known as the Defense Attaché Office (DAO); to exercise operational control of all U.S. forces and military agencies that might be assigned for the accomplishment of its mission (this occurred for the evacuations of Phnom Penh and Saigon and the recovery of the
Mayaguez
); and to supervise the Joint Casualty and Resolution Center activities, resolving the status of those dedicated servicemen who were missing in action.
⁴

Headquarters USSAG/7AF was established in northeast Thailand at the Royal Thai Air Force Base, a few miles west of the Mekong River town of Nakhon Phanom, slightly north of the parallel delineating the Vietnam demilitarized zone. During its participation in South Vietnam, the United States had constructed a modern facility with the most advanced computer and electronic capabilities for the purpose of monitoring the millions of electronic intrusion devices placed below the demilitarized zone to detect North Vietnamese infiltration. This large, windowless building was dubbed the “Little Pentagon.” With its communications, it was tailor-made to control air force units stationed in Thailand—which in January 1973 were supporting the Cambodian armed forces (FANK) with close air support—and, in fact, was the primary reason FANK could withstand the communist attack on Phnom Penh that summer. However, on 15 August 1973 Congress passed a law terminating all combat air operations in Southeast Asia.
⁵
There remained, however, the important aerial reconnaissance missions and search and rescue operations in Southeast Asia and adjacent waters, the former being conducted to provide indicators of communist intentions and capabilities. In compliance with the peace agreement, unarmed aircraft carried out these aerial reconnaissance activities, which were essential for providing intelligence.

The Royal Thai Air Force Base at Nakhon Phanom (NKP) was a busy airfield. The U.S. Air Force had several squadrons stationed there, and, of course, there was also Headquarters USSAG/7AF. Nakhon Phanom was a hotbed of activity—50 percent of the population favored North Vietnam. The only landmark, located in the town center, was the Ho Chi Minh Tower, a clock tower donated by North Vietnam. Nakhon Phanom was located across the Mekong River from the Laotian town of Thakhek. Located in Thailand in juxtaposition to Laos with responsibilities in Cambodia and South Vietnam, Headquarters USSAG was totally involved in Southeast Asia (see
map 1
). I looked forward to this assignment, having served in South Vietnam before. When I was division chief of staff, the Thai component in the Vietnam War, the Queen's Cobra infantry regiment, was attached to the unit, and its
liaison officer, Major Narong, whom I had seen almost daily, was now a member of the ruling triumvirate in Thailand. I was also very familiar with the Vietnamese JGS. Brig. Gen. Tran Dinh Tho, the J-3, was a very good friend. So I wasted no time in getting to NKP. The USSAG commander, U.S. Air Force (USAF) General Timothy O'Keefe, was one of the finest officers I ever met. At the time there were ten general or flag officers assigned, and we had over 425 personnel—more than 350 assigned to USSAG and about seventy-five assigned to the Seventh Air Force. The airbase was a restricted area, requiring clearance to visit, so there were few interruptions—our headquarters was focused.

Map 1. Southeast Asia. (Source: Headquarters USSAG, Nakhon Phanom, Thailand.)

The U.S. military assistance objectives in the Republic of Vietnam, to be carried out by the DAO, were to “help to achieve and maintain the stable balanced conditions necessary to ensure peace in Indochina and Southeast Asia; assist in the development of an increasingly effective government responsive to the South Vietnamese people's needs and wishes; support a balanced Republic of Vietnam armed force of sufficient size, strength, and professionalism to counter the principal threat facing South Vietnam; and contribute to the healing of the wounds of war and the postwar reconstruction and rehabilitation of South Vietnam.”
⁶

Unquestionably, these objectives were related to circumstances well beyond U.S. control. Obviously, when they were made public, the Pentagon envisioned that the Vietnamese parties would undertake to maintain the cease-fire and ensure a lasting and stable peace, not a de facto state of war. In reality, the military assistance objectives boiled down to just one: to support balanced Republic of Vietnam armed forces. That support depended directly upon the receipt of sufficient congressionally approved funding to ensure the maintenance and replacement of essential military equipment and to procure necessary supplies, particularly ammunition and petroleum, to enable the country to counter the North Vietnamese threat.

To provide that support was a huge undertaking; consequently the DAO was a major operation. Not only did it support the 1.1 million-man RVNAF, but it had to provide housekeeping activities for the approximately sixty-five hundred U.S. personnel associated with the mission. There were about four thousand direct-hire and contract employees and twenty-five hundred U.S. citizen dependents. Additionally,
the total local national workforce exceeded twenty thousand personnel. The DAO had personnel scattered throughout South Vietnam, but its main effort was in a compound at Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base in Saigon.
⁷

The DAO's internal budget was about $40 million, and it had an authorized strength of about 940 personnel. It was a huge, busy organization. Maj. Gen. John Murray was the first defense attaché and was succeeded by Maj. Gen. Homer Smith in September 1974. Both were extremely competent managers and outstanding logisticians. The DAO people were dedicated, hard-working personnel and they provided superior support to the RVNAF.

I knew that to properly assess the situation in South Vietnam in 1973 I needed to analyze the capabilities of both the South and North Vietnamese armed forces. It was also essential that I learn how the military situation had changed since I had left South Vietnam in 1969—particularly with respect to the Vietnamization program and the major 1972 all-out North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Easter campaign. What follows, then, is an update on friendly and communist capabilities: their relative manpower; the North Vietnamese infiltration of supplies and equipment; a review of the South Vietnamese Air Force, Navy, and Army armor and artillery capabilities; and the key U.S. funding situation, to include the effects of the worldwide oil-induced inflation on South Vietnam. Only after understanding these elements could I answer the important question “How does the RVNAF stack up against the NVA/VC?”

In late 1973, the intelligence section of the South Vietnamese joint general staff (J-2) produced a study entitled “Communists' Assessment of the RVNAF.”
⁸
In wartime, it is always important to know the enemy, and this enemy's perceptions of the RVNAF were crucial for our understanding of enemy tactics. Although intelligence-gathering
necessarily includes considering all sources of inputs, the J-2 study relied primarily on official enemy reports and assessment records on the spirit and combat capabilities of the RVNAF published by communist technical agencies, which were very difficult to acquire because they were classified as VN ABSOLUTE SECRET. However, since there were continuous leaks of important classified information from both sides throughout the conflict, this material was often available.