Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam

by Fredrik Logevall

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, in belated acknowledgment that the principal and most immediate security threat came not from the North Vietnamese military but from the southern insurgency, now outlined a plan to fight an antiguerrilla, or counterinsurgency, war in the south. Finalized in late 1960, the strategy operated from several core assumptions, none of them new: that Diem’s government at present offered “the best hope” for defeating the Viet Cong; that Diem in fact could cope with the Communist threat provided that “necessary corrective measures were taken”; and that the United States had a vital stake in helping to eradicate the insurgency. The plan provided for an increase in the size of the South Vietnamese Army and the Civil Guard, to be financed mostly by Washington. In return for this assistance, the Saigon regime would implement a series of measures designed to achieve and maintain economic and political stability and thereby win the hearts and minds of the general population. Intelligence and counterintelligence operations would be better coordinated, and more resources would be devoted to psychological warfare and civic action programs. Overall, the scheme, which had White House support, gave continued priority to the military dimensions of the problem, much to the collective satisfaction of MAAG and the Ngo family.