US Special Forces and Counterinsurgency in Vietnam

Military Innovation and Institutional Failure, 1961-63

Christopher K. Ives

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2007
• eBook ISBN: 9781134145843
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This volume examines US Army Special Forces efforts to mobilize and train indigenous minorities in Vietnam.

Christopher K. Ives shows how before the Second Indochina War, the Republic of Vietnam had begun to falter under the burden of an increasingly successful insurgency. The dominant American military culture could not conform to President Kennedy's guidance to wage 'small wars', while President Diem's provincial and military structures provided neither assistance nor security. The Green Berets developed and executed effective counterinsurgency tactics and operations with strategic implications while living, training, and finally fighting with the Montagnard peoples in the Central Highlands. Special Forces soldiers developed and executed what needed to be done to mobilize indigenous minorities, having assessed what needed to be known.

Combining Clausewitz, business theory and strategic insight, this book provides an important starting point for thinking about how the US military should be approaching the problems of today's 'small wars'.

US Special Forces and Counterinsurgency in Vietnam will be of much interest to students of the Vietnam War, Special Forces operations, military innovation and strategic theory in general.

1 Crossbows to carbines

President Kennedy and his administration had decided that a counterinsurgency strategy provided the best chance of supporting the embattled government of South Vietnam in 1961. Several events influenced the President and a handful of advisors to direct the adoption of a strategy that they hoped would combine civic and humanitarian action with political and military efforts. Counterinsurgency concepts and operations were poorly understood. But the anonymously referenced “playing Batman in the boondocks” was often a topic of discussions in Saigon and Washington. One day in early November 1961 the substance of what became known as counterinsurgency came down to one US Army Special Forces medical sergeant, in civilian clothes, driving a jeep into the Central Highlands to see if he could help some of the indigenous highlanders, the Montagnards. US Army Special Forces soldiers were the catalyst for a Counterinsurgency experiment in South Vietnam’s sugged Central Highlands.

Kennedy formed the Special Group (Counterinsurgency) as a National Security Council committee on January 18 1962. National Security Action Memorandum No. 124 established Special Group (Counterinsurgency) ‘‘to assure unity of effort and the use of all available resources with maximum effectiveness in preventing and resisting subversive insurgency and related forms of indirect aggression in friendly countries.’’ Members of the Special Group included the president’s military representative, the Attorney General, the Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director of the CIA, the President’s National Security Advisor, the Administrator of the Agency for International Development, and the Director of the US Information Agency. The president also directed Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara to look into the matter. President Kennedy had publicly spoken on the need for counterinsurgency capabilities and wanted defense and other agencies to ‘‘examine means for placing more emphasis on the development of counter-guerrilla forces.’’¹

The executive decision came in the wake of international security pressures felt by the new President and his fledgling administration. One influence was the furor, inside the government and from public opinion, over the spectacularly unsuccessful Bay of Pigs operation directed at Cuba and Castro.² Another influence was the Soviet Union’s declaration of an open venue of conflict through ‘‘wars of national liberation.’’ General Taylor, President Kennedy’s military advisor, had called for a new strategic doctrine of flexible response. In his 1960 book The Uncertain Trumpet, Taylor advocated a range of military capabilities to deal with security challenges short of general war, citing contemporary Cold War confrontations in Laos and Berlin.³ The unraveling of the uneasy peace in Laos and its subsequent neutralization – where a mixed American advisory effort from the military and Central Intelligence Agency had supplanted the French – brought about another potential lever on American behavior. Taken together, these pressures buttressed the Kennedy administration’s position to support the Diem regime in South Vietnam for both domestic and international policy reasons. The ground truth in South Vietnam also forced the requirements for a counterinsurgency strategy on Americans aiding the increasingly embattled government.

Distrust and enmity generally characterized the relationship between these sturdy mountain peoples and the Vietnamese. Diem regime policies that resettled Vietnamese into the Central Highlands created tension as provincial administrators abrogated some traditional rights of the highlanders. The American-led pilot program in self-defense became the Village Defense Program. What were the tactical and operational variables involved in mobilizing these minorities? How did the variables of this experiment interact? How did the experiment grow to include other paramilitary activity? By the end of 1962, had this experiment succeeded? Success in this experiment – consistent with the regions’ past experiences between the highland’s indigenous communities and foreigners – would bring even greater exposure to the growing conflict in South Vietnam.

A security dilemma in the mountains

Late in 1961 two Americans walked into the Rhade Montagnard village of Buon Enao. One of the men carried a canvas medical bag over his shoulder. Both were in civilian clothes and unarmed. The man with the medical kit was Paul Campbell. Campbell had almost a decade of experience in the care and treatment of the medical problems of lesser developed countries.⁴

Buon Enao consisted then of fifteen or twenty thatched longhouses. Built on pilings in the Rhade way, the elevated houses would keep animals out of the dwellings and weather floods well. There were no younger men present, but some of the village’s women and children, a shaman, and the village elder watched the Americans. David Nuttle, an International Volunteer Services (IVS) official working on an agricultural project and Campbell’s companion, spoke to the village elder. Campbell recalled that the the IVS project aimed ‘‘to improve living facilities, agricultural facilities and medical facilities’’ of the Montagnards.⁵ In the Rhade dialect Nuttle explained that Campbell had medicines and medical skills and would look at any sick villagers. The elder’s daughter, a frail girl in black pajamas, was ill with a fever.⁶

Campbell examined the girl as the shaman looked on. Campbell, through Nuttle, told the shaman that he possessed medicine that might help the girl. It would work only if the shaman helped administer it using his strong, personal medicine. The Rhade were animists, and propitiation to the spirits for significant events was common. Perhaps they made a sacrifice of a chicken, examined its entrails. Campbell gave the girl an injection of antibiotics. As Campbell reflected later:

The little girl with the black pajamas is probably who can be blamed for either the success or failure whatever you want to look at it of the whole Buon Enao concept. She was the little girl who was sick, who I treated and finally got well.⁷

Over the next several weeks these two Americans looked at, and Campbell treated, other Rhade in Buon Enao and other villages in the hamlet. The little girl, and most others, got well.⁸

This simple act of compassion and duty helped forge a bond of trust between the Rhade of Buon Enao and the Americans. The program, which would grow in part from the Campbell experience, involved US Army Special Forces, the South Vietnamese, Rhade and other Montagnard communities and many elements of the US Mission in Vietnam. The appellation ‘‘Peace Corps with guns,’’ sometimes chuckled over by Special Forces veterans, would come to characterize the contribution of these unique soldiers to this war.⁹

Campbell determined from his visits and conversations with Rhade village elders and other Montagnards that insurgents – the Viet Cong – pressured these people and their communities. The Montagnards mostly armed themselves with bamboo spears. South Vietnamese authorities largely disarmed highlanders, taking their crossbows, in the late 1950s after protests over government-sponsored migration into the Central Highlands of ethnic Vietnamese. Colonel Gilbert Layton, who had funded Nuttle’s efforts around Ban Me Thuot and sent Campbell up there, determined that a villagebased program might keep the Montagnards out of insurgent control or influence.¹⁰

Assessment, assistance, and trust

US Army Colonel Gilbert Layton took a chance. Layton –who dealt with the Central Intelligence Agency and the South Vietnamese Presidential Survey Office from his position in the MAAG’s Combined Studies Division, J3 (joint operations directorate) in South Vietnam – sent Sergeant First Class Campbell into the remote villages and hamlets of Darlac province, near Ban Me Thout. Highlander communities found themselves caught between the Vietnamese in-migration and the insurgents. These highlands bordered Laos and Cambodia and were routes for infiltration from the north. One assessment found that ‘‘about 80% of the land is mountainous and comprises the home of the Montagnards; as a result, whomever the Montagnards supported held an excellent chance to control the whole region.’’¹¹ Colonel Layton seized an opportunity to establish a defensive presence in the highlands. The experiment that became the Village Defense Program began in November 1961, in Vietnam’s Central Highlands. Although begun at almost the same time as the better-known Strategic Hamlet Program, Layton’s initiative in the highlands was very different.

Establishing rapport

Colonel Layton provided some funds for Nuttle’s agricultural projects in Darlac province in July 1961. After visiting the district capital of Ban Me Thuot, Layton talked to some of his Vietnamese intelligence contacts about the area. A small medical program for Rhade Montagnards grew out of Campbell’s visit to Buon Enao and other villages in the vicinity. In October, Layton and Nuttle met often with Buon Enao’s leaders. The Americans explained the need for Rhade cooperation. Among other things, villagers would receive arms, training, and assistance in village defense. Cooperation involved the Rhade denouncing the Viet Cong – the South Vietnamese derisive term for communist insurgents – and declaring support for the government.¹²

Insurgents had attacked and occupied a village near Buon Enao in late October 1961. This attack lent urgency to Rhade consideration and commitment. November saw the arrival at Buon Enao of the first Montagnard volunteers. Training began after these volunteers formally mustered in under the Republic of Vietnam flag then declared their opposition to the Viet Cong and support for the government. Initially these Montagnards learned how to construct defensive shelters for the protection of their villages. Trainers taught them how militarily to use arms, first with their few traditional crossbows and bamboo spears, then with American surplus arms like the M-1 carbine. The volunteers built an enclosure around Buon Enao, which became a training center. Seven men of Special Forces Operational Detachment (ODA) A-35 and ten of their Vietnamese counterparts – nine of whom were either Rhade or Jarai Montagnards – began arming and organizing these first volunteers on December, 3 1961.¹³

The mission of this combined Special Forces element called for arming and training these volunteers to return home able to defend their families and villages. Astrike force formed soon. It would provide an immediate reaction capability for any village attacked and in danger of being overrun. With the security of Buon Enao established, these volunteers began to extend a secure area to forty or so other villages within ten to fifteen kilometers of Buon Enao. The province chief of Darlac was a part of this decision. He also allowed the substitution of new activities run by Americans, instead of Vietnamese, to help the Montagnards develop education and medical aid centers. Planned Vietnamese government programs had not gotten off the ground because of insurgent presence in the province.¹⁴ In Buon Enao and its environs, around Christmas 1961, what had been a problematic security situation changed. The Rhade had learned to protect themselves (see Map 2).¹⁵

Montagnard volunteers soon put aside their few crossbows and spears and picked up American carbines. In addition to marksmanship, the program of instruction included the skills of ambush, counter-ambush, and patrolling. The South Vietnamese province chief of Darlac had approved the concept. One assessment found that

the GVN [Government of Vietnam] could not protect the villagers from the VC, failed to fulfill its promises to the tribesmen, was distributing Montagnard lands to Vietnamese and aiding the Vietnamese settlers and finally, medical and educational aid had been discontinued because of VC activities.¹⁶

American Special Forces soldiers and their ARVN counterparts trained Rhade cadres to conduct these lessons, serving then only as advisors.¹⁷ At the same time, civic and humanitarian action schemes began with Special Forces soldiers and their participation was the catalyst.¹⁸

Non-combat multipliers

Montagnard civic action teams went into the villages teaching the use of simple tools and more efficient farming methods. Medics like Sergeant First Class Campbell started a program to train Montagnard village health workers or nurses. These trained highlanders helped initiate medical coverage. Clinic construction began in some villages. These measures met with widespread Rhade support. New volunteers and more villages asked for help and renounced the insurgents. ‘‘ ‘Within the first week the [Rhade] tribesmen were lining up at the front gate to get into the program,’ ’’ according to one Special Forces sergeant. ‘‘ ‘We didn’t have to do much recruiting. Word spread fast from village to village.’ ’’ Villages, once fully mobilized and trained, became Area Development Centers (ADCs), linking defense and development actions. Together with strike forces – to serve as immediate reaction forces to help villages or hamlets in trouble – ADCs would help spread stability.¹⁹ These Montagnard actions spoke loudly in support of the success of what had become the Village Defense Program.²⁰

Village elders swore allegiance to the Saigon government and vouched for the loyalty of each volunteer. Suspected Viet Cong sympathizers who volunteered found themselves often denounced by their neighbors. Indigenous leaders rehabilitated these agents in an innovative program. Their rehabilitation efforts split the former agents’ time between building new homes in secure villages and political re-indoctrination. Some 80 percent of these suspected insurgents renounced the war against their people and the government. There were no escapes.²¹

The vulnerability of Rhade communities was a real problem for the Saigon regime. Discussions among Colonel Layton and his South Vietnamese counterparts

revealed that the GVN could not protect the villages from the VC, failed to fulfill its promises to the tribesmen, was distributing Montagnard lands to Vietnamese and aiding the Vietnamese settlers and finally, medical and educational aid had been discontinued because of VC activities.²²

The number and status of outreach programs initiated provided essential measures of effectiveness or metrics. Were government programs available and did these function? Not until Layton saw the potential for reaching out to the Montagnard communities. Critical programs included local security as well as health, education, and economic development. If these programs were not present or could not begin or function because of insurgent threats and violence, then an area and its population needed attention. Either the Saigon government would mobilize these areas and their populations or the insurgents would. Colonel Layton’s analysis of the security situation in the highlands found opportunity and challenge.²³

Forty other hamlets and villages around Buon Enao mobilized after the initial group of volunteers received arms and training. This extended the reach of affected Montagnards ten to fifteen kilometers around the first defended areas. At this time, a split team – half of an A-team – arrived from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for a six-month tour of temporary duty.²⁴ The balance of ODA A-35 deployed to Buon Enao in February 1962. With the increase in Special Forces personnel, mobilization expanded to reach another forty villages and hamlets. Montagnard cadre conducted the training with the Americans acting in an advisory capacity.

Additional Special Forces manpower, applied to mobilization and training efforts, increased Montagnard acceptance and trust. Tables of organization and equipment documents did not exist for this sort of village-based self-defense, so the Special Forces team based organization on local requirements. Unusual support channels facilitated this organizational flexibility. The CIA – through the Combined Studies Division – provided all classes of supply from outside of ARVN or Military Advisory and Assistance Group channels. Support ranged from food, medical supplies, indigenous-sized uniforms and Bata boots. Other support measures included money to pay for local goods and services such as labor.

Military civic action began in mobilized villages and hamlets. Indigenous health workers received training from Special Forces medics – themselves graduates of intensive, year-long programs and virtually the equivalents of physician’s assistants – and began to conduct sick calls for previously unserved Montagnard communities. ‘‘Community development’’ also included ‘‘two six man Montagnard extension teams [that] trained the villagers in crop care, simple tool making and blacksmithing.’’ These efforts also attracted more Montagnard interest in as yet unmobilized villages and hamlets.²⁵

Other training centers opened around Buon Enao and began to take advantage of growing Montagnard interest and increased local security. Between December 1961 and April 1962, 972 village defenders received training as well as an additional 300 strike force members. As Special Forces assets became available, they established other ADCs in and around the hamlets of Buon Ho, Buon Krong, Ea Ana, Lac Tien, and Buon Tah. Area Development Centers provided the focal points for mobilization and training among the Montagnards as well as humanitarian civic action and limited psychological operations. These ADCs had several missions:

(a) establish a base c...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• US Special Forces and Counterinsurgency in Vietnam
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Series editor’s preface
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Crossbows to carbines
• 2 Combatants and continuities
• 3 Contexts, doctrines, and discontinuities
• 4 Counterinsurgency in Vietnam
• 5 Choosing the wrong trails
• 6 Threatened hamlets and bad advice
• 7 Operational innovation, institutional failure
• Appendix
• Notes
• Select bibliography