1. American estimates in Graham A. Cosmas, MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Escalation, 1962-1967, Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 2006, p. 203; and John Prados, Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2009, p. 116.
2. Authorization on ground troops in Herbert Y. Schandler, The Unmaking of a President: Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam, Princ-eton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977, p. 27. Troop numbers can be found in Robert D. Schulzinger, A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975, New York and Oxford, MA: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 183.
3. William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976, p. 175.
4. As quoted in Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954-1975, Merle L. Pribbenow, trans., Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2002, p. 154. For an
overview of Hanoi’s strategy, see David W. P. Elliott, “Hanoi’s Strategy in the Second Indochina War,” Jayne S. Werner and Luu Doan Huynh, eds., The Vietnam War: Vietnamese and American Per-spectives, Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1993, pp. 79-83; and Wil-liam J. Duiker, Sacred War: Nationalism and Revolution in a Divided Vietnam, Boston, MA: McGraw Hill, 1995, pp. 179-184.
5. Westmoreland directive, September 17, 1965, in John M.
Carland, “Winning the Vietnam War: Westmoreland’s Approach in Two Documents,” The Journal of Military History, Vol. 68, No. 2, April 2004, p. 558.
6. Westmoreland to Brigadier General James L. Collins, Jr., cable MAC 0117, January 7, 1966, Historian’s Files, Pacification Overview/Conclusions Folder, Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort Leslie J. McNair. (Hereafter cited as CMH).
7. Pacification defined in Larry Cable, Unholy Grail: The US and the Wars in Vietnam, 1965–8, London, United Kingdom (UK):
Routledge, 1991, p. 132. The essays found in Franklin Mark Osan-ka, Modern Guerrilla Warfare, New York: The Free Press of Glen-coe, 1962, are characteristic of contemporary authors—many of them military officers—who sought to use past counterinsurgen-cy operations as a tool for understanding the growing conflict in Southeast Asia.
8. Chester L. Cooper et al., “The American Experience with Pacification in Vietnam, Vol. III: History of Pacification,” March 1972, Folder 65, pp. 206-207, U.S. Marine Corps History Divi-sion, Vietnam War Documents Collection, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX. Command History, United States Military Assistance Command, 1966, Entry MACJ03, Box 3, RG 472, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD, p. 501.
9. Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency, 1966;
St. Petersburg, FL: Hailer Publishing, 2005, pp. 55. Thompson would later criticize the American effort for its “lack of control”
in coordinating pacification programs. See Robert Thompson, No Exit from Vietnam, New York: David McKay, 1969, p. 157.
10. Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 31–16, Coun-terguerrilla Operations, Washington, DC: Department of the Army, February 1963, p. 31. On alluring analogies, see Richard E. Neus-tadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, New York: The Free Press, 1988, p. 48.
11. Colonel Wilson quoted in Robert W. Komer, Orga-nization and Management of the “New Model” Pacification Pro-gram—1966-1969, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1970, p. 17. On lack of coordination among agencies, see John Schlight, ed., The Second Indochina War: Proceedings of a Symposium Held at Airlie, Virginia, 7–9 November 1984, Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1986, p. 127; and George C. Herring, LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1994, p. 69.
12. McNamara quoted in Douglas S. Blaufarb, The Coun-terinsurgency Era: U.S. Doctrine and Performance, 1950 to Present, New York: The Free Press, 1977, pp. 234-235. On the Honolulu Conference, see Cosmas, p. 353.
13. The term “revolutionary development,” broadly de-fined, included the key tasks of population security and nation-building programs. Jeffrey J. Clarke, Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965–1973, Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1988, p. 172.
14. PROVN report in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Rela-tions of the United States, 1966, Vol. IV, Washington, DC: U.S. Gov-ernment Printing Office, 1985, p. 596. (Hereafter cited as FRUS.) See also Andrew J. Birtle, “PROVN, Westmoreland, and the His-torians: A Reappraisal,” The Journal of Military History, Vol. 72, No. 4, October 2008, pp. 1213–1247.
15. Robert M. Montague, “Pacification: The Overall Strategy in South Vietnam,” Student Essay, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1966, p. 5, in Robert M. Montague Papers, Box 1, U.S.
Army Military History Institute. On Westmoreland’s views, see
“Command Emphasis on Revolutionary Development/Civic Ac-tion Programs,” October 22, 1966, in Robert E. Lester, ed., The War in Vietnam: The Papers of William C. Westmoreland, Bethesda, MD: University Publications of America, 1993, text-fiche, Reel 7, Folder 10, October 18-29, 1966; “Strategic Guidelines for 1967 in
Vietnam,” December 14, 1966, Reel 18, CSA (W.C.W.) Statements Folder, October-December 1966; and U. S. Grant Sharp and Wil-liam C. Westmoreland, Report on the War in Vietnam, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969, p. 132.
16. On the single manager concept, see Cosmas, p. 357; for embassy fears, see Herring, pp. 77-78.
17. On OCO evolution, see Richard A. Hunt, Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds, Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1995, pp. 82-84; Thomas W. Scoville, Reorganiz-ing for Pacification Support, WashReorganiz-ington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1999, pp. 44-46; and Schlight, p. 131.
18. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 255. On the inability of a civilian-led program to cope, see Dale Andrade and James H. Willbanks, “CORDS/Phoenix: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Vietnam for the Future,” Military Review, Vol. 86, No. 2, March-April 2006, p. 12.
19. Cosmas, p. 354; Scoville, p. 54.
20. National Security Action Memorandum No. 362, May 9, 1967, FRUS, 1967, Vol. 398.
21. “Structure of US Mission” showing position of CORDS, May 1967, quoted in The Ultimate Book of Quotations, compiled and edited by Joseph Demakis, Raleigh, NC: Lulu Enterprises, 2012, p. 50.
22. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 260. On the “Single manager” concept, see Komer, Organization and Management of the “New Model” Pacification Program, p. 55. For background on Komer, see Frank L. Jones, “Blowtorch: Robert Komer and the Making of Vietnam Pacification Policy,” Parameters, Vol. 35, No. 3, Autumn 2005, pp. 103–118. On CORDS responsibilities, see Hunt, pp. 89-90.
23. “Organization of Assistant Chief of Staff for CORDS,”
quoted in The Ultimate Book of Quotations, compiled and edited by Joseph Demakis, Raleigh, NC: Lulu Enterprises, 2012, p. 50.
24. R. W. Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Con-straints on U.S.-GVN Performance in Vietnam, Santa Monica, CA:
RAND, 1972, p. 115. On CORDS staff, see Scoville, pp. 66-67; and Cosmas, p. 361.
25. CORDS programs in Schlight, p. 133; and Hunt, pp. 90-94.
26. Corps organization in Hunt, p. 94; Civilian and military advisor numbers in Cooper et al., p. 271.
27. John H. Cushman, “Pacification: Concepts Developed in the Field by the RVN 21st Infantry Division,” Army, Vol. 16, No. 3, March 1966, p. 26. While Cushman’s experiences pre-dat-ed CORDS, the requirements of pacification had not changpre-dat-ed between 1966 and 1967.
28. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 260. For numbers of officials in CORDS, see Herring, p. 81.
29. Blaufarb, p. 240; Herring, p. 64.
30. On problems measuring the progress of pacification, see Gregory A. Daddis, No Sure Victory: Measuring U.S. Army Ef-fectiveness and Progress in the Vietnam War, Oxford, MA: Oxford University Press, 2011, Chap. 5.
31. Command History, United States Military Assistance Command, 1967, Entry MACJ03, Box 5, RG 472, NARA, p. 317. On CORDS bringing no major conceptual innovations, see Thomas L. Ahern, Jr., Vietnam Declassified: The CIA and Counterinsurgency, Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2010, p. 241.
Cross purposes within U.S. operations in Marc Jason Gilbert,
“The Cost of Losing the ‘Other War’ in Vietnam,” Marc Jason Gil-bert, ed., Why the North Won the Vietnam War, New York: Palgrave, 2002, p. 179.
32. Cooper et al., p. 273. Similarly, one former intelligence officer complained that “counterinsurgency in Vietnam empha-sized military considerations over political ones, enforcement of
‘physical security’ over more subtle questions of social change and psychological loyalties.” David G. Marr, “The Rise and Fall of
‘Counterinsurgency’: 1961-1964,” Senator Maurice Robert “Mike”
Gravel, ed., The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking in Vietnam [5 Vols.], Boston, MA:
Beacon Press, 1971–1972, p. 203. See also CORDS failing to come to grips with fundamental problems in Herring, p. 87.
33. Komer, Organization and Management, pp. 246-247.
PART III:
U.S.-ALLIED COMBINED COMMANDS AND ORGANIZATIONS
CHAPTER 9