Office of the Historian

PPS files, lot 65 D 101, “Indochina”

Memorandum by C. D. Jackson, Special Assistant to the President1

top secret
Washington, January 18, 1954.

Indo-China and Southeast Asia

At a meeting in the President’s office Saturday, January 16th, attended by The President, Secretary Dulles, General Smith, Admiral Davis, Mr. Kyes, and C. D. Jackson, General Smith initiated an extended discussion on the problems of Indo-China, Thailand, and the entire Southeast Asia area.

The upshot of the meeting was that the President directed General Smith, Roger Kyes, Admiral Radford, Allen Dulles, and C. D. Jackson to constitute themselves a group immediately to undertake an analysis of Southeast Asian problem and to produce an action plan for the area.

The President specifically stated that he considered this group a self-contained one to recommend the necessary action, and that neither NSC nor OCB need be cut in on its deliberations.

The following, in very broad terms, is the line of the discussion developed at the meeting with the President:

1.
We consider that a defeat in Indo-China could very easily be the prelude to real disaster for our side in the whole Southeast Asian area.
2.
As evidence of the importance which we attach to the Indo-Chinese struggle, this country is prepared to put up $800-million worth of military aid to France for the war in Indo-China during Fiscal ’54. and will recommend matching that sum in Fiscal ’55.
3.
Yet all are agreed that neither American dollars, nor French gallantry, nor American hardware, can achieve victory. The key to victory is dedicated participation on the part of native (Vietnam) troops in the struggle. This is not just our idea, but is the central proposal of the Navarre Plan.
4.
Despite unanimity of opinion on this score, the training of Vietnamese soldiers is precisely where things are going wrong in a big way. [Page 982] All reports, including a recent one in General Smith’s possession, indicate that the failure to train Vietnamese soldiers is a French failure, variously attributed either to French “weariness” or stubborn French military pride against accepting any outside advice on modern training methods, or sub-conscious or secret French reluctance to train native cadres who might some day turn against them.
5.
Our efforts to cope with all these problems, though large-scale and sincere, have suffered from a certain amount of scatteration and lack of coordinated area planning. Among actions now in process, or under discussion, are:
(a)
An $800-million annual military aid program to the French.
(b)
The assignment of General O’Daniel under MAAG to attempt to get the French to use U.S. Officers or to turn over to the U.S. the Vietnamese training program.
(c)
Diplomatic pressure on the French to allow us to be more than unwelcome observers on the Vietnamese training program.
(d)

The assignment of General Donovan as Ambassador to Thailand, with the idea that Thailand would constitute a bastion if Indo-China fell.2 Inherent in this move was the possibility of a Thai-Burmese-Cambodian regional defense pact, and our support thereof.

1. However, our Thai plans have never really gone beyond the geographical frontiers of Thailand, although the Thai plan was originally conceived of as an area plan using Thailand as a secure, sympathetic-to-the-U.S. base.

(e)

Consideration of replacing Ambassador Heath by someone more experienced in this kind of problem and less susceptible to French neuroses.

. . . . . . .

(g)

Similarly, to break through French stubborn refusal to permit guerrilla training for current use in Indo-China.

1. Here we not only have French trouble, but also a U.S. problem, in that real guerrilla training and operation seems to fall somewhere betweenCIA and Defense, and as JFD has said, “there exists an unfilled gap in our machinery to handle guerrilla activities”.

(h)
A variety of ideas to use General Erskine,3 General Van Fleet, in various capacities in this work.
6.
The President wants the group to pull all of this together and come up with a plan in specific terms, covering who does what and with which and to whom. He made the specific point that what was really lacking was an area plan, including the possible alternative lines of action to be taken in case of a reverse in Indo-China, or elsewhere in the area.

C.D. Jackson
  1. This memorandum was directed to Allen Dulles, the Director of Central Intelligence; Roger Kyes, the Deputy Secretary of Defense; Admiral Radford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Under Secretary of State Smith.↩
  2. For documentation on this subject, see volume xii.↩
  3. Gen. Graves B. Erskine, USMC (ret.), Director of the Office of Special Operations, Department of Defense.↩