Okay, Bob. Could you…? Go ahead, just, you know the subject is. The areas to pacified, what were the problems in dealing with them.

Well, in, in Vietnam we were uh very involved in the pacification effort uh as you know. Uh we uh attempted uh to lay out a plan for pacifying uh the entire uh country. Uh we weren't uh interested only in uh pacifying the delta or uh the northern provinces but rather uh we had worked uh in conjunction with the uh Republic of uh Vietnam and the leaders of the Republic uh a plan that uh really visualized uh pacifying uh all of the hamlets, and there's sixty four hundred of them, uh over a long extended period of time.

No one, you know, really set up a precise time table when it would all be over but, you know, you always looked uh for victory and uh we uh saw victory uh as the uh you know the reduction of the capability of the Viet Cong uh and uh the uh really disengagement of uh support from, from North Vietnam. I know that all sounds very simplistic, I know, but uh at least that's the way you know I thought of victory because I was always looking at things uh from the point of view of the uh South Vietnamese uh government uh you know rather uh than from the uh point of view of the United States government.

You know, again, that's a hard thing to do, but as an advisor I think you ought to uh, you know, use the point of view of how do the people you advise think—and then try to put yourself uh in their shoes and then, you know, give them advice that would be, you know, useful to them and uh advice that would help them achieve their objectives.

Well, here we are and you're, despite your looking at this from a, trying to look at it from a South Vietnamese point of view. Nevertheless, you're an American and you come from one kind of culture, they're Vietnamese and they come from another kind of culture. As you approach the problem, let's try to be specific, and went into a hamlet or a number of hamlets, what kinds of problems did you encounter as two cultures try to work side by side?

Well, you know, it's very difficult uh you know to put yourself in uh as an America into the South Vietnamese culture. You know, they have a different religion, at least most of 'em uh do, uh they certainly have a different family structure, uh a different way of life.

And the life when you go out into the rural areas of South Vietnam of course is entirely different uh from the life in the cities. And so uh I was uh at least fortunate uh in that uh when I first went to Vietnam in 19 uh 63 I went out to the uh to the end of the uh line in the delta, you know, the road stopped just a little bit beyond uh the town of Bac Lieu, where I was stationed as an advisor for the 21st uh South Vietnamese uh division.

But there I was very fortunate uh in that uh I came in contact uh with a very interesting uh Vietnamese uh named Lieutenant Colonel Y—spelled just "Y". Uh, Colonel Y had been a member of the Viet Cong and had uh of course come over uh to the other side.

Uh, he was assigned to the division but because he had been a former Viet Cong, uh they really didn't uh give him a so called uh combat job. And, so he was uh really responsible in those days for the uh strategic hamlet program, which was sort of uh losing its uh steam and wasn't uh receiving a whole lot of support from the South Vietnamese government. Uh, seemed to me that uh perhaps the uh United States uh government uh uh saw that there were some deficiencies with the strategic hamlet program so here uh Colonel Y was uh working on the strategic hamlet program in Bac Lieu uh Province.

I think it was even called Soc Trang Province there only it became Bac Lieu uh years later. Well, uh, uh, I uh took a particular interest in, in Colonel uh Y and at the uh the behest of the division senior advisor, who was a very good friend of mine, uh, Colonel Jack Cushman, was uh given a good deal of time to work with him.

And so, we uh, together uh visited the hamlets, uh we talked to hamlet chiefs, we talked to the village chiefs, uh we met with the uh self-defense core people, and that was before they were called the popular forces. And uh I uh through uh my uh friendship with Colonel Y uh began to learn a good uh deal about the Vietnamese.

I was uh a bit fortunate in that I'd had some training uh in the Military Assistance Advisor's School uh in speaking Vietnamese and while I couldn't speak it very well, at least I could uh uh understand what was being said. But uh Colonel Y spoke English very well. He spoke French very well, obviously spoke Vietnamese.

So, I was at least able to, y'know, learn y'know about how the village people lived and how they thought.

Let's go down to the nub of the problem. Even as much as you did learn or observed, could you get down considering the Viet Cong were in the villages or really didn't have cities to go to. What were the limits on how much you or any other American, no matter how much time you spent in Vietnam, could really get to know about what was really happening there?

Well, I certainly couldn't uh pick out the Viet Cong from the, from the non Viet Cong. Uh, but uh at least I have the feeling uh in the uh hamlets and villages that I was visiting that the uh people uh y'know could pick them out and uh at that time, at least, they uh certainly did everything uh that they could to uh get rid of them.

In other words, uh, in the hamlets that we were visiting it uh seemed that uh, the uh Viet Cong uh presence y'know was either nonexistent or uh very minimal. When I say minimal that means that they might have come in at night or uh visited uh during uh the day.

You know they were certainly in the area uh, because, uh they were involved in fairly frequent uh fire fights at night with the self-defense corps people. They were outposting attack, they were uh, there were taxes being collected on the rice, that was uh moving on the barges and that sort of thing.

Let's get into 1966 and ’67. Now, what are the problems that are created by this tremendous American military on pacification, as you see it done on the village level?

Well, in 1966 uh I was serving as the director of operations of the Office of Civil Operations. That was a special organization put together to y'know improve the uh advice and assistance that the United States was giving to the South Vietnamese government in the area of pacification you know, rather then having the, uh AID effort going off in this direction, the psychological and information effort going in another direction, the military effort going in still another direction.

Uh, at least, uh, through this Office of Civil Operations we brought together all of the US agencies except the military uh dealing with pacification. The ambassador uh put all of those field elements of the US assistance agencies under Ambassador Porter, who was the deputy ambassador.

And his mission uh Ambassador Porter's mission was simply to uh do the most he could and the most he could and the most the United States could to further the South Vietnamese government pacification effort. I need to emphasize it was the South Vietnamese government’s pacification effort, it wasn't the US government pacification effort, because they were in control—we clearly were advisors, but we provided a lot of the supplies, we provided a lot of the communications, and we provided a good deal of the support.

Let's get back to the question. What impact did the big American military budgets have on this pacification? Were you working across purposes?

What uh impacted the uh increase in US military effort have on pacification? Well, I think it was kind of a uh it was one thing uh early on and another thing later. But let's say uh what happened uh in the summer of 1966?

Well, as I said, OCO or the Office of Civil Operations had just started, and one of the uh things that we recommended uh to the uh president uh of uh South Vietnam through the Prime Minister was a greater allocation of regular uh Republic of Vietnam army units to pacification. And uh we actually had a plan.

Ah, and that plan uh called, as I recall, uh for having the army of uh the Republic of Vietnam put thirty-seven battalions of you know regular troops into pacification uh with the greatest allocation being to the Delta, which was still you know the focus of the uh pacification effort. In other words we said we were gonna work first on the uh Delta, second uh on the area around uh Saigon, third uh in the uh...

Moment. Right, okay.

We were talking about the impact of the American buildup on pacification. Uh, initially the uh buildup uh assisted pacification in releasing more of the uh Republic of South Vietnam's regular army units uh to pacification. And in fact uhhh the goal of having, as I recall, thirty-seven uh ARVN battalions assigned to pacification uh was met and, in fact, again as I recall, the number you know built up to 54 battalions uh at the peak.

And so, uh, those of us in pacification, uhhh, while we might have uh opposed for some broader reasons the introduction of significant US forces at least were pleased to see the forces come and uh help us with the pacification uh plans.

Let's just, you're talking quantitatively about how many South Vietnamese battalions could be. What about qualitatively? Was the South Vietnamese army given its leadership qualified to, to, to pacify, to win over ?

Well, the uh ARVN battalions that were sent into pacification you know, you know, clearly weren't the kinds of troops that you wanted to put into the hamlets or to the villages. Rather, you wanted to use those as a screening force, uh, you know to keep the Viet Cong units away from the hamlets and allow the uh popular forces and the regional forces uh plus uh the self-defense uh forces uh to handle the internal security.

Uh, now, there were some training programs set up for uh the ARVN battalions uh so that the leaders, the sergeants and the lieutenants and all, would understand what was trying to be done, uh, but I think you have to understand that, you know, the battalions you know didn't uh go into the uh the hamlets and the villages. Now, some battalions, you know, were much more effective on the screening mission than others.

Those who were effective were the ones that would uh get out and patrol uh at night, that could break down into small units and they did it uh a credible job. Some of the divisions weren't that good and, therefore, the battalions didn't contribute you very much.

Uh, they might be there as a strike force in case a... big Viet Cong unit came by and they were, okay, there. But the, so the we had a mixed bag uh but overall I think that the uh ARVN troops did a credible job on pacification.

Let's go onto this second [inaudible]. In some areas, people had to be removed, and uh was that opposed was that antithetical to pacification?

Uh, we're talking about uh, uh creating refugees you know as part of some broader military strategy. Well, you can look at it two ways. You know, if you're creating refugees then, you know, you're clearly not going to be able to uhh extend your control uh over an area, you know, by pacifying uh the, the hamlets and villages uh one by one. Because nobody's there.

And therefore the uh, the area is uh largely uh, uh turned over to uh whomever uh is strongest, whomever wants to move into the area. So, from that point of view, uh, creating refugees was, you know, not consistent with the uh pacification effort.

On the other hand, uhhh, a part of the overall pacification uhh forces uhhh you know was a Vietnamese uh refugee ministry of uh refugees and we had in uh the office of civil operations a refugee division that advised and assisted them. Uh, we had all over Vietnam uhhh groups uhhh that would assist the refugees as they uhh were moved out of an area either because the Viet Cong moved in or because a US unit uh simply moved in and uh forcibly uh had the Vietnamese move out.

Well. You know, if that movement of refugees could be coordinated with the capabilities of the pacification forces to take care of them, uhh you know then it uh was you know not necessarily a negative. It was sort of a uhh, you know, you know, it didn't uhhh, it set back the pacification program but it didn't uh you know destroy it.

Overall, was the creation of refugees beneficial do you think, to the war effort? I mean, there's been an argument that this forced urbanization uhm, in a sense was part of it part of the military strategy.

Yes, it certainly was a part of the military strategy to, you know, move, you know, people from the outlying areas that you can never expect to control, you know, into the urban areas. And, as long as you were able to take care of the people ah in those urban areas ah I think that it was ah ah not only an effective strategy ah but one ah that ah you cou you couldn't feel badly about.

In other words, ah, did you, you know, create a long-term problem ah for the South Vietnamese by doing that? And, therefore ah you know, I didn't ah oppose, you know, that particular part of our overall ah strategy.

Could you take care of [inaudible]…?

I think that ah we ah did a fair job of ah taking care of ah ah refugees of ah as long as the military forces either the ah Viet Cong or North Vietnamese forces on one hand or the ah South Vietnamese or US forces on the other hand, you know, didn't create them faster than we could take care of them. There were ah a number of ah periods during the war where that happened and that was ah wrong, I feel.

Let's go back a moment. You said, essentially, that that the pacification effort was a South Vietnamese government issue rather than an American government issue. Given the social, sociological composition of the leadership of the South Vietnamese government, how interested or how capable were they really in dealing with a rural society?

How capable were the South Vietnamese leaders in dealing with the ah rural society? Well, ah, I'd say ah a large part of them ah were not capable. But, on the other hand, ah there were a lot that ah that were ah you know, very knowledgeable, they'd come from a from the rural society themselves.

Ah, they had ah, you know, not lost their, you know, feel for their ah ancestors in the in the hamlets, and ah, those people, I think, ah, ah, did a good job. Ah, fortunately, ah some of the Vietnamese ah leaders ah, particularly President Thieu, was ah pretty good at ah picking ah those kinds of people ah to head up ah the pacification ah effort.

I can ah think of ah two people who were ah you know particularly good ah, first was ah Buu Vien, ah who had a major role in the pacification effort, ah, ah, in the '68 '69 period, and of course, General Huynh, who had been the 21st division commander ah when ah I first came to Vietnam, he later had a, you know, major role ah in running the ah pacification ah office ah in the office of the Prime Minister.

When...[cough] would pacification really gets going and American involvement really intensifies in '65, '66, '67,you begin to get Americans at almost every level in the Prime Minister's office right down to the District Chief's office, what [cough] does this do for the South Vietnamese what does it do in terms of an image, it mean, what does it do to their nationalistic credibility in terms of winning hearts and minds in terms of their challenge facing the challenge of the other side which does have the nationalistic image behind it?

Well, the ah matter of image is an important one. I know, ah, and ah what happens to the image of the South Vietnamese when we have advisors at every level. You know that we ah actually ah ah put ah through a program that I ran five advisors with each district ah in ah South Vietnam; there being 245 districts, so that was a lot of advisors ah you know, even at the lowest levels.

Ah, and one of the things that we tried to do in the training programs for those advisors ah before we brought them to South Vietnam Vietnam was to make them understand that they were advisors they weren't to take over and ah, and to be ah you know, watchful ah that they didn't ah become you know more important to the South Vietnamese rural people than the district chief.

After all, the district chief ah was not ah the most popular person there, he was generally not from the district ah he was a military ah person and generally a captain ah in the South Vietnamese army, ah and therefore he was the authority figure and ah if some American came in and was more popular ah or seemed to have the authority or somehow undermined the district chief that would be, you know, very bad.

Ah, I suspect that, ah, on balance, that the advisors, you know, added more than they ah detracted. Otherwise, ah you know, we would have made the decision ah to ah you know, lessen rather than increase ah the number of advisors.

Stop Stan, we’re out of film.

Yeah, we were talking about the...

Start again.

We were talking about the...

Don't mention that we were talking about it just go in straight.

Oh.

Because we'll cut the two pieces together so that anything...

You know, having five advisors in each district you know, certainly ah created image problems for the ah district chief. And of course the advisors created other problems for the district chief. The Americans ah wanted to get things done ah in a hurry, ah, the South Vietnamese district chief probably had been there, you know, three or four years and ah he knew that pacification is going to be a a long a process.

The war was going to be around for a long time and ah he had to ah stretch out his efforts and ah he had survived ah this long and he had to be careful about ah not getting killed. And, so, the advisors were there, you know, prodding the district chief and the ah other officials to ah to move faster to build more schools and more hamlets to put up more hamlet communications systems to put up more bridges, you know to plant more rice, to do all of these things.

And, of course, that ah you know, certainly ah ah caused tension ah, you know, between advisors ah ah and ah government officials and ah I'm certain it caused ah the peasants to ah wonder ah what was going on. And it did ah then point up ah an overall problem.

Ah, you know, those of us who had been in pacification a long time saw it as a ah long term process, you know, steady, step by step, you know, building as we ah went.

But, ah, as more Americans got involved, as more US forces, ah got to Vietnam, the need to get the war over with ah ah ah you know became ah an important consideration, then those of us in ah pacification leadership positions, you know, probably ah pushed the pacification efforts ah, you know, too hard ah and too fast.

Ah, you know, making it ah ah perhaps rickety ah and you know more prone to ah you know come apart, ah, you know, with rather minimal pressures.

Aren't we... [Cough] Isn't the basic equation here the race between your perception of the long protracted, slow development and the [cough] and the political cause back in the United States for the ah need to get the thing done because, you know, the American public , it's not going to operate on your timetable of fifteen ten fifteen years, whatever. I wonder if you could...?

Well, I'd been in Vietnam so long that I guess I detached myself from ah you know, American ah you know, public opinion and so I didn't you know, ah really ah ah you know, think about American public opinion and you know developing overall pacification ah plans.

Ah, but there's no doubt ah that ah you know, directives from ah from Washington or directives from ah other parts of uhm military assistance command, you know, didn't ah you know, influence the ah time tables that we put on ah pacification.

And, ah, you know, we very frankly tried ah, you know, to deal with those conflicting ah objectives of ah trying to conduct pacification ah slowly and well and and trying to get the war over with uh as quickly as possible.

I just wonder if I could raise one point with you. Pacification was a word that the French used when they conquered Indochina in the 19th century and they used it again during their war. Why did we use the word Pacification - did it, it had a connotation?

It probably had a... pacification, ah, you know, had a long history ah in ah you know in reviewing the history ah it seemed to me that ah it was first used in ah North Africa, ah, by the French. And then brought to ah ah Indochina, again, by the French.

Ah, it was ah dropped when the Americans came over in favor of ah a new name, the strategic hamlet program. Maybe I had something to do with the ah introducing ah the name again ah because ah of Dick Holbrooke and I working together ah in ah Soc Trang province, actually in Bac Lieu District, managed to get our hands on ah some of the old history books.

And ah when we were going about designing ah the pacification program from you know the bottom up, we ah wanted to replace the name strategic hamlet program and we threw in pacification. Ah, Colonel Y, described earlier, had remembered the pacification effort and he used eh the term and maybe it was his fault rather than my fault.

But anyway. Ah, ah it was reintroduced ah really in ah 1963, ah in ah, Vinh Loi Village of Bac Lieu District and it just sort of ah caught on for ah no particular purpose ah after that.

But you were using the name that the losers had used ...

No comment (chuckle).

Okay, I just want to go on to one more point. It seems to me earlier at something you said that you sort of felt some reservations about the great big American input the great big American military input starting in '65. Did you, I mean, do you have any comment?

I had, you know, very great reservations about ah any ah introduction of ah US forces ah to South Vietnam. Ah, in fact, ah, ah, history will show that I ah produced ah the paper ah the basic paper that ultimately was used to bring ah ah forces US forces into South Vietnam.

Maybe I haven't told the story ah before, but I was called upon ah in 1964, by General Westmoreland to ah make the classic ah estimate of the situation.

He gave to me and because I was serving as his assistant, the ah total resources of the staff of the Military Assistance Command Vietnam and I was to produce a ah an estimate of the situation ah that would ah ah propose and ah analyze ah various courses of action.

Now, the three courses of action were very simple. To introduce no US forces; to introduce US forces to protect the airfields in which we were carrying out our bombardment against North Vietnam; or ah to bring ah US forces in ah to prosecute ah the war.

I did the the whole estimate and on the basis of ah ah all the evidence that ah I could pull together ah concluded that ah that the first course of action, namely not to introduce US forces ah was the best.

Ah, as people now know ah the course of action number two, namely bring US forces in to protect the airfields at ah Ton Son Nhut and Nha Trang and Bien Hoa, and you know, was the the decision.

And, of course, once the US forces, you know, came in to protect the ah airfields ah the thing that I predicted in my study to happen, namely that they would get involved in ah ah conflict ah you know, armed conflict with the Viet Cong forces happened, and therefore ah the US forces to protect themselves, you know, had to operate on a more and more ah offensively as opposed to defensively, and, ah ah the need then to bring more and more forces in and ah ah just snowballed.

Why was that bad? Just a moment. Why did you think that would be bad?

Oh, why did I think the introduction of US forces would be bad? Ah, it would be bad from point of view number one they would be ill prepared ah for the ah kinds of conditions ah that they were going to face in ah South Vietnam.

It would be bad, number two, ah in that it would take the burden off the South Vietnamese forces which at that time, I thought, ah were improving at a slow, but ah steady ah rate. And, three ah ah, would lead to Americanization ah of of the war, because you know, I, being a member of the United States ah Army, understood, you know, my army, and I felt that ah, if they came over they weren't going to put up with the pace of the ah ah Vietnamese and the war and they would just take over which they did.

How do you feel about (cough) how did you feel then obviously you were opposed did you believe did you operate from the thesis that we should not get involved in land wars in Asia...part of that doctrine...

I'm not a part of that uh...

Start with the beginning.

...Oh, that's a good one how do I start? Ah, uhm, when I first went to Vietnam, you know, was, did I hold to the ah thesis that the United States should never get involved in a ah land war ah in ah ah Southeast Asia or in Asia for that matter?

No, that wasn't part of my ah strategic thinking. I'd been, you know, fortunate, ah, in that ah before I went to Vietnam that I...

Stop...

All right.

Barbara?

Ah, when I was doing my ah, estimate of the situation, ah, in 1965, it was probably in March of that year, ah, ah, yeah I considered the readiness of uh, US uh, army people, uh, to operate in Vietnam.

Ah, you know, given that it was a uh, tropical country, ah, given that it uh, a good deal of the fighting was in very difficult terrain, or uh, given that the fighting was done amongst populated, or in populated areas. And I concluded that uh, uh, that US army troops probably wouldn't do very well, uh, in Vietnam.

Uh, first of all, I was involved in the pacification efforts uh, which was hardly a defensive use of military forces. Uh, if you put a screen out and then, uh, work behind that screen, uh, with uh, you know, economic development, with political development.

Ah, and ah, we, you know spent a lot of time on agricultural development. All, you know, very slow and painstaking. And I uh, saw, you know, the doctrine of the offensive which, you know, the US uh, Army ascribes to as just not being uh, the thing you could apply uh, in Vietnam. Uh, moreover, uh, you know...

Excuse me. Would you explain why the doctrine of the offensive, seemed to you not be appropriate?

That's difficult. You're asking me extremely tough questions. Ah, and you're talking to television audience that are extremely, ah, that doesn't understand first of all what the doctrine of the offensive is, and what the doctrine of the defensive is...

Well, let's just use the word...use...

I can't that would be a whole hours subject, ah, you know, to describe that.

But it seems so fundamental.

Yeah, it is fundamental. Well, ah, you know, let me just say in a few words what, ah, the difference between the doctrine of the offensive and the doctrine of the defensive. Ah, and I think it's ah, easiest to explain it by saying that ah, in ah, WWII the French had adopted the doctrine of the defensive.

They'd built the Maginot Line and they were going to defeat any enemy that attacked, uh, simply uh, by letting the enemy expose uh, himself, and then uh, cutting him down with artillery fire, uh, with machine guns, or uh, at the last moment, with rifles.

Uh, the uh, United States, uh, Army, uh, you know, from the time of of you know, WWI and probably from uh, the time of the Indian Wars and the uh, Civil War, uh, you know, thought much more in terms of uh, you know, fire and movement, uh, and uh, winning uh, on the tactical level, uh, by, uh, always uh, moving ahead.

And even when you plan, uh, defense, uh, you plan it uh, in depth with movement of forces and movement of fire around, in other words there's a great deal of of movement and you know, and you're attempting to always take the battle to the enemy, uh, rather than vice versa.

So if we go now to the pacification effort in, in Vietnam, we're trying to uh, come up with forces that are providing a screen and are willing, uh, to to stay in dug in positions, even Maginot Line like, uh, and let the enemy come and attrite the enemy as he tries to uh, attack you.

Well, I just saw at least in the way that I looked at things, that uh, US forces, uh, would not be good, uh, in that particular role. Now US forces would not of been good and proved not to be uh, you know, fully effective in in Vietnam, uh, in that, uh, you know, they uh, weren't, you know, able uh, to uh, live up to the or to deal with the environment uh, as well as, uh, the Viet Cong could.

And they couldn't uh, live on you know very short rations, they couldn't go for you know, very long periods in the hot jungles or the the rainy, uh, Delta as could the Viet Cong. And I had seen in the advisors that we had gotten over to work in the pacification program, uh, that many of them, you know, didn't even have the physical training uh, necessary uh, to cope with the particular situation.

Moreover, uh, you know, since this, uh, was not, you know, a declared war, uh, that we were going to, uh, use draftees, uh, we going to have a rotation policy, where people weren't going to stay a long time. We had already done that with the advisors, and just at the time an advisor, uh, got to understand the situation, uh, he rotated, uh, back to the United States.

And so I concluded I was just guessing I didn't know, that if we brought US forces over we would use the same rotation policy. And so how in the world uh, were these forces you know, going to learn uh, how to deal with this very unique situation and this very different group of people. Now...

Could we cut a second. Excuse me. I don't...

You know I saw a certain...

Just a moment. Go ahead.

I certainly thought it would be difficult for US forces to to uh, operate ah, in the populated or built up areas. I you know, made that uh, uh, conclusion based on what I'd seen, uh, with the the uh, ARVN forces.

You know, they were patterned after our own uh, forces that their organization was almost the same. Ah, every division had a band, if you could imagine. Ha, ha, ha. But uh, uh, the ARVN forces, uh, you know, just weren't uh, you know, very good, uh, when it, uh, came to, you know... moving around where the people were.

They tended to destroy the crops and break the bridges and uh, harass the peasants, and uh, so when we used the ARVN forces in pacification, uh, we always advised the Vietnamese you know, to use them, in a, in a screening role, or a defensive role, and not uh, to uh, put them into the built up areas.

Go back to the American forces then in populated areas.

I thought I already just said.

You're talking about ARVN...And one last point about whether, uhm, let's just... after you watch the Americans, let's say through those years, '66 and '67, were your conclusions borne out, I mean did you feel that you were right or how did you look back on it?

You know, I feel that my uh, earlier opinions, uh, you know, turned out to be correct. Uh, the uh, US forces uh, came over and uh, while uh, their mobility was uh, greatly increased by the addition of lots and lots of helicopters, uh, the tactics worked out uh.

You know, still, uh, they weren't uh, you know fully effective, uh, in working uh, over there, because of the rotation policy uh, and because of the lack of knowledge, of the uh, enemy, lack of knowledge of the uh, friends, the uh, difficulties of the terrain.

Should we cut?

Yeah cut.

Ah, for lack of a better ah, strategy, ah the strategy...

You should be looking at Stanley..

Oh. For lack of a better strategy, ah, the strategy of attrition, uh, was adopted, ah, as the operating strategy in Vietnam. Now that uh, had serious problems. Uh, the first problem was that you were uh, you know, that you were operating in the enemy's own uh, backyard, and so for every uh, enemy soldier you killed, uh, another could, uh, uh, rather easily replace him, even if he had to go over the uh, Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Uh, and we were operating uh, from our base, uh, fourteen uh, thousand miles away. That meant that uh, that every uh, uh, ounce or pound of supplies had to come uh, that full distance. And to uh, use firepower, primarily to uh, to trip the enemy, uh, was extremely expensive, uh, in terms of dollars, uh, and in terms of uh, uh, pounds of uh, explosives or pounds of supplies per enemy soldier killed.

Uh, and so uh, to have a very prolonged war, that was very uh, expensive, uh, it just didn't seem to me to be in the American uh, character, and therefore, uh, I was uh, dubious about uh, the uh, attrition strategy all along.

And put yourself towards the end of 1967. What was your observation about how that strategy was working?

Well, as you sat in in Vietnam, the strategy, you know appeared, uh, to be working, uh, because you know, a lot of the uh, enemy soldiers, you know, uh, were being, uh, killed. And that's uh, what you looked at day by day and and week by week and that was what was reported, you know, uh in the daily staff conferences and was reported in the cables back here, and was reported in the papers, uh, in this country.

Uh, but I guess you there you caught up in the war and didn't always give it the long term look that if you could have stopped and looked, uh, at the long term, uh, you would have said it was going to be uh, too long and too expensive, to uh work.

Good, thanks.

Yeah.

This is head, room tone. Montague interview. Tail.