Interviewer: You say ah, just to remind you that there were 900 NVA KIA on that film, and 155 US killed and 125 wounded.
Corson: Well, I, I think that the the battle of 881 and 861 and there were some lesser hills ah prior to that particular battle as part of our combined action program strategy we had installed ah two cav platoons in that general area.
Corson: Now, par—these, these platoons had several missions.
Corson: One was to provide security to the people that were there.
Corson: The, the indigenous personnel were around.
Corson: Also, to provide some intelligence if it could be acquired.
Corson: Now, that doesn't mean that ah the Marines themselves were going out and playing long range patrol kind of games though they did, did local patrolling, but what was involved was to try to gain the ah confidence of the people who moved about and they heard things and then that we could use to determine whether or not there was movement, significant movement of NVA forces through that particular area.
Corson: And, I might add, that uh associated with these two platoons was an area that later became even more important, Khe Sanh, because of the natural configurations.
Corson: Well, ah, the youngsters that we had up there did a fairly good job.
Corson: We had a pretty good idea of what was occurring and ah the other thing which many Americans failed to recognize is that within the framework of Indochina, just don't think of that little map of South Vietnam or even the one included as North Vietnam then, is that there were nomadic people.
Corson: And the tribes, the hills tribes are essentially nomadic people.
Corson: They might grow a little opium here but they move around.
Corson: Well, in this particular case, this one ah one man who was the king and you know in a sense he had been invested, his name was Un Yahn.
Corson: He had been the king of the Brus and he was very ah forthcoming with us because we had befriended.
Corson: We had delivered some children and you know did the things that are, you say well, that's just the Christian thing to do with someone who is basically an animist, but they appreciated it and ah told us things and when the particular battle went down and ah I can recall him saying why are you going that way.
Corson: Why don't you come around.
Corson: This is the way to go.
Corson: Ah.
Corson: And, I said, well, have you told that to anyone.
Corson: Yes.
Corson: But, they didn't want to listen to him.
Interviewer: We just had a short piece of film we wanted to use up.
Interviewer: Just start again.
Interviewer: When you were describing...
Corson: Well, why don't you go around to the rear and, you know, this, there's an area that you can get there without this essentially what, these are not his precise words but—without this, this frontal assault.
Corson: Uhh, head 'em off at the pass, prevent the uh, cause that's the way they're gonna get out of there.
Corson: Uhh, he had tried to convey this information to our people but, to our military people who were on command on the ground...
Corson: Get outta here, kid, you don't, you, you really don't, what's this little runt know about military strategy, and so forth.
Corson: Point was he knew the terrain, and he knew where the enemy was located, and he knew what the enemy's plans were to get out.
Corson: So you see, well why don't we, why were unable to systematically exploit this kind of intelligence? One, we didn't trust it.
Corson: Because it came from somebody who didn't look like us, or whatever—he wasn't one of our guys.
Corson: He wasn't somebody we recruited as on our payroll, so he was providing us this information and we said, Well, what's in it for him, and so forth and so on.
Corson: Not realizing that uh what we had tried to do with the Brus and with these people was to develop a kind of confidence that said not that we're on your side but that we're on the same side.
Corson: We're for the well being of the people in this area.
Corson: And the well being of the people is not enhanced or improved by this kinda fightin' goin' on where you're tryin' to live or move about.
Corson: So we've always had this trouble: someone that we didn't recruit ourselves, we rejected and said, Well, we can't determine whether he's true or false.
Corson: And I understand that.
Corson: I understand the nature of that, but the point was that the information was not tested.
Corson: We went ahead with a, a, with a set battle plan and we lost some people and we killed some NVA and somebody claimed that it was a great victory.
Corson: Uhhh, I think that that's a...arguable point, because the hills are still there and those American Marines are dead and you have to say to what end and to what purpose.
Corson: You can say, well, military necessity, military expediency.
Corson: It's nonsense but it's used, it's been used to cloak so many mistakes.
Interviewer: Was the a, was the story about Vietnamese, the Vietnamese hadn't delivered his rice, or promised rice.
Interviewer: They hadn't given given it to him, was he angry at the Americans at the time?
Corson: It...
Corson: you're either a fool or a knave and in this case, from the Vietnamese point of view and that's a general kind of thing, because we're dealing with Annamite tribes as well is that we're both, we're foolish knaves.
Corson: You know a fool can be tolerated, well anybody's entitled to...yes, but that particular event was symptomatic of a broader problem that I confronted, and one that we seemed unwilling to try to deal with.
Corson: And, we were pure in heart because we were gonna support the government of Vietnam no matter what.
Corson: I was in the sense, uh, a pox upon both the GVN and the Communist side, but what we were doing was counterproductive to the very fact of our existence.
Corson: Now, let me be specific about it.
Corson: Because it, it does come down to...
Corson: specifics.
Corson: US...
Interviewer: Change lens there.
Corson: ...US aid...
Interviewer: Just start with US aid.
Corson: US aid whether it be in the form of medical supplies, food supplies, clothing, and the ubiquitous galvanized tin roof which is very important, as you well know from your own time in country.
Corson: 'Cause it is not, it is not a...
Interviewer: Excuse me.
Interviewer: I'm not going to be in this.
Corson: Oh, all right.
Interviewer: So don't talk to me.
Corson: All right.
Interviewer: Could you start back over with, where...
Corson: I don't know what I was sayin'...
Corson: Oh!
Interviewer: US aid.
Corson: US aid, whether it be in the form of medical supplies, food, clothing, even military equipment.
Corson: And then construction material.
Corson: The problem that I found was that in our urge or almost, uh, pathological attempt to support the government of Vietnam, no matter what, is that we ignored the fundamental fact that the people were the target.
Corson: We were trying, that, that's my judgment again...
Corson: Our efforts were to support the people of Vietnam.
Corson: The people and the government of Vietnam were not one indissoluble entity, in fact, they were two separate and, in fact, antagonistic entities if I can use people in this general sense.
Corson: I found, uh, in my dealings not only...
Interviewer: Change lens again.
Interviewer: Just start...go ahead.
Corson: I found that in my dealings, specifically, as I moved in and we, we made our, made our major effort in, Quang Nam province because Quang Nam province, if you could do it there, what we tried to do, what Cav Marines tried to do: if we could do it in Quang Nam province we could do it any place in Vietnam, because this was the...center of the communist movement in Vietnam going back to the time of Yen Bai which is, uh, 1930.
Corson: If ya can make it there, if you can overcome the French hatred and the communist movement in Quang Nam you can do it in any province in Vietnam.
Corson: I believe that and I know it to be true.
Corson: All right, material would come in.
Corson: And...tin sheeting, which is important, because we're talking about survival and health and the well being of people.
Corson: The tin sheeting would come in, this was...and bought for with your with US tax dollars and brought to Vietnam at considerable expense.
Corson: It would be turned over to GVN authorities and when I say GVN authorities we're talking about a military government.
Corson: There was no civilian government of any substance or merit whatsoever, to, in any real sense.
Corson: Then, what would happen is that you would see, there were two ways that the GVN would dispose of it, depending upon the level.
Corson: It would either go directly into the black market or it could be purchased in the, on the open black market and people who are scrapin' tryin' to get by had to go in and buy it there.
Corson: It was available for a price if you were one of the ultimate capitalists.
Corson: Orrr, the functionaire, the district chief, he would sell it directly.
Corson: And we'd see this.
Corson: Well, okay.
Interviewer: Bill, excuse me.
Interviewer: Would you generalize about the, the military supplies...when you say that supplies intended for people...and then...
Corson: Yeah, well...
Interviewer: You're using tin roofs as an example.
Corson: Okay.
Interviewer: But let's make it more general.
Corson: Okay.
Corson: In the, in the total spread the food, the medical supplies, the tin roof and so forth this was going either into a black market or it was being sold to the people to whom it was supposed to be given freely by our government in an attempt to aid those people in their time of travail.
Corson: I saw this, I knew it was wrong.
Corson: At the same time, when I talked to the village elders, the Vietnamese people, and they would say, Why do you permit this? Colonel, why are, why do you permit this? I had no really good answer to tell them why, why, why I permitted it.
Corson: Well, it was policy.
Corson: Well, if...if it's policy it must be right.
Corson: So then I saw if we were to succeed in pacification, and however you...
Interviewer: Let's change there and start again a bit slower, go ahead...
Corson: If we were to succeed, winning hearts and minds, pacifying the people, we could not be identified with a scam, graft and corruption.
Corson: There is no way that you can lie down with pigs and not come up smelling like garbage.
Corson: So what we did was, we said, Okay...
Corson: we will short circuit that.
Corson: And I, ma—I'm not particularly proud of it because I don't think I should have been compelled to do it.
Corson: Material would come in to US warehouses USAM, the US Aid Mission warehouses and we would steal it, with the connivance, you know, guys would just look the other way, come in, get the forklift, take it out.
Corson: And we'd distribute it.
Corson: Made sure that it, and, in the sense, no, we were not going to go out there and play, uh, tin cup apple charity type.
Corson: But we would go to a hamlet and we would say to...
Interviewer: Excuse me, Bill, would you say the Marines...
Corson: The Marines.
Interviewer: Okay, this, just
Corson: Well...
Corson: they were a small...
Interviewer: Yeah, okay.
Corson: The small group or band as we called, as the kid said when, uh, they sent me back home they gave me a little plaque that said from your Da Nang mafia.
Corson: We did not, uh in the sense I'm talking about our Marines do the physical distribution to the Luks, the Lok, and the Chow family.
Corson: We would do it through the village elder.
Corson: Because he knew those families.
Corson: He knew what their needs were, and it was free.
Corson: And we provided the physical muscle to get it wherever it was needed.
Corson: Uh, to take care of these people.
Corson: Uh, one time, uh, I got rapped on the knuckles for doing this, and I said, Well...
Corson: gee, uhh, the, the district chief or the hamlet chief wasn't there.
Corson: And this was a bit of deceit on my part, because, at night, the mili—the GVN presence in these areas...was like the evanescent clouds over San Clemente, they flitted back to the cities.
Corson: So, what we would do would carry out this distribution after the district chief and the village chief had departed.
Corson: We'd say, well, he isn't around.
Corson: (Vietnamese words).
Corson: And we have tin for you.
Corson: And we were able...
Interviewer: I'd like you just to make clear...
Interviewer: Pick up where we...
Interviewer: if it involves just repeating of that, that just to make absolutely clear that...
Interviewer: who, what the process is.
Corson: Well...
Corson: the process the, uh, the material that was supposedly being sent to Vietnam to assist the people in their attempt to stay alive and maintain kith and kin, uh, was processed through the USAID Mission.
Corson: Which, in turn, would give it over to the GVN and the GVN was...
Interviewer: Excuse me, don't say GVN.
Corson: The government of Vietnam...
Interviewer: Shall we start, just start from the beginning again? Change lens?
Interviewer: No, it's okay.
Interviewer: They would turn, turn it over to the government...
Interviewer: All right.
Corson: The USAID Mission would in turn turn this over to the govern...
Interviewer: [Inaudible]
Corson: Okay.
Corson: Well, the, the procedure was uh as follows.
Corson: The material that uh the United States government was pro—was providing or, or intended to provide to the Vietnamese people to enable them to survive, uh, was channeled through the US Aid Mission which, in turn, would provide, turn the material over to the government of Vietnam.
Corson: It was not a direct delivery system.
Corson: We turned it over to the government of Vietnam who, in turn, were supposed to turn it over to the people.
Corson: That's, was the theory; it didn't work that way in practice.
Corson: Much of the material, not all, but much of it would end up in the black market directly, or it would be part of a scam where the district or the province chief would sell it to the people.
Corson: Now, this produced a, a reaction, uh, Vietnamese with whom I dealt, they couldn't understand why we permitted or tolerated this.
Corson: And it is a little bit difficult; in fact, it's impossible, to say to someone who goes into a pharmacy, let' say in the city of Da Nang, and you'll see penicillin for sale, a gift of the American people, on sale to whoever wants to come in and buy it.
Corson: That, I don't believe, was the intention of our government.
Corson: And the hands, the clasped hands approach, the rice, the same thing, was all available.
Corson: So, because my Marines, the Cav Marines were at risk, because they were with the people, and this was a source of enmity...
Corson: This is no different than the rapacity of the of the French, and we were condoning it.
Corson: We were, we weren't uh, uh, really doing anything, other thing as say, Hey, really, it out to get to the folk.
Corson: But that's about as far as our attempts to change this method of behavior went.
Corson: Because we could not intrude on the host government's sensitivity.
Corson: Nonsense!
Corson: So what we did, our, my kids who, uh, as they called themselves the Da Nang mafia we liberated, stole, whata—whatever you want to say, the material from the warehouse before it got into this crooked system.
Corson: Then we would deliver it to the village and we used to do this in the dusk or at night when we knew that the district chief or the village chief, the military man, was gone to the safety of the city.
Corson: We would come to the elder, the [incomprehensible], and I know that the aspect of charity in the Orient is a very, very tricky concept.
Corson: This was, and in order to eliminate that kind of aspect of, put a penny in the old boy's cup or giving to the beggar, we would go to [incomprehensible], the village elder, and say: You know the needs of your people.
Corson: We bring it to you, it is for you to distribute.
Corson: And then we would provide some additional muscle or whatever to do it.
Corson: Now, you'd say: That's not very important.
Corson: Well, during the period of the monsoon, and it rains forty days and forty nights and rarely gets above forty degrees, it's rather important if you care about the hearts and minds of people if you can keep them dry.
Corson: And they need something over their head.
Corson: And the same way we dealt with the, uhhh, the packing, the unpacking elements of the supply effort.
Corson: It's hard for any American to grasp the volume of things that came into the country.
Corson: And we were on...runs to pick up cardboard and old wood because you know what would happen to it? It would be burned, and it would provide the means of these people who it was my responsibility and the responsibility of my Marines for their security and well being the difference between having a cold, clammy and maybe having a fairly warm and dry place in which to live.
Interviewer: Would you tell that story about the, uh, peasant farmer, in three sentences?
Corson: Well...in microcosm, and I can't recall (ha, ha) the name of, of the father.
Corson: Uh, that family is the, is the microcosm of the tragedy of Vietnam.
Corson: Sons are an important part of the Vietnamese, uh, life because they carry on and they're the workers.
Corson: And, uh, one son was motivated to go the route of the VC, did so.
Corson: Second son, if I recall, was uh drafted.
Corson: And it's hard for Americans to recognize what drafting meant in Vietnam.
Corson: During WWII, you said we're in for the dur, duration plus six months.
Corson: In Vietnam, the duration looked to be an infinite period of time, so that quite literally an individual is drafted for life.
Corson: That's why there was so much desertion and that was why so much attempt at draft evasion because it was a sentence of death.
Corson: And he came to me about the third son, because then this would be the last that would go.
Corson: I'm not sure that I provided him with any great wisdom.
Corson: Uh, which side do you pick, or whether he should, uh, ai, aid his son, there wasn't any Canada really to go, go to, or how to avoid it.
Interviewer: Mention that, that uh...the draft law provided for exemption of that last surviving...
Corson: Yes, but, you see, though the law, the draft law did provide for the last surviving son, uh, the farmer, in order to receive what was the due was expected to pay the kumshaw to the district chief who was the final authority.
Corson: The, uh, that was the law.
Corson: And it was quite a dilemma.
Corson: Can I, should I pay, can I pay?
Interviewer: Explain what, what kumshaw means.
Corson: Well, it's...
Interviewer: Repeat...
Corson: Kumshaw, the, is uh, it's old pidgin, it goes back to the days of the China trade when the gunboats would come alongside and they were saying in pidgin Chinese, "Come ashore." That became "kumshaw" and it cost you something to do it; within the framework of its generic use in, uh, the orient it means the payment of a bribe, of grease, whatever you want to call it.
Corson: And so in order to receive what from the he needed, which had been structured into the law, uh, the only way he could get, the particular farmer where he could get relief at law, was to pay this, this bribe, squeeze, kumshaw, to the district chief.
Corson: And he came to me with, What do I do? And I'm not sure that my wisdom was, was sufficient to the task.
Corson: I really, I really don't know.
Interviewer: But you're saying that [inaudible]...Cut!
: Just tell us what happened with the last son and the father.
Corson: Well, in this, in this particular, at this particular case is, uh, is far from being, uh, atypical.
Corson: It was very typical of the kinds of human tragedy.
Corson: Uh...the son, the third son, uh, succumbed and went with the VC.
Corson: Uh...He was killed.
Corson: And the father was killed.
Corson: So what you en, the whole family, obliterated, or gone, or the male side of the family was gone.
Corson: So, what do you say? Uh...
Corson: You say, not only pay the graft and avoid, pay the graft and avoid the draft.
Corson: Uh, in other words, you, you condone or say, well that's the smart way to deal with this.
Corson: And, the particular father, the small farmer was not in a position to pay it, unless he'd go into tremendous debt with the loan sharks and the loan sharks of Vietnam were the Chinese and no—you found so many of them were, so many of the Vietnamese were in debt to the Chinese who were part of the Vietnam infrastructure...So, what's your answer?
Interviewer: Let's talk about search and destroy, if you can put it in terms of your particular operation.
Interviewer: Either low charger among the DMZ or another...
Corson: Well...
Interviewer: What the impacts were and what the impact was on...
Interviewer: We're going to change around.
Interviewer: Would you, would you start about search and destroy and perhaps you could...just put it in terms of what the problem was and how that was designed to [inaudible] military terms and then what that, what the implications of that were [inaudible]...
Corson: Uh...Probably the, the aspect of search and destroy as part of the American tactic in Vietnam is the most controversial element.
Corson: It's one that in my own writing I tried to point out its essential fallacies.
Corson: And, the fallacies as they applied in Vietnam.
Corson: And this controversy has waxed and waned and it most, and recently slopped over again relative to the CBS documentary that dealt with deception by the numbers, which was part of this particular problem.
Corson: But search and destroy, uhhh, began as a consequence of instructions that President Johnson gave to his senior commanders in the fall of 1966.
Corson: This was after the successful Battle of Hastings which was, took place along the DMZ.
Corson: It was the first time in division strength that we met the North Vietnamese, and we fought them and fought them, uh, down.
Corson: And, uh, Marines that were in that, engaged in that particular battle had great respect for them, because as light infantry the North Vietnamese were a superb fighting force.
Corson: Were and probably still are.
Corson: Uh, they handled their supporting arms, their light supporting arms, they didn’t have aviation but they, and didn't have heavy artillery support, but they were a very competent force.
Corson: And we...
Corson: whipped 'em.
Corson: Literally, whipped 'em in the sense that took whole divisions out of their order of battle.
Corson: Prior to that time, in 1964 uh, Vietnamese, North Vietnamese units were infiltering in battalion size.
Corson: This was the first attempt to come across the DMZ in division strength.
Corson: All right.
Corson: Mr. Johnson said and he used, and this is not an apocryphal story, I mean, based upon the official uh, uh, transcripts and he said that he wanted to put a coonskin on the wall.
Corson: And it's a phrase that's been quoted, uh, extensively and widely.
Corson: Importance of understanding what that meant when you translated that into military reality was that now you were going to pursue the enemy at the margin.
Corson: You'd taken the trumps, now you have to go get the other...tricks, and it takes you more to get, to get less.
Corson: Because you're going at the margin.
Corson: So, the adoption of the technology, the ubiquitous influx of more and more helicopters to make this all happen.
Corson: Well, one of the things that, that uh, in which search and destroy was flawed was the fact that the enemy still possessed the capability to decline combat.
Corson: Now, the point was that in the searching...three out of four times, the searching produced nothing because in those three or four times, in those three or four times...
Interviewer: Excuse me, I have to change lens.
Interviewer: Okay, can we stop for a moment?
Interviewer: Yes.
Interviewer: Cut, please!
Interviewer: Just a moment.
Interviewer: You were saying three out of four produced nothing.
Corson: Three out of four, no contact resulted.
Corson: And the reason for this, uh, is that intelligence that we acquired relative to the presence of the enemy at a particular point we could not respond in a real time-frame.
Corson: We couldn't get there...quickly enough from the time that we knew they were there.
Corson: Even with the ubiquitous helicopter to get ya there.
Corson: The greatest, uh, major example of what this means in terms of the capacity to take intelligence information and respond to it, issue the order, saddle up, and get going, is in the invasion (ha, ha) of Cambodia when we were going to go in, as Mr. Nixon, said to eliminate the COSVN.
Corson: We—Here was this big headquarters.
Corson: And we got there and wonder of wonders, no one was there.
Corson: You see, they chose not to fight, and that was the...so what you're doing is you're flailing around, and that's costly, it's not particularly effective, to use part of the jargon.
Corson: But more importantly, and this is what caused a tremendous number of casualties, the passive defense, the booby traps, and the mine fields.
Corson: The enemy, the physical enemy was gone, but he left you a reminder.
Corson: And that's where the kids fell on punji stakes, mine fields were detonated, or one or two guys might be left to hit the radioactiv—with the radio activated mine.
Corson: It wasn't until and we failed the grasp the significance of this in the earlier 60's of the extensive tunneling.
Corson: We didn't know what was going on.
Corson: No idea.
Corson: So, we would follow this particular strategy, and what made it so, uh, I thought prophetic because Ngo Nguyen D—Ngo Dinh Diap[sic] said, and we didn't pay any attention to him.
Corson: And he said this in nineteen and sixty five, when the first Americans had come, when the first American were there, I guess at the time there was 120,000 Americans total.
Corson: And Giap says, When there are a half a million Americans in Vietnam we will have won the war.
Interviewer: He said, When there were a million..."
Corson: I think it was a half a million, but it, it may have been the fuller figure.
Corson: And, uh...Because he (ha, ha, ha) knew what he was doing.
Corson: We weren't too sure what we were doing, but we're doin' the right thing because we're on the right side of the, uh, anti communist, uh, war.
Interviewer: What was the effect of search and destroy on the civilian population?
Corson: It scared the daylights out of them.
Corson: You never knew.
Corson: Out of the night they'd come.
Corson: And, instead of trying to achieve tranquility, what we were doing was creating political and social turbulence.
Corson: The one, uh, took place up near the DMZ, most uhhh, this one Beau Charger I think was the name of the operation.
Corson: And this was when I said, This is madness.
Corson: It was just madness.
Corson: Because it did not take account of the socio-reality of Vietnam.
Corson: The Vietnamese are, other than the tribe people who are nomadic.
Corson: They roam all over the place, they're all over from here at breakfast and back.
Corson: But the basic Vietnamese, the basic Annamite, or Annam, he is born, he's raised, and throughout his lifetime he's lucky if he ever moved more than six miles traveled more than six miles from the point of his birth.
Corson: And this of course with 80 percent of the population in Vietnam.
Corson: So here, and we were, our hearts were in the right place.
Corson: We wanted to get these folks out of the way of this...
Interviewer: Change lens and start, We wanted to get these folks out of the way...
Interviewer: All right, go ahead.
Corson: We wanted to get these folks out of the way.
Corson: Uh, as in Korea we established stay-back, stay behind lines where the civilians were moved out of the way so we could go and fight with out running into folks.
Corson: And, uh, the motive was right.
Corson: But there was little or no preparation made to convince the people that we were not kidnapping them and sending them off to some [incomprehensible] or some concentration camp.
Corson: The fear, and the reaction on the part of those people, when they're put in trucks and they're going from their ancestral home where all the bones are buried.
Corson: And I mean not, uh, bones of ideas but their ancestors and they're leaving that and you recognize the nature of ancestor worship in the country, you're creating...trauma.
Corson: For what purpose? We're gonna go kill somebody? We're gonna go kill some North Vietnamese.
Corson: The subsequent event didn't result in any kind of effective diminution of the enemy force, in other words the guys that are coming, but what it did was it traumatized an entire element of the Vietnamese population.
Corson: So you can give it all kinds of military necessity justification and I heard it, part of it, I said My God, we've trauma, these people will never believe us again.
Corson: Because we are literally ripping them away from where they lived.
Corson: And, uh, well, they'll get over it.
Corson: And, of course you're worrying about things that don't...I said, I've got Marines that are trying to live among these people.
Corson: And we're smart enough to do something dumb like this.
Corson: They don't understand it.
Corson: And, frankly Colonel/General Whatever, I don't understand it either, because you aren't going to find anybody.
Corson: You're not going to make a contact.
Corson: You think that they're going to go head to head, that there's some kind of chivalry on the part of the North Vietnamese army or the VC? These are very practical warriors.
Corson: They're not going to play OK Corral or Gary Cooper in "High Noon." Aw, if they'll only stand up and fight we'll take care of them.
Corson: Why should they? Because they're gonna whip ya by doing it their way and boy did they ever.
Interviewer: Cut.