The Stage Is Set, 1957-1959

In June 1957, the United States MAAG had reported a "slight but notable increase" in Communist violence within the Republic of Vietnam. Aggressive acts were particularly evident along the Mekong and its interconnecting Bassac River, which flowed from the Cambodian border to the sea. Chau Doc (Chau Phu), was the scene of a mass murder of seventeen citizens in July. In September a district chief and his family were gunned down in My Tho. In November 1957, Chau Doc, Sa Dec, Long Xuyen, Vinh Long, Can Tho, My Tho, and Truc Giang were scenes of killings, other acts of violence, and kidnappings of civilian officials, civil guardsmen, security agents, and others. December witnessed more spectacular assassinations. Then, major incidents occurred in An Giang and Phong Dinh Provinces downriver from Chau Doc Province, and at the village of Thanh My Tay (near Chau Doc). Attacks on shipping and against foreign nationals were reported.1

Vietnamese military operations against guerrilla units in these and other areas were largely dependent on supplies transported by water. The Danang area alone required 2,000 tons of military supplies a month. Although much of the cargo was shipped in merchant marine bottoms, the Vietnamese Navy now employed four LSMs, a small tanker (YOG), a small cargo ship (AKL), and LCUs to transport cargo along the coast.2

Despite the acts of violence, Diem continued to make remarkable progress in building a nation within South Vietnam. As assessed by one student of the period, "Diem alone carried Vietnam into statehood." Communist sources confirmed the effectiveness of the campaign against their infrastructure. One South Vietnamese Communist observed that "from 1957 to 1960 the cadres who had remained in the South had almost all been arrested." Another stated that "the period from the Armistice of 1954 until 1958 was

1U.S.-V.N. Relations, bk 2, pt. IVA.5, tab 1, p. 30, tab 2, p. 56; NA Saigon, report, ser 2-S-58 of 10 Jan. 1958, JN 63A-2336, box 53, FRC.

2 Navy Section, MAAG Vietnam, "Country Statement," of 22 Jan. 1958.

the darkest time for the VC [Viet Cong] in South Vietnam," and that "the political agitation policy proposed by the Communist Party could not be carried out due to the arrest of a number of party members by RVN [Republic of Vietnam] authorities." Referring to the 1957-1958 period, a captured Viet Cong history stated:

At this time, the political struggle movement of the masses, although not defeated, was encountering increasing difficulty and increasing weakness; the Party bases, although not completely destroyed, were significantly weakened, and in some areas, quite seriously; the prestige of the masses and of the revolution suffered.*

As Diem reacted to assassinations and other Communist activities, criticism began to mount against the priority he assigned to security, rather than to land reform and "rural revolution." In some cases, the criticism was Communist inspired, but negative comment also emanated from those who felt that the resolution to South Vietnam's problems lay primarily in peaceful reforms in the countryside rather than the use of force."

By 1958 the Communists were in firm control of North Vietnam. Bolstered by the moral and material support of other "socialist" countries, the North Vietnamese were able to devote an increasing amount of their effort toward the longer-range goal of extending Communist control to South Vietnam. The aid they were receiving was substantial. According to a Communist source, "the socialist countries" through 1959 provided approximately two billion rubles worth of uncompensated aid and long-term credits to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Of this amount, 400 million rubles in uncompensated aid was given by the U.S.S.R. Also, for the period 1955-1958, 4,755 technical experts from "socialist countries" visited North Vietnam, 1,083 of whom were from the Soviet Union and 3,245 from the People's Republic of China.

6

The Soviet Union by now had resolved the internal struggle which had been triggered by Stalin's death. When a Conference of Communist and Workers' Parties of Socialist Countries convened in November 1957, Ho and Le Duan went to Moscow. In the final declaration, concurred in by all

6

*Quoted in U.S.-V.N. Relations, bk 2, pt. IVA.5, tab 2, pp. 51, 52, 54. "Ibid., pp. 24-26.

Bui Kong Chyng, "Pomoshch'stran sotsialisticheskogo lageria v vosstanovlenii i razvitii narodnogo khoziastra DRV," in Demokraticheskara Respublika V'etnam, 1945-1960, ed. A. A. Guber and Nguyen-khan'-Toan (Moscow: Publishing House of Eastern Literature, 1960).

the participants except Yugoslavia, note was made of the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as an independent state, the intensification of struggle in colonial and dependent countries for "national liberation," the war in Indochina, the SEATO "aggressive bloc," "the possibility of nonpeaceful transition to socialism," the fostering of "solidarity between the Communist and Workers' parties of all countries ... [as] the main guarantee of . . . victory," their "responsibility with regard to the destinies of the world Socialist system and the International Communist movement," and "the joint struggle for the common goals. . . ." After his return to Hanoi, Le Duan issued a statement in which he said that the North Vietnamese viewed the Moscow declaration as a signal from Peking and Moscow to pursue their objectives in the South by force."

The Vietnamese Navy

Under these threatening circumstances, the task of strengthening the South Vietnamese Navy was becoming more urgent. The first group of Vietnamese had returned from the United States and its members were serving as instructors at the Vietnamese naval schools. Saigon MAAG officers concluded that, "judging by the performance of US trained Vietnamese Navy instructors, the US school training program has proved very effective." Further progress in the training within Vietnam was made possible by increases in the number of American naval officers and enlisted men assigned there. However, the total number of naval personnel, including Marines, assigned to MAAG and the Temporary Equipment Recovery Mission was still only seventy-eight, a marginal number considering the future problems anticipated. By the spring of 1958, the Saigon shipyard had gained the capabilities needed to take over the entire overhaul program for the Vietnamese Navy, in addition to providing routine upkeep for small craft and dry-docking services for merchant ships. Subic completed the last scheduled overhaul of a Vietnamese ship in April 1958.8

"Declaration of Representatives of the Communist and Workers' Parties of the Socialist Countries," Current History, XXXIV (Jan. 1958), pp. 42-47; U.S.-V.N. Relations, bk 2, pt. IVA.5, p. 28.

Navy Section, MAAG Vietnam, "Country Statement," of 22 Jan. 1958; NA Saigon, reports, 14-57 of 12 Feb. and 57-57 of 9 Apr. 1957, JN 62A-2681, box 69, FRC; Navy Section, MAAG Vietnam, "Quarterly Activities Report," of 10 Sept. 1957; Navy Division, MAAG Vietnam, "Summary," of 31 Dec. 1957.

Two factions competed for leadership of the Vietnamese Navy; one was led by the head of the Navy, Captain My, and the other by his rival Lieutenant Commander Ho Tan Quyen, who had political backing in the Defense Ministry and the Vietnamese Army's General Staff. One of the criticisms leveled against My was his advocacy of a "much bigger Navy than the U.S. or his own government considered necessary or would support." In November 1957, My was ordered to report for training at the Navy's Post Graduate School at Monterey, California.9

Prior to My's departure, the MAAG helped Quyen draft a new plan for the organization of the Vietnamese Navy, which Diem approved on 1 July 1958. As reported by the Navy Section of the U.S. MAAG:

The new organization formalized for the first time a written organization for the VN Navy approved by the President and established missions and command channels. The Naval Deputy now has under his direct, exclusive command a prescribed Naval Staff, shore facilities command (Naval Stations and Schools Command), and three operating commands; viz, Sea Forces, River Forces, and Marine Corps. It places part of the Supply Depot functions under Navy control but leaves all other logistics functions, including the shipyard, under the Director of the Naval Technical Service, who in turn reports to the General Staff on logistical matters and to the Director of Administration, Budgeting and Accounting on finance matters.

The Navy Section viewed the reorganization as "a step in the right direction," but stated, "it is impossible to evaluate all the ramifications of the change at this early date." 10

American naval officers who visited Saigon early in 1959 left with favorable opinions of the condition of the small South Vietnamese Navy, which then had a strength of about 3,600 men. Admiral Hopwood reported in March 1959 that, on a recent trip through Southeast Asia, he was "favorably impressed with the Vietnam Navy, its ships, craft and facilities.” His Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Captain Rufus L. Taylor, had previously concluded, after a four-day visit to Saigon, "that the Vietnamese are really trying to achieve an effective naval force." These assessments were more favorable than those of the Naval Attache's office, which con

NA Saigon, reports, ser 14-58 of 18 Jan., 25-S-58 of 6 May, and 27-S-58 of 9 May 1958, JN 63A-2336, box 54, FRC.

10 NA Saigon, reports, 25-S-58 of 6 May and 27-S-58 of 9 May 1958, JN 63A-2336, box 54, FRC; Navy Section, MAAG Vietnam, "Narrative Study," of 24 Aug. 1958.

sidered most of the Vietnamese ships to be in an unsatisfactory overall condition "by U.S. standards." "1

Preliminaries to a New Phase

The period of low-level conflict between the Communists, following the 1954 Geneva Agreement, was drawing to a close. Although the implementing order would not be issued until four months later, North Vietnam's decision to resume the armed struggle apparently. was made at the Fifteenth Central Committee Conference in January 1959.12

Early in 1959, Hanoi ordered the preparation of guerrilla bases in South Vietnam. By sea and by land the Viet Cong in the south were receiving increased military supplies from North Vietnam. When Admiral Felt, now Commander in Chief, Pacific, visited Saigon in February 1959, Diem informed him of infiltration from Laos and Cambodia and of his protest to the International Control Commission over Viet Minh incursions into the demilitarized zone.

From January 1957 to July 1959, the Republic of Vietnam reported 174 assassinations to the commission. In May 1959, the Fifteenth Plenum of the Communist Party's Central Committee in North Vietnam "called for a strong North Vietnam as a base for helping the South Vietnamese to overthrow Diem and eject the United States." On 13 May, one day after the conference communique. an editorial in Nhan Dan stated:

Our compatriots in the south will struggle resolutely and persistently against the cruel U.S.-Diem regime, holding aloft the traditions of the (1941) South Vietnam uprising, the (1945) Ba To uprising, and the August (1945) general uprising . . . and other valuable traditions of the workers' movement and of countless legal and semilegal struggles. . . . Our people are determined to struggle with their traditional heroism and by all necessary forms and measures so as to achieve the goal of the revolution.

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam began to commit its armed forces

11

"Ltrs, CINCPACFLT to CNO, ser 2/00226 of 17 Mar. 1959 and CINCPACFLT to CINCPAC, ser 61/00257 of 26 Mar. 1959. For the views of the Naval Attache, see NA Saigon, report, 87–59 of 16 Apr. 1959, JN 63A–2990, box 46, FRC.

12

King C. Chen, "Hanoi's Three Decisions and the Escalation of the Vietnam War," Political Science Quarterly, (Summer 1975), p. 246.