PIN : 083589–000

THE UNITED STATES

ARMY IN VIETNAM

The United States Army in Vietnam is a multivolume history of the 

Army’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The series treats a full 

range of topics, from combat operations and advisory efforts, to 

logistics, communications, and engineer endeavors. Two volumes 

deal with theater command. The second volume, MACV: The Joint 

Command in the Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, describes 

MACV’s evolution as an organization and of the command’s role 

in making and implementing American national policy in Southeast 

Asia during the period of U.S. disengagement from Vietnam.

MACV

The Joint Command

in the

Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

MACV

The Joint Command

in the

Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

United States Army in Vietnam

by

Graham A. Cosmas

Center of Military History

United States Army

Washington, D.C., 2006
CMH Pub 91–7

First Printing

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC area (202) 512-1800

Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cosmas, Graham A.

MACV : the Joint Command in the years of withdrawal, 1968–1973 / 

by Graham A. Cosmas.

p. cm. — (United States Army in Vietnam)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—United States. 2. United States. Military 

Assistance Command, Vietnam—History. 3. Command of troops. 4. Vietnam 

War, 1961–1975—Peace. I. Title. II. Series.

DS558.C6823 2007

959.704’340973–dc22

2007022084


United States Army in Vietnam

Richard W. Stewart, General Editor

Advisory Committee

Theodore A. Wilson

University of Kansas

Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz

U.S. Army Training and 

Doctrine Command

William Allison

Weber State University Joyce E. Morrow

Administrative Assistant to the 

Secretary of the Army

James J. Carafano

The Heritage Foundation Brig. Gen. Mark E. O’Neill

U.S. Army Command and 

General Staff College

Brig. Gen. Patrick Finnegan

U.S. Military Academy Mark P. Parillo

Kansas State University

John F. Guilmartin, Jr.

Ohio State University Reina Pennington

Norwich University

Brian M. Linn

Texas A&M University Ronald H. Spector

George Washington University

Howard P. Lowell

National Archives and

Records Administration

Col. Thomas G. Torrance

U.S. Army War College

U.S. Army Center of Military History

Jeffrey J. Clarke, Chief of Military History

Chief Historian Richard W. Stewart

Chief, Histories Division Joel D. Meyerson

Editor in Chief Keith R. Tidman

. . . to Those Who Served

ix

Foreword

MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, is the second of two volumes that examine the Vietnam conflict 

from the perspective of the theater commander and his headquarters. It traces the story of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam 

(MACV), from the Communist Tet offensive of early 1968 through the 

disestablishment of MACV in March 1973. It deals with theater-level 

command relationships, strategy, and operations and supplements 

detailed studies in the Center of Military History’s United States Army 

in Vietnam series covering combat operations, the advisory effort, and 

relations with the media.

MACV: The Joint Command recounts how the MACV commander 

and his staff viewed the war at various periods and how and why the 

commander arrived at his decisions. Central themes are the gradual 

withdrawal of U.S. forces from combat operations, the American 

effort to prepare South Vietnam’s military establishment to take over 

defense of the country, and the implementation of the Paris peace 

agreement of 1973. The volume analyzes MACV’s relationships with 

Pacific Command, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the secretary of 

defense, as well as the evolution of the command’s dealings with its 

South Vietnamese and third-country allies. Perhaps most important, it 

traces the commander’s role in developing and executing U.S. national 

policy in Vietnam, a role that extended beyond military operations to 

encompass diplomacy and pacification. As an experiment—not entirely 

successful—in nation building, the story of the Military Assistance 

Command contains many parallels to more recent Army engagements 

and so serves as a potential source of important lessons.

This is the tenth volume published in the United States Army in 

Vietnam series. Its appearance constitutes another step in the fulfillment of the Center of Military History’s commitment to produce an 

authoritative history of Army participation in the Vietnam War.

Washington, D.C. JEFFREY J. CLARKE

4 May 2007 Chief of Military History
The Author

Graham A. Cosmas was born in Weehawken, New Jersey, and received his education from the schools of Leonia, New Jersey, 

and from Columbia University, Oberlin College, and the University 

of Wisconsin. After teaching at the University of Texas (Austin) and 

the University of Guam, he joined the staff of the U.S. Marine Corps 

History and Museums Division in December 1973. Dr. Cosmas moved 

to the U.S. Army Center of Military History in 1979 and remained there 

until 2001, when he became deputy director of the Joint History Office 

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dr. Cosmas is the author of MACV: The Joint 

Command in the Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, and An Army for Empire: 

The U.S. Army in the Spanish-American War, 1898–1899. He is also the 

coauthor of U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Vietnamization and Redeployment, 

1970–1971, and The Medical Department: Medical Service in the European 

Theater of Operations, a volume in the United States Army in World War 

II series. He served in 1984–1985 as the Harold K. Johnson Visiting 

Professor of Military History at the U.S. Army Military History Institute, 

Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. He has published numerous articles 

and book reviews.
xi

Preface

MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, describes the evolution of the command during the period of U.S. 

disengagement from Vietnam. By late 1967 the Military Assistance 

Command, Vietnam (MACV), had grown from a small, temporary advisory and assistance organization into a large, permanent headquarters 

that directed more than half a million American soldiers, sailors, airmen, 

and marines in a wide range of combat and pacification operations. By 

that same time, however, President Lyndon B. Johnson and his principal advisers had concluded that it was necessary to begin reducing the 

cost in lives and money of a seemingly stalemated war. The Communist 

Tet offensive of January–February 1968 confirmed the president in his 

decision and set the United States upon a path of disengagement that 

President Richard M. Nixon also followed. During the period covered 

by this volume, MACV gradually withdrew its American troops from 

South Vietnam and worked to prepare Saigon’s forces to defend their 

country by their own efforts. The MACV headquarters itself drew down 

toward reversion to an assistance and advisory group.

This volume tells the story of MACV’s evolution as an organization 

and of the command’s role in making and implementing American 

national policy in Southeast Asia during the period of U.S. disengagement from the Vietnam War. It treats both national-level decisions 

and military operations from the perspective of the theater joint commander. In relation to the Army’s Vietnam series, this volume and 

its predecessor, MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Escalation, 

1962–1967, which dealt with the earlier period of the conflict, will 

provide a general overview of aspects of the war that are covered in 

much greater detail in the other works. The inclusion of this study of 

a joint command in a series devoted principally to the activities of a 

single service results from two circumstances: that MACV throughout 

its existence was an Army-dominated headquarters and that upon the 

command’s inactivation its records were placed in the custody of the 

Adjutant General of the Army. 

The preparation of a work of this scope was possible only with the 

assistance and support of a great many other people. Throughout the 

years, my colleagues in the Southeast Asia Branch of Histories Division 

guided me through the sources, read and criticized drafts of chapters, 

and broadened and deepened my understanding of the war through 

many hours of conversation. Vincent H. Demma helped me get started 
xii

through his encyclopedic knowledge of the Center of Military History’s 

documents on the Vietnam War. Charles R. Anderson, Dale W. Andrade, 

Dr. John M. Carland, Dr. William M. Hammond, Dr. Richard A. Hunt, 

George L. MacGarrigle, Dr. Joel D. Meyerson, and Adrian G. Traas generously permitted me to draw upon their work and made an imprint 

upon mine.

Others at the Center of Military History contributed to this book. 

This project could not have been carried to completion without the 

assistance of the Publishing Division staff, including Hildegard J. 

Bachman, editor; S. L. Dowdy, cartographer; and Gene Snyder, visual 

information specialist. The Historical Resources and Organizational 

History Branches were always responsive to my requests for books, 

documents, and information.

As Chief of the Southeast Asia Branch, Dr. John Schlight guided 

my early steps on this volume and made sure that I gave due attention to the role of air power in MACV’s war. I am grateful to a succession of division chiefs who supervised this project over its lengthy 

gestation—Lt. Col. Richard O. Perry; Cols. Robert H. Sholly, William 

T. Bowers, and Clyde L. Jonas; and Dr. Richard W. Stewart. Several 

Chiefs of Military History supervised and supported this work. Brig. 

Gen. Douglas Kinnard (U.S. Army, Ret.) initiated the project and set 

its direction. Brig. Gens. William A. Stofft, Harold W. Nelson, John W. 

Mountcastle, and John S. Brown all helped it on its way. I owe a special 

debt of thanks to my current supervisor, Brig. Gen. David A. Armstrong 

(U.S. Army, Ret.), Director, Joint History Office, Joint Chiefs of Staff, for 

allowing me duty time after leaving the Center’s employ to finish this 

volume.

Very helpful were the comments and recommendations of the review 

panel convened by Dr. Jeffrey J. Clarke, the Center’s Chief Historian, 

who chaired the panel. I am grateful to the members—General William 

A. Knowlton (U.S. Army, Ret.), Brig. Gen. Douglas Kinnard, Dr. Larry 

Berman, Dr. Robert Buzzanco, Dr. Paul Miles, Dr. William M. Hammond, 

John W. Elsberg, and R. Cody Phillips. My especial thanks go to General 

William B. Rosson (U.S. Army, Ret.), who provided detailed written 

comments on the manuscript.

As appropriate for a volume on a joint command, members of other 

service historical offices helped me with advice and access to sources. 

They include Dr. William Heimdahl and Dr. Wayne W. Thompson of 

the Office of Air Force History; Dr. Edward J. Marolda of the U.S. Naval 

Historical Center; and Dr. Jack Shulimson, formerly of the History and 

Museums Division, U.S. Marine Corps. Dr. Walter S. Poole of the Joint 

History Office, Joint Chiefs of Staff, read and criticized a draft of the 

manuscript. Dr. Poole also provided me with invaluable source material on the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the period of the conflict 

covered by this book. 

Like all historians, I could have accomplished little without the assistance of the archivists of records repositories. Dr. David C. Humphrey 
xiii

and Dr. Gary Gallagher, both of whom have since moved on to other 

positions, were of great help at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. The 

staff of the Richard Nixon Papers, then located in Alexandria, Virginia, 

facilitated my access to the unprocessed Nixon National Security Files 

for Southeast Asia. Their help allowed broader and deeper coverage 

of many aspects of the MACV story during the Nixon years than otherwise would have been possible. At the U.S. Army Military History 

Institute, Dr. Richard J. Sommers, David A. Keogh, Randy Rakers, and 

John J. Slonaker guided me through the Institute’s extensive Vietnam 

collections. Richard L. Boylan and the staff of the National Archives 

and Records Administration were responsive to all my requests.

Lt. Gen. William E. Potts (U.S. Army, Ret.), former MACV director 

of intelligence, gave graciously of his time in discussing with me the 

work and achievements of the MACV J–2 during the later stages of the 

war. He also provided me with a useful briefing on the subject.

It remains only to note that the conclusions and interpretations 

in this book are mine alone and that I am solely responsible for any 

errors.

Washington, D.C. GRAHAM A. COSMAS

4 May 2007

xv

Contents

Chapter Page

1. The Command and the War, January 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Command, Forces, and Allies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

The Enemy and the War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

A Shifting Policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2. Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations. . . . . . . . . . . 23

The Enemy Plans an Offensive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Warnings and Preparations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Command Problems in I Corps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Final Preliminaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

How Much of a Surprise?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

3. Tet and Its Aftermath. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Regaining Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

I Corps: MACV Versus the Marines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Losing the Battle of Perceptions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Reinforcement Request and Policy Decision. . . . . . . . . . . . 88

A War Lost in the Mind. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

4. General Abrams Takes Charge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

General Westmoreland Departs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Continuing the Fight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Building Up the RVNAF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

The Paris Talks and the Bombing Halt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

“One War”: The Abrams Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

5. Redeployment and Vietnamization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Nixon Sets His Course. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Redeployment Planning Begins: NSSM 36. . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Raising the Stakes in Vietnamization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Redeployment Accelerates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Implementing the Withdrawals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

A Rear Guard Action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

6. MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Command Relationships under Abrams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
xvi

Changes in MACV Headquarters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

MACV Intelligence: A Mature Capability. . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Reducing the Command Structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

7. Seasons of Scandal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

MACV and the Media: A Breakdown of Relations. . . . . . 217

Scandals Proliferate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

The Impact of My Lai. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Race, Drugs, and Discipline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

8. South Vietnam: Waging the One War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

The Enemy Returns to Protracted War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

A Change of Mission for MACV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

Military Operations, 1969–1971. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

Pacification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

A Self-Defending South Vietnam?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

An Appearance of Success. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

9. Across the Borders: Cambodia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

The Situation in Early 1969. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

	 Menu and Pruning Knife . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Into Cambodia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Aiding the Cambodians. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Cambodia Balance Sheet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

10. Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam. . . . . . . . 311

More Bombs over Laos, 1969–1970. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

“Protective Reaction” over North Vietnam. . . . . . . . . . . . 316

The 1971 Dry Season Offensive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

Cross-Border Operations Continue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

11. The Easter Offensive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

A War in the Balance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

Bracing for the Blow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

Attack and Counterattack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Redeployments and Reorganization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

The Blow Parried. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377

12. The Final Phasedown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

Peace Nearly at Hand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

Preparing for a Cease-Fire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

The Final Drawdown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Epilogue: The Fall of a Nation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

13. Conclusion: MACV in Retrospect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

The Strategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

The Generals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

Chapter Page
xvii

Command and Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

The South Vietnamese. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Final Judgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

Bibliographical Note. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

Table

U.S. Troop Redeployments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Charts

No.

1. Organization of MACV Headquarters, 1967. . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2. Proposed VAC Headquarters Organization,

23 August 1971. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Maps

No.

1. Indochina: 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2. Tet Offensive: 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

3. Cambodian Incursion: May–June 1970. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

4. Lam Son 719: February 1971. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

5. Easter Offensive: March–May 1972. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

Illustrations

General Westmoreland Greets Secretary of Defense Robert S. 

McNamara and Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker on

Arrival in Saigon, July 1967. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara Briefs the Press. . . . . 5

General Earle G. Wheeler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Aerial View of MACV Headquarters at Tan Son Nhut. . . . . . . . . 7

Viet Cong Troops Equip Themselves with AK47 Assault

Rifles and U.S.-type radios.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

President Johnson and His Advisers at the White House. . . . . 19

North Vietnamese Communist Leaders and Government 

Officials Arrive for an Official Visit in Peking. . . . . . . . . . . 26

Chapter Page
xviii

The Battle for Dak To Peaked with a Costly Attack by the 4th 

Battalion, 173d Airborne Brigade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Aerial View of the Base at Khe Sanh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Lt. Gen. Frederick C. Weyand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Viet Cong Attack Bachelor Officers Quarters in Saigon. . . . . . . 58

Westmoreland Tours the Embassy, 31 January 1968. . . . . . . . . 62

Aftermath of Viet Cong Attack on Saigon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

President Johnson Reviewing the Relief Map of Khe Sanh. . . . 72

Lt. Gen. William B. Rosson Accompanied by Lt. Col.

Hugh J. Bartley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Secretary of Defense Clark M. Clifford and Presidential

Adviser Walt W. Rostow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

An F–4B Phantom of Marine Attack Squadron 542

Completes a Bombing Run. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

President Johnson Meets with His “Wise Men”. . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Korean Troops Parade at General Westmoreland’s

Farewell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Lt. Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, Commanding General, XXIV

Corps, Escorts General Andrew J. Goodpaster, Deputy 

Commander, MACV, Through Provisional Corps,

Vietnam, Headquarters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 

A View of Mud Ramps with Enemy Rockets in Position. . . . . 113

U.S. Soldier Trains Members of Platoon 186 of the Popular 

Forces on How To Fire the M16 rifle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

President Richard M. Nixon with Henry Kissinger. . . . . . . . . 142

General Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff;

General Creighton W. Abrams, Commanding General, 

MACV; and Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird. . . . . . . 152

President Nguyen Van Thieu and President Nixon

Meet at Midway Island. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

First U.S. Marines Leave Vietnam under President

Nixon’s Withdrawal Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

South Vietnamese President Thieu Meets with His Troops. . . 157

A Self-Propelled 155-mm. Howitzer Backs onto the

Ramp of the Landing Ship Tank Pitkin County

(LST 1082) at Da Nang. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Maj. Gen. John Norton and General Abrams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

William E. Colby. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., with General Abrams. . . . . . . . . 189

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr.. . . . 191

General Abrams with General Cao Van Vien. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Admiral Thomas H. Moorer and President Nixon. . . . . . . . . . 196

Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, Vice President

Spiro T. Agnew, President-elect Nixon, and Secretary

of State William P. Rogers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Cmd. Sgt. Maj. William O. Wooldridge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

Col. Robert B. Rheault, 5th Special Forces Group

Page
xix

Commander, and His Men at a Press Conference. . . . . . . 221

Lt. Gen. William R. Peers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

A Soldier Wearing Long Hair, Love Beads, and Peace

Tattoo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Troops Charge at Hamburger Hill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Maj. Gen. Melvin Zais Is Greeted by a Fellow Officer. . . . . . . 247

The Joint Chiefs of Staff Meeting with President Nixon and 

Members of His Staff at the White House. . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Four U.S. Air Force C–123s Spray Defoliant during

Operation Ranch Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Lon Nol and Sirik Matak in Cambodia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

Armored Personnel Carriers and M48 Battle Tanks Blast

Away with .50-Caliber Machine Guns during the

Allied Sweep into Cambodia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Lt. Gen. Arthur S. Collins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Cambodian War Booty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

Ambassador G. McMurtrie Godley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

An F–4 Phantom Prepares to Land Aboard the U.S.S.

Midway off the Coast of North Vietnam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Lt. Gen. Hoang Xuan Lam with President Thieu. . . . . . . . . . . 323

Col. Robert Leonard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

A 175-mm. Self-Propelled Gun Fires at Enemy Targets

in Laos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330

North Vietnamese Artillery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348

General John D. Lavelle Assumes Command of Seventh Air

Force. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352

General John W. Vogt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

A U.S. Navy A–7 Pulls Away from a Strike on the Hai Duong 

Railway Bridge in North Vietnam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

An Enemy T54 Tank Burns in An Loc, Binh Long Province, 

South Vietnam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

General Frederick C. Weyand Is Named Army Chief

of Staff after Serving as COMUSMACV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377

Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382

Maj. Gen. Gilbert H. Woodward. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

The Colors of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam,

Were Officially Retired, 29 March 1973, during a 

Deactivation Ceremony. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

South Vietnamese Soldiers Help the Wounded Leave the 

Embattled Town of Xuan Loc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Vietnamese Refugees Line Up on the Deck of the

U.S.S. Hancock for Processing Following Evacuation

from Saigon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406

Vietnamese Refugees Crowd the Decks of the U.S. Merchant 

Ship Pioneer Contender. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406

Aerial View of MACV Headquarters on Fire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

Page
xx

Illustrations courtesy of the following sources: U.S. Army cover 

photograph and p. 77 (left to right) of Lt. Col. Hugh J. Bartley, 

commander, 3d Squadron, 5th Cavalry, 9th Infantry Division, 

and Lt. Gen. William B. Rosson, commanding general, Provisional 

Corps, Vietnam; pp. 13, 142, 312, 348, 382, U.S. Army Center 

of Military History, Washington, D.C.; pp. 19, 196, National 

Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Washington, D.C.; 

p. 26, China Pictorial; pp. 72, 79, 101, Lyndon Baines Johnson 

Library, Austin, Texas; p. 106, Tim Page/CORBIS; pp. 155, 156, 

187, 189, 197, 221, 261, 352, 401, Bettmann/COBRIS; p. 191, 

Naval Historical Center; p. 233, 246, UPI/CORBIS; p. 247, HultonDeutsch Collection/CORBIS, p. 294, Francoise de Mulder/CORBIS; 

p. 303, 323 U.S. Military History Institute; pp. 50, 317, Getty 

Images; p. 406, U.S. Navy; p. 405, Nik Wheeler/CORBIS; p. 329, 

Col. Robert Leonard; p. 353, Defense Visual Information Center. 

All other illustrations from the files of Department of Defense or 

U.S. Army.
MACV

The Joint Command

in the

Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

1

The Command and the War, January 1968

I

n January 1968, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam 

(MACV), looked forward to its seventh year of war. Established in 

1962 as a small, temporary headquarters to advise and assist the South 

Vietnamese government in its struggle against the Communist-led Viet 

Cong insurgency, MACV had grown as the war did. As of early 1968, 

the command, in addition to continuing its advice and support efforts, 

directed the operations of almost half a million American military personnel engaging an enemy that comprised division-size light infantry formations as well as guerrillas. MACV also had assumed primary 

responsibility for the allies’ pacification campaign to remove Viet Cong 

military and political influence from South Vietnam’s rural villages and 

had played a substantial role in American efforts to develop a stable, 

constitutional Saigon government. MACV had a hand, too, in the U.S. 

bombing campaign against North Vietnam and in operations against 

the enemy bases and supply networks in Laos and Cambodia.1

Command, Forces, and Allies

As the year began, General William C. Westmoreland was serving as Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam 

(COMUSMACV). In command since June 1964, Westmoreland had 

established the operational and organizational pattern of the expanding 

American military role in the war. As he began his fifth year in Saigon, 

he was nearing the end of his tour of duty in Vietnam. His designated 

successor, General Creighton W. Abrams, had arrived at MACV in May 

1967 and was serving as Westmoreland’s deputy pending his elevation 

to command at a date yet to be specified. That date was approaching. 

When Westmoreland visited Washington in November, General Earle G. 

Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, privately told the MACV 

commander that he was the “obvious candidate” to replace the chief 

of staff of the Army, General Harold K. Johnson, who was expected to 



 Unless otherwise noted, this chapter is based on Graham A. Cosmas, MACV: The Joint Command 

in the Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, U.S. Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center 

of Military History, 2006) (hereafter cited as Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 1962–1967).
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

retire in mid-1968. Following up this conversation, Wheeler indicated 

to Westmoreland late in December in a private letter that the administration would make its decision on that and other command changes 

“shortly after the first of the year.”2

From its establishment, MACV was a subordinate unified command under Pacific Command, the U.S. headquarters in Honolulu 

that directed American forces throughout the Pacific Ocean and the Far 

East. This meant that General Westmoreland reported to Washington 

through Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp, Commander in Chief, Pacific. 

Sharp delegated the conduct of ground and air operations in South 

Vietnam and parts of Laos and North Vietnam to Westmoreland. 

However, under close supervision from Washington, the admiral exercised direct command of the Rolling Thunder air raids against North 

Vietnam. Through Sharp, Westmoreland’s chain of command ran to 

 William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1976), 

pp. 361–62. Msg, Gen Earle G. Wheeler, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) 11081–62 to Westmoreland, 22 

Dec 67, Westmoreland Message files, Dec 67; Ltr, Wheeler to Westmoreland, 22 Dec 67, tab A–13, 

Westmoreland History file 27 (19–26 Dec 67); William C. Westmoreland Papers, U.S. Army Center 

of Military History (CMH), Washington, D.C. 

General Westmoreland greets Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara 

(right) and Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker on arrival in Saigon, July 1967.
The Command and the War, January 1968

Secretary of Defense Robert S. 

McNamara and President Lyndon 

B. Johnson. Both men transmitted questions and directives to 

Westmoreland through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General 

Wheeler. To save time and ensure 

a united military front in dealing with the civilian principals, 

Wheeler usually sent communications simultaneously to Sharp 

and Westmoreland. The two theater commanders followed the 

same practice in their replies to 

Wheeler. Although complicated 

in appearance, this arrangement 

kept the major administration 

policymakers and military commanders in close and constant 

touch and allowed the military 

leaders to speak with one voice 

in their advice to the civilians.

In Saigon, Westmoreland 

worked closely with the U.S. 

ambassador to South Vietnam, 

Ellsworth Bunker. Although Bunker was head of the American country 

team, Westmoreland was independent of the ambassador’s authority. 

Under a principle established by President John F. Kennedy for organizing U.S. overseas activities, the ambassador did not command American 

military forces in his country. Instead, the ambassador and the general 

were to reach decisions by consultation and mutual agreement, referring unresolved issues to Washington through their respective chains 

of command. In practice, Westmoreland deferred to Bunker on political 

questions and the ambassador rarely interfered in military operations. 

Bunker, who had worked closely with soldiers in previous diplomatic 

assignments and had a strongly favorable view of the military, agreed 

with Westmoreland on most Vietnam policy issues. The two men constituted a smoothly running team. The same could not be said of the 

civilian agencies under Bunker’s purview. To varying degrees, the State 

Department, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and other civilian 

operatives in South Vietnam resented the growing preponderance of 

the military in what they still regarded as primarily a political conflict. Frequently, they criticized MACV’s operations and challenged its 

assumptions in reports to their own agencies.

In August 1967, the MACV headquarters had moved from scattered 

leased buildings in downtown Saigon to a specially constructed complex 

at Tan Son Nhut Air Base on the outskirts of the South Vietnamese capital. 

Secretary of Defense McNamara 

briefs the press.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

The sprawling two-story edifice, 

one-third the size in square feet 

of the Pentagon in Washington, 

housed the command group, the 

general staff directorates, most 

of the special staff sections, and 

other offices. Additional headquarters elements, for example, 

the Combined Intelligence 

Center, were housed in buildings 

of their own at Tan Son Nhut or 

elsewhere in the city.

Although the MACV headquarters was a joint organization, 

some two-thirds of its approximately 3,000 personnel were 

members of the U.S. Army. The 

commander, the deputy commander, the chief of staff, and 

the heads of five of the six general staff directorates were Army 

officers; and that service dominated the mid- and lower-level 

staff positions as well. In response to complaints from the other services, notably the Air Force, that they were underrepresented in MACV 

headquarters, General Westmoreland defended Army predominance as 

appropriate to what was essentially a ground war. He also pointed out 

that MACV’s South Vietnamese counterpart, the Joint General Staff, 

was essentially an army organization, although it directed all of Saigon’s 

armed forces. Secretary McNamara supported Westmoreland on this 

issue, to the continuing frustration of the other American services.

MACV headquarters contained the standard general staff directorates for personnel (J–1), intelligence (J–2), operations (J–3), logistics 

(J–4), planning (J–5), and communications-electronics (J–6), as well 

as special staff offices of the inspector general, comptroller, chaplain, 

surgeon, judge advocate, provost marshal, and public information. The 

headquarters included additional organizations developed to meet the 

unique demands of the war in Vietnam. A Data Management Agency 

maintained the command’s automated record-keeping and reporting 

systems; its computer—a state-of-the-art machine by the standards of 

the time although primitive compared to the computers of today—

churned out the reams of statistics demanded by the authorities in 

Honolulu and Washington. Employing these statistics, a Systems 

Analysis Division applied the discipline of operations research to a 

range of military and pacification problems, supplementing the work 

of the MACV scientific adviser, who was another Vietnam War addition to the headquarters. To unify advice and support to the South 

General Wheeler
The Command and the War, January 1968

Vietnamese, General Westmoreland during 1967 had added to the general staff an office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Military Assistance, 

headed by an Army brigadier general. (Chart 1)

A unique element of the headquarters was the Office of Civil 

Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS). In May 

1967, President Johnson established CORDS to resolve a long-standing interagency dispute over single management of U.S. support to the 

South Vietnamese pacification effort. The president combined into one 

organization under MACV the military personnel and the people from 

the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, 

and other civilian agencies working on the problem in Saigon and the 

provinces. In MACV headquarters, Ambassador Robert W. Komer, as 

Westmoreland’s civilian deputy COMUSMACV for CORDS, had under 

him a staff directorate with a civilian chief and a military deputy. 

In each of South Vietnam’s four corps areas, a CORDS deputy to the 

U.S. military commander oversaw the military and civilian pacification advisers in the provinces and districts. While still completing its 

organization as 1968 began, CORDS promised to ensure that MACV 

gave high priority and unified direction to the struggle to recapture the 

countryside from the Viet Cong.

Westmoreland directed his American forces through Army, Air 

Force, and Navy component commands and through tactical headquarters in each of the four South Vietnamese corps areas (Map 1). 

Of the component commands, the Seventh Air Force and U.S. Naval 

Aerial view of MACV headquarters at Tan Son Nhut
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

Forces, Vietnam, exercised both tactical and administrative control 

of their subordinate organizations and also provided advice and support to their counterpart Vietnamese services. The Army component, 

U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV), had only administrative and logistical functions. General Westmoreland, who commanded U.S. Army, 

Vietnam, as an additional duty, directed the Army advisory effort 

through MACV headquarters and controlled his Army and Marine 

combat units through the area tactical commands. From north to 

south, those commands included the III Marine Amphibious Force 

(which also functioned as the Marine Corps component command) in 

I Corps, the I Field Force in II Corps, the II Field Force in III Corps, and 

an advisory group in IV Corps, where few American ground combat 

units were stationed. Each area commander was directly subordinate 

to Westmoreland for tactical operations, as well as for combat and 

pacification advisory functions, but dealt on administrative matters 

with his service component command.

Westmoreland’s command relations with the two Army-dominated 

field force headquarters were harmonious, but his relationship with 

the III Marine Amphibious Force was contentious. In one of MACV’s 

most persistent unresolved interservice disputes, the Seventh Air Force 

waged a constant feud with the Marine headquarters over control of the 

marines’ fixed-wing jet aircraft. The Air Force commander insisted that 

he should conduct the allocation and mission tasking of all fixed-wing 

aircraft in the theater, including those of the marines. On their part, the 

U.S.

AMBASSADOR

CIA USAID

COMUSMACV

DEPUTY

COMUSMACV

DEPUTY

CORDS

DEPUTY

AIR OPERATIONS

CHIEF OF STAFF DIRECTOR OF MACEVAL

AC of S

J1

AC of S

J2

AC of S

J3

AC of S

CORDS

AC of S

J4

AC of S

J5

AC of S

J6

AC of S

MA

CHART 1—ORGANIZATION OF MACV HEADQUARTERS, 1967
The Command and the War, January 1968

Tonle Sap 

G U L F 

O F

T O N K I N 

G U L F 

O F 

T H A I L A N D 

S O U T H 

C H I N A 

S E A 

Red R

Black R

Mekong R

Mekong R

IV CTZ 

I CTZ 

III CTZ 

II CTZ 

H A I N A N 

Con Son 

Phu Quoc 

D E M A R C AT I O N L I N E 

B U R M A 

N O R T H 

V I E T N A M 

C H I N A 

C H I N A 

T H A I L A N D 

L A O S 

C A M B O D I A 

S O U T H 

V I E T N A M 

Lao Cai 

Lang Son 

HANOI

Haiphong 

Dien Bien Phu

Luang Prabang 

Vinh

Dong Hoi

VIENTIANE 

Udon Thani

(Udorn)

Savannakhet

Quang Tri 

Hue

Da Nang

Paksé

Nakhon Ratchasima 

(Korat) 

BANGKOK 

Kratie

Pleiku

Kontum

Qui Nhon

Da Lat 

Ban Me Thuot

Loc Ninh

Snuol

PHNOM PENH 

Sihanoukville 

Svay Rieng 

Can Tho 

SAIGON 

INDOCHINA 

1968 

0 150 

Miles 

Map 1
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

10

marines jealously guarded the integrity of their air-ground team and 

claimed first call on their fighters and bombers. On the ground, Marine 

commanders considered that MACV was overemphasizing large-unit 

operations at the expense of territorial security and pacification, and 

they publicly advertised their own claims of success in the latter field. 

They also objected to General Westmoreland’s plans for a fortified 

barrier just below the Demilitarized Zone. Lt. Gen. Victor H. Krulak, 

the commander of Fleet Marine Force Pacific, III Marine Amphibious 

Force’s immediate senior service headquarters in Honolulu, jealously 

watched over his marines in Vietnam and carried their viewpoints and 

complaints directly to Admiral Sharp.

At the beginning of January 1968, the Military Assistance Command 

had an authorized strength of 525,000 American personnel. The command’s actual strength stood at a little over 497,000, of which about 

331,000 were Army troops. Rounding out MACV’s force were 78,000 

marines, 31,600 Navy personnel, and 56,000 Air Force personnel plus 

a small Coast Guard contingent. Seven Army and two Marine divisions 

constituted the core of MACV’s ground fighting power, supported by 

some 1,700 Air Force and Marine fixed-wing combat and transport 

aircraft and thousands of helicopters. Westmoreland’s naval element 

included task forces of coastal surveillance and riverine craft. Available 

for support, although not under MACV’s command, were the aircraft 

carriers and other large warships of the Seventh Fleet and the Guam and 

Thailand based B–52 heavy bombers of the Strategic Air Command.3

The Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF) numbered about 

650,000 officers and men in January 1968. About half of these troops 

were in the regular Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps; the 

other half were in two territorial security components, the Regional 

Forces and the Popular Forces. Still other armed men served the Saigon 

government in Civilian Irregular Defense Group units recruited from 

South Vietnam’s ethnic minorities and in the National Police and various paramilitary organizations. In deference to Vietnamese nationalist sensitivities, the Americans had decided against placing the South 

Vietnamese military under General Westmoreland’s command. Instead, 

the American and Vietnamese forces worked together on the basis of 

“cooperation and coordination.” Westmoreland and his subordinates 

sought to influence and improve their allies’ operations through the 

U.S. adviser network, which extended down to battalion level. They 

also cultivated working relationships with senior RVNAF commanders and attempted to exercise leverage by providing or threatening to 

withhold American combat and logistical support. Despite the persistent efforts by MACV, South Vietnamese forces still suffered from major 

deficiencies that had plagued them since the late 1950s—poor leader-

 Headquarters, United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), Command 

History, 1968 (Saigon, Vietnam: Military History Branch, Office of the Secretary, MACV, 1969), 

vol. 1, p. 225, CMH (hereafter these histories are cited as MACV History, year).
11

The Command and the War, January 1968

ship by a corrupt and politicized officer corps, a lack of aggressiveness in combat, neglect of troop training and welfare, and a crippling 

drain of manpower through desertion. Widely differing in capabilities, 

American and South Vietnamese troops usually operated separately, 

the Americans conducting mobile offensives against the enemy’s large 

units and base areas and the South Vietnamese concentrating on static 

territorial security and pacification missions.4

Besides the Americans and South Vietnamese, the Military Assistance 

Command had under its purview an assortment of about 60,000 troops 

from America’s Far Eastern anti-Communist allies. Their presence was 

the result of President Johnson’s assiduous effort to add “more flags” 

to the struggle in Vietnam. The largest contingent, from South Korea, 

comprised two infantry divisions operating in coastal II Corps and a 

marine brigade posted in I Corps. In III Corps, a brigade-size Australian 

and New Zealand task force conducted counterguerrilla operations, as 

did an infantry regiment (soon to be expanded to a small division) 

from Thailand and a brigade-size Philippine paramilitary civic action 

group. Each of these contingents had its own national commander. 

In MACV headquarters, a Free World Military Assistance Office oversaw the allies’ administrative affairs. MACV’s command relationships with these allied forces were heavily influenced by diplomatic 

considerations. The Australians, New Zealanders, Thais, and Filipinos 

placed their units under General Westmoreland’s operational control, 

although with political strings on where they could be stationed and 

on what missions they could perform. For their part, the South Koreans 

rejected any semblance of U.S. command of their soldiers, although 

their general promised to be responsive to requests from MACV and 

I Field Force. In fact, the Koreans operated for the most part independently in their coastal enclaves and joined in American offensives only 

when provided with lavish U.S. helicopter and artillery support.5

Outside South Vietnam, the Military Assistance Command conducted air and ground raids and reconnaissance against the enemy’s 

bases and supply lines in Laos, assisted in the officially unacknowledged 

U.S. campaign to support the Royal Laotian government against the 

Communist Pathet Lao, and provided forces for the bombing of North 

Vietnam. In these operations, the command worked within highly 

restrictive guidelines from Washington. Final authority over military 

activities in Laos rested with the U.S. ambassador in Vientiane, who in 

effect was in command of the war in that country, while Admiral Sharp 

directed Rolling Thunder. Under MACV, the commander of the Seventh 

Air Force handled the details of cross-border air operations, receiving 



 MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 224, 250. Jeffrey J. Clarke, Advice and Support: The Final 

Years, 1965–1973, U.S. Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

1988), chs. 12–14, describes South Vietnamese military deficiencies and American reform efforts.

 MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 345–46. For command arrangements, see Cosmas, Years of 

Escalation, 1962–1967, ch. 10.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

12

missions variously from General Westmoreland, Admiral Sharp, and the 

embassy in Vientiane for the different campaigns. For ground raids in 

Laos, as well as for clandestine harassment and intelligence activities in 

North Vietnam, MACV employed its Studies and Observations Group 

(SOG). Commanded by an Army colonel, the Studies and Observations 

Group had its own staff within MACV headquarters, composed of officers from all the services and representatives of the Central Intelligence 

Agency. In the field, the Studies and Observations Group commanded 

some 2,500 American military personnel and 7,000 indigenous irregulars who conducted platoon and company-size attacks on the Ho Chi 

Minh Trail and performed espionage and propaganda missions—none 

very successful—in North Vietnam.

The Enemy and the War

As 1968 began, the Military Assistance Command confronted a 

formidable and tactically sophisticated enemy. MACV estimated that 

the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong military force numbered slightly 

more than 300,000 men. The Viet Cong regulars, formally known as the 

People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF)—light infantry divisions, regiments, and battalions recruited primarily from the South Vietnamese 

but with a growing proportion of northern cadres and fillers—were 

about 66,000 strong. About 53,000 North Vietnamese soldiers of the 

People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), similarly organized in divisions and 

regiments, fought alongside their southern comrades. These troops 

comprised what the Americans called the Communist “main force” 

and were employed usually for offensive operations directed by the 

enemy’s military region and province headquarters. Supporting the 

main force were some 40,000 administrative service troops, perhaps 

90,000 guerrillas, and a Communist party political-military administration of around 85,000 people.6

In addition, the enemy had available at least 150,000 part-time 

civilian irregulars—men, women, and children too old or too young for 

combat service who lived in the cities and villages. Usually unarmed 

or possessing only primitive weapons, these people collected intelligence for the armed components, moved supplies for them, and 

helped in constructing fortifications and planting mines and booby 

traps. During the fall of 1967, MACV and the CIA had engaged in a 

bitter dispute over the status of the irregulars. The military command 

declined to include them in the enemy order of battle because they 

were not armed, full-time soldiers and their participation in the war 

effort was at best sporadic. CIA analysts, on their part, considered the 

paramilitary elements to be a significant part of the Communist “revolutionary base” and noted that members of this group were among the 

 Figures are from MACV and Joint General Staff (JGS) Combined Campaign Plan, 1968, AB 

143, 11 Nov 67, an. A (Intelligence), p. 1, Historians files, CMH.
13

The Command and the War, January 1968

enemy casualties and defectors that MACV reported. The command 

and the agency finally compromised by mentioning the irregulars in 

intelligence estimates but not counting them as part of the enemy 

military strength.7

Not counted at all in MACV’s enemy order of battle but very much 

involved in the war were large North Vietnamese forces outside the 

borders of South Vietnam. These included the soldiers and laborers 

who maintained and defended the enemy’s increasingly elaborate 

supply route through eastern Laos, the so-called Ho Chi Minh Trail. 

In North Vietnam, many more thousands of troops and civilians 

manned antiaircraft defenses against the Rolling Thunder attacks and 

repaired bomb damage as well as trained and equipped the steady 

flow of replacements who traveled along the Ho Chi Minh Trail to 

the south.

Although they lacked the air and artillery firepower of the 

Americans, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong by early 1968 possessed lethal weaponry appropriate to their operations and sustainable by their logistical system. Their main force units, as well as an 

increasing number of the guerrillas, were armed with the excellent 

Soviet- and Chinese-made AK47 assault rifle, with various types of 

modern Communist-bloc machine guns, and with an effective handheld antitank rocket launcher. These weapons made Communist 

main force battalions approximately equal in organic firepower to 

 This controversy is recounted in Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, ch. 13.

Viet Cong troops equip themselves with AK47 assault rifles and U.S.-type 

radios.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

14

the American battalions and superior to many South Vietnamese 

battalions that still were fighting with U.S.-made World War II–era 

rifles. American artillery, strategic and tactical bombers, and helicopter gunships usually rectified this imbalance, but the enemy’s arsenal 

also included some heavy weapons—most notably, rockets of up to 

140-mm. and mortars of up to 160-mm. In northern I Corps, North 

Vietnamese troops had the support of heavy caliber guns and howitzers emplaced just across the Demilitarized Zone and in Laos. The 

Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, and other Communistbloc nations provided North Vietnam with a steady stream of arms 

and ammunition, as well as with aid to sustain Hanoi’s war economy. 

In addition, although unknown to MACV at the time, as many as 

150,000 Chinese air defense and engineer troops were reinforcing 

North Vietnam’s resistance to Rolling Thunder.

8

In their military operations, the Communists followed the general 

tenets of the people’s revolutionary war as outlined by Mao Tse-tung 

in China and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, with its successive stages of 

guerrilla, mobile, and conventional combat. However, the Vietnamese 

opportunistically used different mixtures of these stages at different 

times and places depending on circumstances. In general, they used 

their main forces to attack American and South Vietnamese units in 

order to inflict casualties and to drive them out of areas targeted for 

subversion. They also maintained concentrations of troops along the 

Demilitarized Zone in I Corps, in the Central Highlands in II Corps, 

and around Saigon in III Corps in an effort to tie down American and 

South Vietnamese units. Meanwhile, the guerrillas, irregulars, and 

political cadre whittled away at Saigon’s territorial forces and rural 

administration, seeking to expand Communist control in the villages 

and hamlets. To the surprise of many Americans, the North Vietnamese 

and Viet Cong had not reverted to the guerrilla phase in response to 

the arrival of U.S. forces. Instead, they kept up the large-unit war, even 

at the cost of heavy losses to themselves, in the belief that they could 

bleed the Americans and wear down Washington’s will to continue 

the struggle. The enemy had as his ultimate goal the launching of the 

General Offensive–General Uprising, a large-scale military assault combined with mass popular revolts in the cities to overthrow the South 

Vietnamese government. Unbeknownst to the Americans, by late 1967, 

the Communist leaders believed that the time for this revolutionary 

climax was near at hand.9

The Military Assistance Command conducted its operations in support of the U.S. national policy objective—keeping South Vietnam out 

 Combined Campaign Plan, 1968, an. A, p. 3, Historians files, CMH; Xiaoming Zhang, “The 

Vietnam War: A Chinese Perspective, 1964–1969,” Journal of Military History 60 (October 1996): 

731–62.

 MACV’s analysis of enemy strategy can be found in Combined Campaign Plan, 1968, an. A, 

pp. 3–5.
15

The Command and the War, January 1968

of Communist hands. The United States had held consistently to this 

purpose since the early 1950s. Equally consistent was the method for 

achieving the goal: providing military and other assistance to an antiCommunist but nationalist South Vietnamese government. At the time 

of MACV’s activation in February 1962, the United States had pinned 

its hopes to President Ngo Dinh Diem. After Diem’s overthrow, as one 

successor regime after another proved ineffective and enemy pressure 

increased, President Johnson incrementally expanded the American 

commitment, ultimately to the point of large-scale, although still limited, war. Even as U.S. troops took over much of the fighting, however, 

President Johnson still insisted on maintaining the appearance and 

as much as possible the reality of Saigon’s sovereignty. He also was 

determined to prevent any expansion of American military operations 

that might provoke direct intervention by China or Russia. To that 

end, he closely restricted the targets of the Rolling Thunder campaign 

and prohibited all but the smallest U.S. ground incursions into Laos 

and North Vietnam.

Within the restrictions, General Westmoreland conducted a campaign that consisted of two principal elements, often referred to in 

shorthand labels as attrition and pacification. On the attrition side, 

Westmoreland used his American divisions plus some of the Free World 

allies and elements of the South Vietnamese Army in mobile offensives 

against the enemy main forces and logistic bases. These attacks were 

intended to destroy the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong big units or, 

failing that, to wear them down, preempt their attacks, keep them away 

from populated areas, and uproot their supply systems. In addition, 

Westmoreland maneuvered his American troops on South Vietnam’s 

borders to hold back enemy divisions that threatened to invade from 

north of the Demilitarized Zone or from Communist bases in Laos and 

Cambodia. Below the Demilitarized Zone, the III Marine Amphibious 

Force, at Westmoreland’s direction, by late 1967 had constructed and 

manned a line of infantry and artillery strongpoints within South 

Vietnam. Along with a belt of electronic sensors across Laos, the 

marines’ fortifications comprised a barrier that Secretary McNamara 

had ordered to be established in an attempt to reduce infiltration from 

North Vietnam. Some of the war’s bloodiest fighting occurred along 

this line, under conditions that in places resembled the trench combat 

of World War I.10

While the Americans fought the main force, the bulk of the South 

Vietnamese Army and the Regional and Popular Forces, with their U.S. 

advisers, pursued the pacification campaign. They attempted to clear 

Viet Cong guerrillas out of selected populated areas and to protect 

the police and Revolutionary Development teams who moved in to 

eradicate the Communist shadow administration and reestablish government authority. Together, the two parts of the military effort, in 

10

 This account is based on Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, ch. 12.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

16

the words of the allies’ Combined Campaign Plan for 1968, were “to 

provide territorial security at a level adequate to permit the destruction 

of the VC [Viet Cong] infrastructure and the uninterrupted and accelerated progress of political, economic, sociological and psychological 

programs” of the Saigon government. In fact, the military campaign 

was a slow process of trying to exhaust a foe able to draw supplies, 

replacements, and reinforcements from sources outside South Vietnam 

that the allies could damage but not shut down.11

Despite the frustrating aspects of the campaign, as 1967 came to a 

close, General Westmoreland, Ambassador Bunker, Ambassador Komer, 

and other senior American officials in Saigon believed that they were 

making progress in grinding down the enemy’s interlocked military and 

political systems. The Rolling Thunder air raids were imposing strain 

on North Vietnam’s economy and society and increasing the cost and 

difficulty of Hanoi’s prosecution of the war in the south. Although the 

enemy’s big units remained formidable in South Vietnam, American 

and allied troops were inflicting heavy casualties on them in every 

engagement, pushing them away from the population and agricultural centers, and invading and destroying their base areas. When the 

North Vietnamese and Viet Cong attacked in strength, their offensives 

seemed regularly to end in bloody failure. Evidence was mounting of 

declining enemy strength and morale, especially among the southern 

Viet Cong. Enemy forces were encountering difficulties in attracting 

recruits within South Vietnam, and the flow of reinforcements from 

North Vietnam appeared to be slowing down.

Rural pacification continued to progress slowly, if at all; but the future 

seemed to hold promise. With growing allied help, South Vietnamese 

regular and territorial forces were putting gradually increasing pressure 

on the Viet Cong guerrillas and political infrastructure. On the government side, a series of orderly, reasonably honest elections during 1967 

had produced, for the first time since the fall of Ngo Dinh Diem four 

years before, a stable Saigon regime with a degree of constitutional 

legitimacy and popular support. With the CORDS organization in place 

to strengthen American backing for pacification, the elements finally 

seemed to be coming together for an effective allied paramilitary and 

political effort to reclaim the countryside.

To the end of the year, General Westmoreland continued to report 

progress in the military campaign, in pacification, in establishing a 

constitutional South Vietnamese government, and in improving the 

South Vietnamese armed forces. Enemy losses, the MACV commander 

asserted in December, were averaging 14,600 per month while their 

gains from recruitment and infiltration were no more than 9,700. The 

U.S.–South Vietnamese Combined Campaign Plan for 1968, issued on 

11 November 1967, in General Westmoreland’s words, was “based on 

a strategy of exploiting past successes.” It called for continuing attacks 

11 Quotation is from Combined Campaign Plan, 1968, p. 6.
17

The Command and the War, January 1968

on the entire spectrum of enemy military forces, from guerrillas to the 

North Vietnamese divisions threatening the frontier, and for an aggressive and expanded pacification program.12

On 10 December, General Westmoreland told Admiral Sharp that 

the allies during 1968 would “defeat the VC/NVA [Viet Cong/North 

Vietnamese Army] main [force] units, destroy the enemy’s base areas 

and resources, and drive him into sparsely populated areas where 

food is scarce.” Intensified bombing of North Vietnam would “further 

reduce his war-making base and deny him the opportunity to bring 

his total resources to bear on the war in South Vietnam” even as the 

anti-infiltration barrier along the Demilitarized Zone and in Laos hindered movement of what men and materiel Hanoi did send. Within 

South Vietnam, the military offensive and the pacification effort 

would reduce enemy recruiting, erode the Viet Cong political infrastructure, and bring more of the population under government control. “In essence,” Westmoreland concluded, “every effort for 1968 will 

be directed towards the defeat of the enemy and the establishment of a 

viable government” in South Vietnam. The MACV commander offered 

every reason to believe those efforts would succeed.13

General Westmoreland felt confident enough about the direction 

in which the war was moving that he could envision a gradual reduction in the American combat role. On 21 November, during a public 

relations trip to the United States, he delivered a generally optimistic 

assessment of the conflict to the National Press Club in Washington. 

During his speech, he declared that as the military situation continued 

to improve and the Saigon government became stronger, “it is conceivable to me that within two years or less, it will be possible for us 

to phase down our level of commitment and turn more of the burden 

of the war over to the Vietnamese armed forces, who are improving 

and who, I believe, will be prepared to assume this greater burden.” 

Tempering his optimism with caution, as was his custom, the general 

elaborated in response to the newspeople’s questions that American 

troop withdrawals would be “token” at first but that “we’re preparing 

our plans to make it progressive.”14

A Shifting Policy

In looking ahead to what later would be called “Vietnamization” of 

the war, Westmoreland expressed more than his own views. He also gave 

12

 Quotation is from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 14624 to Sharp, 10 Dec 67, tab A–1, 

Westmoreland History file 26 (29 Nov–16 Dec 67), CMH. See also Msg, Westmoreland MAC 

12397 to Wheeler, 20 Dec 67, Westmoreland Message files, Dec 67, CMH; Combined Campaign 

Plan, 1968, pp. 1–28. 13

 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 14624 to Sharp, 10 Dec 67, tab A–10, Westmoreland History file 26 

(29 Nov–16 Dec 67), CMH. 14 Gen William C. Westmoreland, Address to National Press Club, Washington, D.C., 21 Nov 67, 

Historians files, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

18

voice, as was his wont, to a developing consensus within the Johnson 

administration in favor of topping off the American military effort and 

attempting to turn the fighting over to the South Vietnamese. By late 

1967, President Johnson and his closest advisers were reaching the conclusion that American military escalation in Indochina had reached 

the limits of political, financial, and moral sustainability without any 

prospect of achieving an early decisive result. Prompted by this realization and beleaguered by an expanding domestic antiwar movement, 

Johnson was edging toward a change of policy. 

Contributing to this change was a decline in official acceptance of 

the Military Assistance Command’s reporting. Westmoreland’s upbeat 

assessments were the latest in a steady flow of claims of success that 

had begun with MACV’s establishment in 1962. The predicted successes, however, had regularly failed to materialize. By late 1967, a 

growing number of American officials in the United States and in 

Vietnam no longer accepted MACV’s evaluations at face value. To 

the dissenters, who included key civilian assistants of Secretary of 

Defense McNamara in Washington, as well as many lower-ranking 

military officers and government civilians in Vietnam, the incremental advances regularly reported by the command and the embassy 

appeared more like stalemate, especially when weighed against the 

apparently limitless duration and steadily increasing human and 

economic cost of the conflict. CIA analysts, in particular, challenged 

MACV’s optimistic view of war trends. The order of battle dispute, 

during which many CIA analysts, as well as a number of MACV’s own 

junior intelligence officers, became convinced that Westmoreland and 

his command were deliberately underreporting enemy strength to 

sustain a false picture of military success, further undermined MACV’s 

credibility with other agencies. In Saigon, dissenting officials found 

in the American press corps an outlet for their views. Although most 

newspeople in Vietnam at this time agreed with American objectives 

in the war, they freely publicized particular failures and mercilessly 

exposed instances of government misstatements or outright falsifications of the facts.15

In the United States, public questioning of and opposition to the 

war mounted even as combat intensified and American casualties 

increased. By the end of 1967, antiwar protest had spread beyond the 

university campuses and left-wing fringe groups and was drawing in 

major political, religious, labor, and civil rights leaders. Even more 

ominous, belief in victory was declining among politically moderate Americans. Members of Congress who initially had supported 

15

 Harold P. Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes, 1962–1968 (Washington, 

D.C.: History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1998) recounts 

CIA controversies with MACV. See also Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, ch. 13. The evolution of news media disillusionment with government reporting is traced in William M. Hammond, 

Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962–1968, U.S. Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1988).
19

The Command and the War, January 1968

the administration’s war policy began moving away from that position, mainly on the grounds that the war was costing too much and 

making too little progress. Important newspapers and their reporters 

and columnists were beginning to reflect official and popular doubts, 

although the bulk of news coverage of Vietnam was still neutral or 

favorable to the administration’s position. In public opinion polls, 

President Johnson’s performance ratings steadily declined, and an 

ever-growing percentage of respondents to the same polls agreed 

with the proposition that U.S. intervention in Vietnam had been a 

mistake.

On its public face, the Johnson administration responded to the 

growth of doubt and dissent with a full-throated campaign of optimism. The president pushed every government agency to produce 

good news about Vietnam that would give the lie to allegations that 

the war was stalemated. In every forum of discussion, members of the 

administration cited these reports in defense of their claims of progress. 

Supporting the campaign, Westmoreland and his public affairs officers 

kept up a barrage of news conferences and official reports detailing 

slow but steady improvement in every aspect of the war. At administration direction, they gave special emphasis to stories that would refute 

persistent press charges that the South Vietnamese armed forces were 

incompetent and ineffective. It had been under President Johnson’s 

orders that Westmoreland returned to the United States in April and 

November 1967 to report on the state of the war, making the prediction 

of future U.S. disengagement during the second trip. Despite the effort 

devoted to it, the optimism campaign failed to dispel public doubts. 

By playing a prominent role in it, General Westmoreland, who previously had enjoyed much respect as a nonpolitical, professional military 

leader, became in the eyes of the press simply another pitchman for 

President Johnson and his advisers at the White House
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

20

the administration line. From then on, his command’s assessments, 

no matter how valid they might be, would be received at best with 

skepticism.16

While they put on a positive face in public, in private administration officials expressed growing doubt about the rightness and sustainability of the course they were on in Vietnam. To an increasing extent, 

they shared Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey’s conclusion after a 

visit to Vietnam in October 1967 that the nation was “throwing lives 

and money down a corrupt rat hole” and that “the American people 

would not stand for this involvement much longer.”17

By late 1967, Secretary of Defense McNamara had become the 

administration’s most prominent doubter. An early advocate and 

implementer of escalation, from mid-1966 on he grew increasingly 

convinced that heavier bombing of North Vietnam and the dispatch of 

still more U.S. troops to South Vietnam would only increase America’s 

costs and casualties without causing the other side to give up. On 1 

November, McNamara summed up his views in a memorandum to 

President Johnson. To bring the war’s financial burden under control, 

reduce domestic unrest, and create a stable position that the United 

States could hold during a prolonged period of fighting and negotiation, McNamara urged Johnson to fix American troop strength in 

South Vietnam at its current level of 525,000 and to make no further 

expansion of the Rolling Thunder campaign. In the south, the United 

States should “endeavor to maintain our current rates of progress but 

with lesser U.S. casualties and lesser destruction” to the Vietnamese 

people and countryside while gradually shifting the “major burden 

of the fighting” to Saigon’s forces. For the north, McNamara strongly 

advocated a complete cessation of the bombing in the hope that Hanoi 

in response would agree to negotiations and possibly halt or reduce 

its attacks across the Demilitarized Zone. Even if these results did not 

occur, he insisted, the United States at least would have established its 

good faith in the search for peace in the eyes of domestic and world 

opinion.18

President Johnson responded to McNamara’s memorandum by 

arranging for the defense secretary to leave the administration for 

the presidency of the World Bank, although McNamara remained at 

Defense until February 1968. At the same time, however, Johnson’s 

principal advisers were approaching a consensus in favor of leveling 

16

 Hammond, Military and the Media 1962–1968, chs. 12–14; Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 

1962–1967, ch. 13. 17

 Hubert H. Humphrey is quoted in U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, The 

U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part IV: 

July 1965–January 1968 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2002), p. 895 (hereafter 

cited as U.S. Congress, Senate, Government and the Vietnam War, 4). 18

 U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, vol. 5, Vietnam 

1967 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2002), pp. 943–50 (hereafter cited as FRUS 

Vietnam, 1967).
21

The Command and the War, January 1968

off the American effort along the lines McNamara had recommended. 

At the president’s request, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Ambassador 

Bunker, and other official and unofficial presidential counselors commented on McNamara’s 1 November memorandum. All opposed an 

immediate halt to Rolling Thunder and any publicly announced stabilization or de-escalation of operations in South Vietnam. At the same 

time, however, all rejected further escalation—whether by heavier 

bombing or a naval blockade of the North, dispatch of additional U.S. 

troops to the South, or ground offensives against enemy bases in Laos 

and Cambodia—as unlikely to achieve decisive success and certain to 

raise the costs of the war beyond what was politically supportable. All 

favored keeping Rolling Thunder at about its current intensity, holding 

MACV’s forces at 525,000, and gradually shifting the major share of 

combat and pacification to the South Vietnamese.19

Always inclined to tailor his recommendations to the Washington 

policy trends as he understood them, Westmoreland joined in this 

consensus. He had discussed leveling off MACV’s troop strength with 

McNamara the previous year and realized that Johnson’s refusal since 

1965 to call up the reserves had effectively established a ceiling on 

the forces he could expect to receive. Commenting along with Bunker 

on McNamara’s memorandum, Westmoreland rejected a halt in bombing of the North but declined to recommend more severe measures, 

such as a naval blockade. He expressed the hope that 525,000 men 

would be all the troops he would need in South Vietnam and declared 

to the president and in his speech at the National Press Club that a 

force of that size would be “well-balanced, hard-hitting,” one that the 

country would be “capable of sustaining as long as required” and that 

could continue “indefinitely” to maintain and increase pressure on the 

enemy. Although concerned with reducing casualties and destruction 

in South Vietnam, the MACV commander insisted that those considerations should not be allowed to restrict his conduct of tactical 

operations. He favored keeping open the option of ground attacks into 

North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia but did not advocate launching 

them at that point. Finally, he declared that over the next two years he 

would have as his “central purpose” the transfer of military functions 

to the South Vietnamese, to the end that ultimately the United States 

could leave behind in Vietnam “a military establishment capable of 

looking after itself increasingly.”20

Lyndon Johnson expressed his views in a “memorandum for the file” 

dated 18 December. He declared that he had studied McNamara’s proposals of 1 November and consulted about them with his Washington 

advisers and with Ambassador Bunker and General Westmoreland. 

He had, he said, reached certain conclusions. With regard to Rolling

19

 U.S. Congress, Senate, Government and the Vietnam War, 4, pp. 884–91. 20 FRUS Vietnam, 1967, pp. 1040–42; see also p. 1058. Westmoreland, Address to National Press 

Club, Washington, D.C., 21 Nov 67.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

22

Thunder, he had decided to continue the bombing at about the existing 

level of intensity and range of targets while trying at the same time to 

reduce the “drama and public attention” that the air campaign received 

in the United States. “Under present circumstances,” the president ruled 

out a unilateral bombing halt because it would be interpreted in both 

North Vietnam and the United States as “a sign of weakening will.” 

Johnson would play his “bombing card” only when he saw “reason for 

confidence that it would move us toward peace.” As yet, he saw no such 

reason. 

As to South Vietnam, Johnson was determined to keep his options 

open but essentially accepted McNamara’s viewpoint. The president 

declared that “at the moment” he saw no reason to increase MACV’s 

forces above the 525,000 level. He was “inclined to be extremely 

reserved” in considering proposals for American ground offensives outside South Vietnam unless a “powerful case” could be made for them. 

Such operations, he said, entailed political risks and would divert forces 

from “pressure on the VC” and pacification. Nevertheless, he deemed 

it unwise publicly to renounce these options. Johnson endorsed 

McNamara’s recommendations that the administration try to reduce 

the toll of death and destruction from American operations in South 

Vietnam and accelerate the turnover of combat to Saigon’s forces.21

By the end of 1967, the Johnson administration was close to abandoning its hope, which had never been very strong, of winning anything 

like a battlefield victory in Vietnam. Instead, the administration was 

pointed toward fixing an upper limit to the American military effort. 

The administration would try to hold the line militarily in Southeast 

Asia and politically at home until diplomacy or improvements in the 

Saigon government and its armed forces opened an honorable way out 

of the war. This approach had not yet been embodied in formal operational plans and orders, but the direction seemed clear. For the Military 

Assistance Command, as for the rest of the U.S. government, the years 

of escalation in Vietnam were nearing an end. 

21

 Full text of this memorandum is in FRUS Vietnam, 1967, pp. 1118–20.
2

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

Throughout the debate over whether the war was stalemated, the administration’s progress campaign, and President Johnson’s 

movement toward leveling off the American effort, all the participants 

assumed that the other side’s war strategy would remain the same. 

They expected the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong to continue their 

mixed large-unit and guerrilla campaign of attrition with the aim of 

exhausting American patience and South Vietnamese resources and 

forcing a negotiated settlement favorable to the revolution. Reflecting 

this view, an interagency intelligence estimate issued in November 

1967 concluded:

The Communists apparently recognize that the chances of a complete military victory 

have disappeared, and they aim instead at a protracted war. Their objectives . . . are to 

immobilize and wear down the Allied military forces, to maintain base areas, expand their 

political agitation and control in contested and GVN [government of Vietnam] areas, and 

defeat the RD [pacification] program. In pursuit of these objectives, their tactics are to 

combine and coordinate closely their military operations and political activity.1

In fact, when the intelligence estimate was published, the enemy 

was well into his preparations for something quite different: a nationwide offensive intended to achieve decisive political and military 

victory within a short time. The Military Assistance Command, the 

American mission in Saigon, and the U.S. intelligence community, as 

well as the South Vietnamese government and armed forces, gradually became aware that the enemy was preparing for more than his 

ordinary annual winter-spring offensive. However, they failed fully to



 Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE) 14.3–67, p. 2, in U.S. District Court, Southern 

District of New York, William C. Westmoreland, Plaintiff, v. CBS, Inc., et al., Defendants. 82 Civ 

7913 (PNL). Plaintiff General William C. Westmoreland’s Memorandum of Law in Opposition to 

Defendant CBS’s Motion to Dismiss and for Summary Judgment, app. B, p. 248 (hereafter cited as 

Westmoreland Memorandum of Law, app. B). For a similar view, see Combined Campaign Plan, 

1968, an. A, pp. 4–5, Historians files, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

24

appreciate the planned nature and extent of the attack and hence were 

taken at least partially by surprise when it began.

The Enemy Plans an Offensive2

Even as President Johnson and his advisers tentatively decided to 

level off the American war effort in Vietnam, their adversaries in Hanoi 

were getting ready to do the opposite. Undeterred by the increasing 

American pressure, the northern and southern revolutionary leaders held unwaveringly to their maximum goal: a unified Communist 

Vietnam. Like many Americans, the Communist leaders believed that 

the conflict had reached a stalemate, but for them a stalemate represented a temporary equilibrium of forces, a stage on their march to 

inevitable victory. Instead of a way out of the conflict, they sought a 

means to shift the balance in their favor.

By the spring of 1967, the Vietnamese Communists believed that 

they had passed through the first two stages of the people’s revolutionary war—those of organization and base building and of guerrilla 

warfare—and entered the third and final stage. In that stage, large 

combat-seasoned guerrilla and main forces backed by a strong political 

infrastructure and mass popular following were in position to launch 

what the Communists called the General Offensive–General Uprising. 

In this revolutionary climax, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong military units would launch attacks to destroy the South Vietnamese Army 

and pin down American forces. As these actions went on, urban and 

rural popular uprisings spearheaded by commando assaults on South 

Vietnamese military headquarters, administrative facilities, and communications centers would sweep away the puppet regime and install 

National Liberation Front governments at every level from the hamlets 

to Saigon. Since the early 1960s, the North Vietnamese Communist 

Party had identified the General Offensive–General Uprising as the culminating point of its politico-military campaign in the south. For the 

Saigon area, the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the senior 

enemy headquarters for the southern half of South Vietnam, had prepared detailed plans for such an operation. Since 1965, COSVN had 

been compelled to divert its resources to the growing battle against the 

Americans, but its plans remained in the files ready to be brought up 

to date and executed.3

More than the diversion of resources may have held back the 

offensive. In response to the massive intervention of American combat 

 Unless otherwise noted, this section is based on John M. Carland, “The Tet Offensive of 1968: 

Desperate Gamble or Calculated Risk?” (Unpublished paper, U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

2001) and William M. Hammond, “Preparations Begin” (Unpublished paper, U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 2002).

 The uprising concept is explained in “The Process of Revolution and the General Uprising,” 

document captured by U.S. troops, 22 May 68, Vietnam Documents and Research Notes, no. 45, 

CMH.
25

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

forces, factions among the North Vietnamese leaders engaged in a twoyear debate over war strategy. Masking their differences in MarxistLeninist jargon, the contending groups promoted their views through 

polemics published in the official Communist press and broadcast on 

North Vietnam’s state radio. They argued over the proper relationship 

between large-unit and guerrilla operations, the relative roles of political and military struggle and of fighting and diplomacy, and the merits 

of protracted conflict versus an all-out drive for victory in the shortest 

possible time. By mid-1967, they had reached a consensus that would 

blend most of the contending elements of their strategy in the context 

of the General Offensive–General Uprising.4

In a mirror image of General Westmoreland’s view of the conflict, 

the Communist leaders believed that they were making slow but steady 

progress in their struggle. Lt. Gen. Tran Van Tra, the COSVN military 

commander, for example, acknowledged in retrospect that his forces 

had encountered “difficulties and weaknesses” in replacing casualties, 

building political strength, and “conducting mass movements in urban 

areas.” Nevertheless, he argued, these problems existed “in the context 

of a favorable situation” in which the revolutionary army held the initiative and the Americans were “bewildered by the new battlefield” 

and by the Communists “new form of war.”5

Although the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were taking heavy 

losses and winning few victories on the battlefield and the U.S. bombing was placing severe pressure on the North Vietnamese society and 

economy, the political situation held much promise. The leaders in 

Hanoi knew that antiwar sentiment was mounting in the United States 

and among “progressive” forces around the world. Still better, during 

1968, a presidential election year, the American administration would 

be under additional strain that likely would inhibit its response to new 

Communist initiatives. Even more promising, South Vietnam appeared 

to be extremely vulnerable. The majority of South Vietnamese soldiers 

and people, the Communists assumed, in their hearts hated the Saigon 

regime and its American “imperialist” sponsors. Viewed from Hanoi, 

the I Corps revolt of 1966, the periodic anti-government demonstrations by Buddhists and other groups, the relatively small proportion of 

the popular vote received by the winning ticket of Nguyen Van Thieu 

and Nguyen Cao Ky in the September 1967 presidential election, and 

the presence of tens of thousands of impoverished displaced peasants 

in city slums were harbingers of incipient revolution in the urban centers of Saigon’s power. Only a spark, a catalytic event, was needed to 

set South Vietnam’s cities aflame, inspire Saigon’s troops to defect, and 

sweep away the puppet regime.6



 Thomas K. Latimer, “Hanoi’s Leaders and Their South Vietnam Policies, 1954–1968” (Ph.D. 

diss., Georgetown University, 1972), chs. 8 and 9, summarizes the controversies.

 Quotations are from Carland, “Tet Offensive,” pp. 4–5.

 This account of North Vietnamese/Viet Cong plans and assessments is drawn from William J. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

26

Taking all these considerations into account, the collective leadership of the North Vietnamese Communist (Lao Dong) Party decided 

to “prepare to strike a decisive blow against the enemy, win a great 

victory, bring about a great-leap-forward transformation, and force the 

United States to accept military defeat.” In May 1967, the Politburo, the 

party’s inner executive directorate, initiated planning for the General 

Offensive–General Uprising. At that time, the Politburo instructed the 

Central Party Military Affairs Committee, in coordination with the 

major theater commands in the south, to prepare an overall plan for 

the assault. During June, the party’s Central Committee unanimously 

endorsed the Politburo’s strategic decision to “prepare a decisive victory 

in 1968.” In July, the Politburo approved the Central Party Military 

Affairs Committee’s plan and set a tentative date for the offensive. At 

the end of October, on the basis of reports from the south, the leaders 

in Hanoi pushed the date forward to 30–31 January 1968, the beginning of Vietnam’s Tet lunar new year holiday. The change left local 

commanders in the south with a short time for preparation, but the 

Communist leaders believed that an offensive during the festivities 

would catch Saigon’s forces off-guard and have maximum military and 

political impact. The Politburo then developed a policy resolution and 

Duiker, The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1981), pp. 261–

65; Latimer, “Hanoi’s Leaders and Their South Vietnam Policies,” chs. 8 and 9; Col. Hoang Ngoc Lung, 

The General Offensives of 1968–1969, Indochina Monographs (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center 

of Military History, 1981), pp. 14–24; Lt. Gen. Phillip B. Davidson, Vietnam at War: The History, 

1946–1975 (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1988), pp. 434–42; and James J. Wirtz, The Tet Offensive: 

Intelligence Failure in War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), chs. 1 and 2. 

North Vietnamese Communist leaders and government

officials arrive for an official visit in Peking.
27

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

a detailed operational plan based on the earlier work of the Central 

Party Military Affairs Committee.7

In December, the Politburo presented the resolution to the 

Fourteenth Plenum, or general meeting, of the Lao Dong Party Central 

Committee. Approved by the delegates and formally issued on 1 January 

1968 as Central Resolution Fourteen, the document defined the enemy’s “crucial mission” during the winter-spring 1967–68 campaigning 

season as “to mobilize the greatest efforts of the entire Party, the entire 

army, and the entire people in both regions [North and South] to carry 

our revolutionary war to the highest level of development and use the 

general offensive and general uprising to secure a decisive victory in a 

relatively short time.”

As used in Resolution Fourteen, the term “decisive victory” denoted 

the achievement of three important strategic objectives: the collapse of 

the Saigon regime and its armed forces, the establishment of a neutralist coalition government in the south dominated by the National 

Liberation Front, and the beginning of negotiations for the withdrawal 

of U.S. troops from South Vietnam. Although not mentioned in the 

resolution, another objective would be to compel the United States to 

end or at least to significantly curtail the bombing of North Vietnam. 

After “decisive victory” was achieved, what the Communists called 

“total victory” would follow later when North Vietnam absorbed South 

Vietnam into a single socialist state. 

Specifically, the proposed offensive was to begin with a series of 

main force operations along South Vietnam’s western border and 

the Demilitarized Zone, designed to bleed and demoralize U.S. and 

South Vietnamese troops and to draw the allies’ attention away from 

the attack preparations in the lowlands and urban centers. Once this 

campaign was well under way, Viet Cong sapper and local force units, 

previously infiltrated into Saigon, Da Nang, Hue, and scores of province and district capitals, were to attack South Vietnamese military and 

government headquarters, police stations, and radio and television 

facilities. These assaults would paralyze the government and military 

high command so that the party’s political agents could establish a 

revolutionary regime and call the people into the streets. Additional 

main force units, concentrated on the outskirts of the cities, then 

would move in to finish off armed resistance and secure the victory. If 

all went as planned, the Americans, fighting for their lives along the 

borders, would find the country to their rear in the hands of a new Viet 

Cong–dominated coalition government to which much of the South 

Vietnamese had defected. The United States would have no recourse 

 Quotations are from War Experiences Recapitulation Committee of the High-Level Military 

Institute, Vietnam: The Anti-U.S. Resistance War for National Salvation, 1954–1975: Military Events

(Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 1980) (hereafter cited as Resistance War), trans. by Joint 

Publications Research Service, Doc. no. 80968, 1982, p. 100; see also p. 101.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

28

but to negotiate for withdrawal on whatever terms the victorious revolution chose to grant.8

To maximize his chances of achieving surprise, the enemy planned 

to launch his crucial attack on the cities at Tet, the Vietnamese new 

year, which in 1968 would be celebrated at the end of January. This 

holiday was deeply sacred to the Vietnamese as a time for renewal of 

bonds with family and ancestors and preparation for the year ahead. 

Its week-long celebration included much feasting, gift-giving, shooting of fireworks, and reunion with family and friends. Throughout the 

long war, Tet, like Christmas and the western New Year’s, had been the 

occasion of temporary truces, which both sides exploited for maneuver 

and resupply but rarely for major attacks. The South Vietnamese normally furloughed large numbers of their troops for the holiday, and the 

extensive movement of travelers for the occasion offered ideal cover 

for infiltration of Viet Cong soldiers and supplies into the cities. Above 

all, a full-scale attack during the holiday would achieve maximum 

shock and surprise, thereby enhancing the likelihood of government 

collapse.9

Although the planners in Hanoi made some allowance for a lessthan-complete triumph, they appear to have considered decisive victory a real possibility. Their directives to lower-level political and military cadres spoke of the new offensive as the climactic moment of the 

revolution’s long struggle. The instructions called for total dedication 

and total sacrifice for the sake of total victory.10

This ambitious plan was controversial at its inception and, as the 

Communists themselves acknowledged in retrospect, was based on 

an overestimation of the revolutionary forces’ military and political 

strength and capabilities and an underestimation of those of the allies. 

According to later Vietnamese Communist histories, many southern 

Viet Cong commanders from the first considered their forces inadequate to achieve the plan’s maximum goals; but they dared not voice 

 The enemy plan is conveniently summarized in Wirtz, Tet Offensive, pp. 61–64; and Davidson, 

Vietnam at War, pp. 443–46. Msg, Abrams MAC 10931 to Westmoreland, 15 Nov 67, Westmoreland 

Message files, 1–30 Nov 67, CMH, analyzes a captured enemy order for the border battles. For 

overall strategy, see “The Process of Revolution and the General Uprising,” document captured by 

U.S. forces on 22 May 68, Vietnam Documents and Research Notes, no. 45; and Department of 

Defense (DoD) Intelligence Information Report no. 6–026–1418–68, 18 Apr 68, sub: VC Plans. Both 

in CMH. 

 The significance of Tet to the Vietnamese is conveniently summarized in Westmoreland, Soldier 

Reports, p. 310. Col. Hoang Ngoc Lung, Intelligence, Indochina Monographs (Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1982), p. 35, claims that North Vietnamese authorities had less 

respect for Tet as a sacred tradition than did the South Vietnamese government and people. 10

 War Experiences Recapitulation Committee, Resistance War, p. 100, recounts the Hanoi 

Politburo’s view of the possible outcomes, including the possibility of a less-than-total victory. 

Present-day Communist Vietnamese historiography claims that the North Vietnamese all along 

envisioned the General Offensive–General Uprising as a prolonged process and that the southern 

Viet Cong misconstrued the campaign as a “one-blow” effort. See Capt Ronnie E. Ford, “Tet 1968: 

Understanding the Surprise” (Master’s thesis, Defense Intelligence College, 1993), pp. 111–12.
29

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

their objections because the plan was based in part on their own earlier 

optimistic reports of political and military success. A number of important North Vietnamese leaders, reportedly including Defense Minister 

Vo Nguyen Giap, the architect of victory at Dien Bien Phu, argued 

against the offensive. They urged instead a continuation of protracted 

attritional warfare. Looking backward, General Tran Van Tra declared: 

During Tet of 1968 we did not correctly evaluate the specific balance of forces between 

ourselves and the enemy, did not fully realize that the enemy still had considerable 

capabilities and that our capabilities were limited, and set requirements that were beyond 

our actual strength. In other words, we did not base ourselves on scientific calculation or 

a careful weighing of all factors, but in part on an illusion based on our subjective desires. 

. . .11

Warnings and Preparations

By the time the Central Committee adopted Resolution Fourteen, 

preparations for the campaign were well under way. During the 

summer and fall, the North Vietnamese increased the flow of men and 

materiel down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. According to a later Communist 

account, some 31,700 personnel entered South Vietnam during 1967, 

more than twice the number that infiltrated during the previous year, 

along with over 6,500 tons of weapons and supplies. The weaponry 

included thousands of automatic rifles, machine guns, and hand-held 

antitank rocket launchers. Gradually and secretly, the Communists disseminated orders down their chain of command and initiated local 

attack planning. Viet Cong units, often as yet unaware of the purpose 

of their efforts, clandestinely stockpiled supplies near South Vietnam’s 

cities and prepared for their urban attack missions. Party cadres assembled lists of government officials and supporters to be killed and kidnapped, as well as lists of members of the prospective revolutionary 

town and province administrations. During the fall, main force regiments engaged allied forces in a series of unusually prolonged battles at 

Con Thien on the Demilitarized Zone and Song Be, Loc Ninh, and Dak 

To on the western edges of II and III Corps. These battles, which cost 

the enemy thousands of men but also pushed up the weekly American 

casualty rate, apparently were designed to draw allied forces to the 

borders and distract their attention from the offensive preparations 

against the cities.

11 Quotation is from Col. Gen. Tran Van Tra, Vietnam: History of the Bulwark B2 Theater, vol. 5, 

Concluding the 30-Years War (Ho Chi Minh City: Van Nghe Publishing House, 1982), trans. Foreign 

Broadcast Information Service, Joint Publications Research Service, Southeast Asia Report no. 1247, 

2 Feb 83, p. 35. Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 449–50, comments on Vo Nguyen Giap’s opposition to the offensive; see also pp. 446–48. A senior Communist leadership review of the offensive is 

described in CIA Intelligence Information Report, 13 Aug 70, CMH. Ford, “Tet 1968,” pp. 112–15, 

163–67, 274, summarizes recent Communist accounts. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

30

Hanoi also made political and diplomatic preparations. North 

Vietnam signed new military and economic aid agreements with the 

Soviet Union and China. To curb home-front dissent, the Hanoi regime 

arrested over 200 senior party members and officials who lacked sufficient zeal for the war effort and decreed harsh punishment for persons 

guilty of “counterrevolutionary” crimes. The National Liberation Front, 

the political arm of the Viet Cong, announced a new program aimed at 

broadening its appeal to the South Vietnamese people and instigated 

rumors that the National Liberation Front and the United States were 

secretly negotiating to replace the Thieu-Ky regime with a Viet Cong–

dominated coalition government. Finally, on 31 December, the North 

Vietnamese foreign minister issued a public declaration that seemed to 

commit Hanoi to enter peace negotiations if the United States stopped 

Rolling Thunder. In the light of what followed, the purpose of this 

statement was less than clear. Probably, it was aimed both at laying 

the groundwork for negotiations and at diverting American attention 

from what by that time were visible indications of an imminent major 

Communist offensive.12

12

 These preparations are conveniently summarized in Hammond, “Preparations Begin”; Wirtz, 

Tet Offensive, pp. 66–77; Lung, General Offensives, pp. 25–31; and Don Oberdorfer, Tet! (New York: 

Da Capo Press, 1984), pp. 65–69. Also, Msgs, Abrams MAC 10931 and MAC 11239 to Wheeler, 

15 Nov 67 and 22 Nov 67; Westmoreland MAC 01001 to Sharp and Wheeler info Gen Johnson, 21 

The battle for Dak To peaked with a costly attack by the 4th Battalion, 173d Airborne Brigade, against well-entrenched North Vietnamese on Hill 875.
31

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

The enemy took great pains to conceal his preparations and intentions. Until almost the eve of the attack, a U.S. intelligence study later 

concluded, “probably no Communist officer below the level of COSVN, 

front, or military region was aware of the full scope of the offensive.” 

The assault units received their final orders 72 hours or less before the 

time of execution. Nevertheless, the Communists had to distribute 

orders and plans and indoctrinate their troops and political cadre concerning the transcendent significance of the coming effort. Inevitably, 

as a result, American and South Vietnamese intelligence organizations 

during the fall and winter steadily accumulated evidence, primarily 

from captured documents and prisoner interrogations, of the scale, 

objectives, and timing of the attack. On the basis of this evidence, 

analysts at the MACV J–2 Current Intelligence Branch, the Combined 

Intelligence Center, Vietnam,13 and the CIA Saigon station issued studies 

that predicted a nationwide enemy offensive, including major attacks 

on the cities. The CIA study, finished in November, accurately forecast 

the successive phases of the coming campaign. Its drafters suggested 

that the border battles were part of the first phase and that a second 

phase, possibly including the city attacks, would begin in January.14

Higher-ranking intelligence officers and commanders at MACV 

and elsewhere received these studies at best with skepticism. The 

MACV chief of intelligence, Maj. Gen. Phillip B. Davidson, and his 

chief estimator, Col. Daniel Graham, for example, heard briefings on 

the J–2 and CIA attack predictions but rejected their conclusions, as 

did George Carver, who oversaw Vietnam activities at the CIA. Often 

before, enemy documents had called for major attacks, but the attacks 

never had occurred. An all-out nationwide offensive seemed clearly 

beyond the capabilities of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong and 

seemed inconsistent with their presumed strategy of protracted attritional warfare. An attempt to capture the cities, where the enemy 

hitherto had confined his efforts to terrorism, espionage, and political 

Jan 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, 1–30 Nov 67 and 1–31 Jan 68, CMH. Latter message 

discusses rising American casualty rates. 13

 The Combined Intelligence Center, Vietnam, established in 1966, included both American 

and South Vietnamese personnel and was intended to bring together American technical expertise with Vietnamese knowledge of their language, people, and culture. It drew upon the 

product of similar combined centers for the exploitation of captured enemy documents and 

materiel and prisoners of war. For its establishment, see Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 1962–

1967, ch. 8.

14 Quotation is from the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), 

“Intelligence Warning of the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam” (Interim Report), ca. early 

1968, p. 3, JX 397, in Vietnam: A Documentary Collection, card 698. Wirtz, Tet Offensive, ch. 

4; Lung, General Offensives, pp. 32–37; Interv, Lt Col James E. Smith and Lt Col Edward P. 

Smith with Gen William B. Rosson, 1981, pp. 377–80, Senior Officers Oral History Program, 

Military History Institute (MHI), Carlisle Barracks, Pa. (hereafter cited as Rosson Interv); 

Phillip B. Davidson, Secrets of the Vietnam War (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1990), p. 105; 

U.S. District Court, Westmoreland Memorandum of Law, app. B, pp. 217, 267, 374–75. Saigon 

station analyses are summarized in Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers, pp. 119–21.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

32

agitation, appeared especially improbable. The Communists lacked 

the conventional military strength to seize and hold major towns. 

According to the allies’ political assessment (which turned out to be 

accurate), the Communists could count on little help from urban citizens who, while often hostile or apathetic toward the Saigon regime, 

were far from ready to rise on behalf of the National Liberation Front. 

Hanoi’s leaders, whom the allies credited with possessing excellent 

intelligence on South Vietnamese affairs, would not be so foolish as 

to throw away their forces in a hopeless endeavor. The city attack 

plans, therefore, could be dismissed as propaganda and the border 

battles understood as desperate enemy efforts to gain limited successes largely for psychological and political purposes—efforts that, in 

fact, had merely exposed enemy troops to slaughter by American firepower. Thus ironically, the miscalculations in the North Vietnamese 

plan worked in its favor by causing the allies to discount the evidence 

that reached them of the nature of the attack.15

Although the Military Assistance Command’s evaluations and plans 

discounted the likelihood of a nationwide enemy offensive, General 

Westmoreland took steps that had the effect of strengthening his position. During September and October, he secured Defense Department 

agreement to a speed-up in deployment of the major Army combat 

elements in the recently approved reinforcement Program Five—the 

headquarters and two brigades of the 101st Airborne Division and the 

11th and 198th Light Infantry Brigades—so that all would arrive in 

South Vietnam before the expected Christmas cease-fire. The MACV 

commander obtained these accelerated deployments not in anticipation of a major nationwide Communist offensive but rather to get 

more troops in hand to meet the perennial enemy threat in northern 

I Corps and to provide additional forces for projected allied operations. He also wanted to make certain that his reinforcements were 

not being blocked by any diplomatic maneuvering attendant upon 

the Christmas truce.16

15

 Wirtz, Tet Offensive, ch. 3, examines allied assumptions; see especially pp. 111–19, 124–28, 

175–77. Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers, pp. 121–23; Lung, Intelligence, pp. 145–52; and 

General Offensives, pp. 37–42. Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, pp. 316, 320–23; Davidson, Vietnam 

Secrets, pp. 104–11; and Interv, Lyndon B. Johnson Library (LBJL) with Lt Gen Phillip B. Davidson, 

30 Mar and 30 Jun 82, sess. 1, p. 45 (hereafter cited as Davidson Interv); and Interv, LBJL with 

Col Daniel Graham, 24 May 82, sess. 1, pp. 39–41, and 3 Nov 82, sess. 2, p. 7 (hereafter cited as 

Graham Interv). Westmoreland gives his view of purpose of the border battles in Msg, MAC 10547 

to Wheeler, 6 Nov 67, Westmoreland Message files, Nov 67, CMH. 16

 U.S. Congress, House Committee on Armed Services, United States–Vietnam Relations, 

1945–1967: Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, 12 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government 

Printing Office, 1971), sec. 4.C.6(b), pp. 215–22 (hereafter cited as United States–Vietnam Relations). 

Msgs, Gen Johnson WDC 13028 to Westmoreland, 2 Oct 67; Gen Johnson JCS 8356–67 to Sharp 

and Westmoreland, 5 Oct 67; Gen Johnson WDC 13666 to Gen Dwight E. Beach, CG, USARPAC, 

and Westmoreland, 14 Oct 67; Beach HWA 2978 to Gen Johnson info Westmoreland, 14 Oct 67; 

Westmoreland MAC 9810 to Johnson, 19 Oct 67; Beach HWA 3067 to Gen Johnson, 24 Oct 67; 

Westmoreland Message files, Oct 67, CMH.
33

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

Westmoreland campaigned as well to eliminate the holiday ceasefires or, failing that, to minimize their durations and their restrictions 

on his forces’ freedom of action. Temporary truces for Christmas, the 

western New Year’s, and Tet had become an established practice in the 

war which General Westmoreland and other American commanders 

deplored as affording the enemy periods free from allied attack during 

which the enemy could reinforce and resupply his troops. Early in 

October, Westmoreland, on the basis of a MACV staff study, recommended to the Mission Council that the United States and South 

Vietnam announce no holiday cease-fires at all during the coming 

season. If political considerations required truces, they should be limited to 24 hours each at Christmas and New Year’s and 48 hours at 

Tet. Westmoreland initially floated the idea of tying the cease-fires to 

a mutual freeze on troop movements and logistical operations by both 

sides, but at Admiral Sharp’s urging, he backed away from this proposal 

as potentially unmanageable and dangerous to allied forces if a truce 

should be extended by diplomatic maneuvering.17

The Mission Council accepted Westmoreland’s 24/24/48 formula, 

as eventually did the administration. At State Department insistence, 

the administration rejected the MACV commander’s suggestion that 

each truce be made conditional on enemy behavior during the previous 

truce, although it gave his forces ample latitude in reacting to major 

Communist cease-fire violations. On 19 December, Westmoreland 

transmitted to his commanders the agreed U.S. and South Vietnamese 

plan for 24-hour cease-fires at Christmas and New Year’s and a 48-hour 

stand-down at Tet. He enjoined his commanders to bring “maximum 

pressure” on the enemy in the days immediately before each pause in 

operations and to position their troops to obstruct enemy troop and 

supply movements during each truce. The other side at the same time 

announced its own longer cease-fires for each holiday. Significantly, 

throughout these discussions, Westmoreland based his case for limiting the cease-fires on past violations by the enemy and the need to 

deny him unmolested movement of troops and supplies, not on any 

imminent threat of a Communist offensive.18

17

 Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, p. 279. Westmoreland History Notes, 1–30 Oct 67, tab A; 

Memorandum for the Record (MFR), Hendry, 8 Oct 67, sub: CIIB [Criminal Investigation and 

Intelligence Bureau] Meeting, 7 Oct 67, tab A–11. Both in Westmoreland History file no. 23 (1–15 

Oct 67), CMH. Msg, Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (COMUSMACV) 

MAC 34790 to Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), 22 Oct 67, COMUSMACV Signature file, 

1967, CMH. Msgs, Sharp BNK 2376 to Gen Johnson and Westmoreland, 10 Dec 67; Westmoreland 

MAC 12000 to Sharp, 11 Dec 67. Both in Westmoreland Message files, Dec 67, CMH. 18

 Msg, Eugene Locke Saigon 8008 to Bunker, 9 Oct 67, tab A–23, Westmoreland History 

file no. 23 (1–15 Oct 67); Memo, Westmoreland for Bunker, 8 Dec 67, sub: Holiday Cease-fire 

Announcement, COMUSMACV Signature file, Dec 67; Msg, Bunker Saigon 13232 to Sec State, 

12 Dec 67, tab A–17, Westmoreland History file no. 26 (29 Nov–16 Dec 67). All in CMH. Msgs, 

Westmoreland MAC 11960 to Sharp, 10 Dec 67; and MAC 12363 to Field Force and Component 

Cdrs, 19 Dec 67. All in Westmoreland Message files, Dec 67, CMH. Quotations are from latter message. Wirtz, Tet Offensive, p. 211, comments on lack of mention of any enemy offensive threat.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

34

Despite these indications of business as usual, by late December, 

the Military Assistance Command, the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, and 

senior officials in Washington had come to recognize that the enemy’s 

next winter-spring offensive would be much larger than ordinary and 

have unusually ambitious objectives. The indications were impossible 

to ignore. The sheer volume of captured documents and prisoner interrogations pointing toward a nationwide offensive and attacks on the 

cities commanded attention. Enemy willingness to stand and fight at 

Dak To and other places, at great cost to themselves, and its launching 

of nearly simultaneous attacks in several corps areas at once, represented a break with past patterns. Westmoreland in response commissioned a joint study by his intelligence and operations staff directorates to discover the Communists’ intentions in these operations and 

determine how the command should react to and exploit them. As 

the new year began, a growing amount of intercepted radio traffic provided additional evidence that the enemy planned widespread assaults 

on an unprecedented scale, including some directed against cities and 

the coastal lowlands. Yet skepticism remained. In mid-December, for 

example, General Westmoreland directed the MACV psychological 

warfare office to consider a post-Tet program to “capitalize on those 

VC pre-Tet promises that do not materialize,” specifically the reports 

that enemy troops in some areas “allegedly are being directed to go all 

out now on the basis that peace will come immediately after Tet.”19

The Military Assistance Command and its overseers in Honolulu 

and Washington paid special attention to accumulating evidence of a 

sudden dramatic increase in North Vietnamese infiltration. Throughout 

most of 1967, the command believed that the enemy was dispatching 

fewer men per month to South Vietnam than he had during the previous year, probably because he had completed his buildup of units 

and now was only sending down replacements. As late as 5 October, 

General Westmoreland reassured the State Department that he possessed no “hard intelligence” of a major expansion of enemy forces. 

However, during November and December, analysts in the Combined 

Intelligence Center, Vietnam, extrapolating mathematically from 

19

 Wirtz, Tet Offensive, pp. 180–90, 202–03; PFIAB, “Intelligence Warning,” p. 3. Quotation is 

from MFR, Brig. Gen. William E. Bryan Jr., USAF, 17 Dec 67, sub: CIIB Meeting, 16 Dec 67, tab 

A–8, Westmoreland History file no. 27 (19–26 Dec 67), CMH. J–2 and J–3 evaluation is directed in 

MFR, Bryan, 18 Nov 67, sub: CIIB Meeting, 18 Nov 67, tab A-44, Westmoreland History file no. 25 

(13–28 Nov 67), CMH. U.S. District Court, Westmoreland Memorandum of Law, app. B, p. 157n; U.S. 

District Court, Southern District of New York, William C. Westmoreland, Plaintiff, v. CBS Inc., et. al., 

Defendants. 82 Civ. 7913 (PNL). Memorandum in Support of Defendant CBS’s Motion to Dismiss and 

for Summary Judgment, pp. 121–22; and app. A, p. 344; Davidson Interv, 30 Mar and 30 Jun 82, sess. 

1, pp. 36–38, 41–42; Bruce E. Jones, War Without Windows: A True Account by a Young Army Officer 

Trapped in an Intelligence Cover-Up in Vietnam (New York: Vanguard Press, 1987), p. 141. Brig. 

Gen. John R. Chaisson, the MACV Combat Operations Center (COC) chief, predicted hard fighting 

ahead in Presentation at Headquarters, Marine Corps (HQMC), 2 Jan 68, in Chaisson, Oral History, pp. 

141–42, Marine Corps Historical Center (MCHC), Washington, D.C.; see also pp. 108–12. See also Ltr, 

Chaisson to Mrs Chaisson, 29 Nov 67, box 7, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution, Stanford, Calif.
35

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

meager information in collateral sources, began estimating much 

higher infiltration rates than they reported in the published order of 

battle with its stringent requirement for documentation of each unit 

and replacement group. In addition to these estimates, which were 

based on experimental methodology and rejected higher up in J–2, 

MACV received and accepted reports, based on special intelligence, 

of the advance of several North Vietnamese divisions, hitherto held 

in reserve in North Vietnam, to positions within striking distance of 

Khe Sanh, the westernmost Marine position in northern I Corps. Col. 

Charles Morris, General Davidson’s chief of intelligence production, 

and a select group of senior analysts concentrated full time on this 

troop movement, which involved at least 20,000 men. They were “terribly concerned with this,” Morris later recalled, “this reshaped the 

whole bloody war.” Similar concern was felt in the White House, where 

President Johnson and his advisers, privy to the same special intelligence MACV was receiving, anxiously watched the enemy converge 

on Khe Sanh.20

By the end of December, the administration and MACV had concluded that the Communists were preparing for some sort of major 

military assault early in the new year and that the offensive might 

be part of a larger change in Communist war strategy. However, they 

remained uncertain what the direction of change would be, the more 

so after the North Vietnamese foreign minister’s announcement on 

31 December. If a consensus existed, it was that the enemy, realizing 

his position was deteriorating, would try a last-ditch offensive before 

moving to the conference table. Epitomizing this view and echoing 

the conclusions of an assessment earlier in the month by the CIA 

Saigon station, General Westmoreland, on 20 December, told General 

Wheeler: 

The enemy has already made a crucial decision concerning the conduct of the war. . . . The 

enemy decided that prolongation of his past policies for conducting the war would lead to 

his defeat, and that he would have to make a major effort to reverse the downward trend. 

. . . His decision therefore was to undertake an intensified countrywide effort, perhaps a 

maximum effort, over a relatively short period. . . . If the enemy is successful in winning 

a significant military victory somewhere in SVN [South Vietnam], or gaining even an 

apparent position of strength, he may seek to initiate negotiations. If, on the other hand, 

he fails badly, we do not believe that he will negotiate from weakness, but will continue 

the war at a reduced intensity. In short, I believe that the enemy has already made a 

20 Msg, Locke, Westmoreland, and Komer Saigon 15107 to State Dept, 5 Jan 68, Cable 

Chronological State Dept (Chron-State) (Jan–May 68), Deputy COMUSMACV for Civil Operations 

and Revolutionary Development (DepCORDS) files, CMH; Memo, Davidson for Komer, 6 Aug 

67, sub: Monthly Report of Infiltration into SVN; Draft Ltr, Komer to President, 20 Aug 67, Robert 

M. Montague Papers. All in CMH. Msg, Westmoreland MAC 9311 to Fred Greene, 5 Oct 67, 

Westmoreland Message files, Oct 67, CMH. Col. Charles Morris quotation is from his Deposition 

no. 2, pp. 155–57; see also Morris, Deposition (no. 1), pp. 38–39, 73–74, and (no. 2), pp. 106–11, in 

Vietnam: A Documentary Collection, cards 345, 348–49. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

36

crucial decision to make a maximum effort. The results of this effort will determine the 

next move.21

This assessment, however, was not unanimous. Admiral Sharp, for 

example, declared on 26 December that he saw no “criticality in the 

current enemy situation which portends a final push effort.” He rejected 

the theory that Hanoi “has misread the evidence and believes conditions are ripe for a Communist victory,” insisting that the Communists’ 

excellent intelligence network in the south must be telling them otherwise. Sharp expected the enemy in the next few months to strike 

some sharp blows aimed at pressuring the United States to accept a 

Viet Cong–dominated coalition government and acknowledged that it 

might be “considering further changes concerning the future conduct 

of the war.” Nevertheless, “the likelihood of a final effort . . . sometime 

after Tet cannot be discounted but remains remote.”22

The Military Assistance Command, although it acknowledged the 

probability of nationwide enemy attacks, expected the heaviest blow 

to fall in northern I Corps. Cut off from the rest of South Vietnam by 

the Hai Van Mountains, a spur that ran down to the sea just north of 

Da Nang, the area’s land communications were tenuous. Its proximity 

to North Vietnamese bases and troop concentrations, along with the 

presence of Hue, the former Vietnamese imperial capital, and other 

important objectives, made it the logical place for the enemy to seek 

significant territorial gains or a major battlefield victory. Persistent 

North Vietnamese infantry and artillery attacks on Con Thien and 

other Marine positions below the Demilitarized Zone, as well as the 

movement of additional North Vietnamese divisions toward the area, 

reinforced this view. A war game of a possible enemy offensive, played 

at Military Assistance Command headquarters in late December and 

early January, confirmed that the enemy’s best course of action would 

be to launch secondary attacks in the Central Highlands, along the 

central coast, and around Saigon while striking the main blow with 

four or five divisions in Quang Tri and Thua Thien, the two provinces 

of northern I Corps. Tending to confirm MACV’s assessment, subsequent North Vietnamese accounts indicate that the divisions assembling along the Demilitarized Zone were intended to break through 

the strongpoint obstacle system and seize Hue and possibly Da Nang 

in conjunction with local uprisings. Although unaware of these facts 

at the time, MACV was preoccupied during December and January 

with preparations for large-scale combat in the region between the 

21

 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 12397 to Wheeler, 20 Dec 67; see also Msg, Wheeler JCS 10897–67 

to Sharp and Westmoreland, 16 Dec 67. Both in Westmoreland Message files, Dec 67, CMH. Compare 

to the Saigon CIA station estimate of 8 Dec 67, quoted in Ford, CIA and Vietnam, pp. 120–21. 22 Msg, Sharp to Wheeler, 26 Dec 67, Westmoreland Message files, Dec 67, CMH.
37

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

Demilitarized Zone and the Hai Van Pass, which constituted the dividing line between northern and southern I Corps.23

Long concerned with the Communist threat to northern I Corps, 

General Westmoreland, in the spring of 1967, had deployed the Army 

brigades of Task Force Oregon (later renamed the Americal Division) 

to the southern part of the corps area so that III Marine Amphibious 

Force could shift more of its marines toward the Demilitarized Zone. 

The MACV commander also opened additional air and seaborne lines 

of communication to the endangered region. By the end of the year, 

the MACV staff was planning an extensive series of offensives against 

the enemy bases in western I Corps. Code-named York I through IV, 

these operations were to begin in March of 1968 and progressively work 

from south to north, cleaning out the enemy strongholds. To conduct 

these operations, General Westmoreland planned to transfer the 1st 

Cavalry Division to I Corps from its normal operating area in II Corps. 

As the enemy offensive threat increased, the MACV commander used 

the York plans as the basis for preparations to send the air cavalry to 

I Corps to help the marines counter or preempt the expected North 

Vietnamese assault.24

By the beginning of January, MACV had concluded that the climactic battle would take place at Khe Sanh. The Marine combat base and 

airfield, located on a plateau in northern Quang Tri Province close to 

the Laotian border, was the farthest western outpost of the McNamara 

barrier line. It obstructed a major enemy infiltration route from Laos 

into coastal I Corps, served as a base for Studies and Observations Group 

teams operating against the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and was potentially 

important for supporting larger attacks into Laos along Highway 9 if 

such ever were authorized. Surrounded by mountains and able to be 

supplied and reinforced only by air, Khe Sanh bore a superficial resemblance to Dien Bien Phu, where the Viet Minh had won their climactic 

victory over the French in 1954. Early in the new year, special intelligence, supplemented by information from prisoners and defectors, 

indicated that at least two North Vietnamese divisions and possibly 

more were converging on the base. Officials in Saigon and Washington, 

23 The war game is described in Davidson, Vietnam Secrets, pp. 104–05. Westmoreland’s concern 

with I Corps is evident in his History Notes, 29 Nov–16 Dec 67, tab A, Westmoreland History file 

no. 26 (29 Nov–16 Dec 67) and 28 Dec 67–31 Jan 68, tab A–1, Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 

Dec 67–31 Jan 68). Both in CMH. Ford, “Tet 1968,” pp. 152–62, 168–77, summarizes Communist 

accounts. 24

 Westmoreland History Notes, 28 Dec 67–31 Jan 68, tab A–1; MFR, Bryan, 7 Jan 68, sub: 

CIIB Meeting, 6 Jan 68, tab A–16. Both in Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–1/31/68), 

CMH. Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 9592 and MAC 11636 to Johnson, 12 Oct 67; Westmoreland MAC 

9619 to Sharp, 13 Oct 67, 3 Dec 67; Wheeler JCS 00043–68 to Westmoreland info Sharp, 2 Jan 68; 

Westmoreland MAC 00204 and MAC 00636 to Sharp info Wheeler, 5 Jan 68 and 14 Jan 68. All in 

Westmoreland Message files, Oct and Dec 67, Jan 68, CMH. Logistics and reinforcement actions are 

summarized conveniently in Admiral U. S. G. Sharp and General William C. Westmoreland, Report 

on the War in Vietnam (as of June 1968) (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1969), p. 

172 (hereafter cited as Sharp and Westmoreland, Report).
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

38

including President Johnson, who had a relief map of Khe Sanh set up 

in the White House, anxiously observed developments, anticipating a 

desperate and possibly disastrous battle.25

The Marine commanders of III Marine Amphibious Force were less 

than enthusiastic about defending Khe Sanh, and some senior civilians 

in Washington suggested abandoning it as untenable. However, General 

Westmoreland insisted on holding the position. Khe Sanh, unlike Dien 

Bien Phu, was within artillery range of other friendly bases and easily 

reachable by airplanes and helicopters. Hence, Westmoreland was 

confident that he could supply the garrison by air and destroy enemy 

attackers with a curtain of bombs and shells. As with the other border 

battles, Westmoreland argued that it was better to fight the enemy in 

a remote, relatively unpopulated area like Khe Sanh rather than in the 

heavily settled coastal districts, and that a Communist attack on the 

25 Development of the threat is summarized in Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 554–55; Capt. 

Moyers S. Shore, II, USMC, The Battle for Khe Sanh (Washington, D.C.: Historical Branch, G–3 

Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1969), pp. 26–31; Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, p. 

182; Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, pp. 198, 316–17. A proposed corps-size attack into Laos along 

Highway 9 is described in Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01382 to Sharp, 30 Jan 68, Westmoreland 

Message files, Jan 68, CMH.

Aerial view of the base at Khe Sanh
39

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

base would offer the allies a chance to employ their overwhelming 

firepower with maximum effect. While the MACV commander later 

declared that his decision to hold Khe Sanh was a “military” one, he 

told General Wheeler on 12 January that, while Khe Sanh was important as a base for SOG teams and “flank security” for the strongpoint 

obstacle system, “it is even more critical from a psychological viewpoint. To relinquish this area would be a major propaganda victory 

for the enemy. It[s] loss would seriously affect Vietnamese and US 

morale.” Eleven days later, he maintained “unreservedly” that Khe 

Sanh was “of significance: strategic, tactical, and most importantly, 

psychological.”26

During January, the Military Assistance Command mustered its 

forces for the expected decisive battle. At MACV’s direction, III Marine 

Amphibious Force reinforced the two Marine battalions already at Khe 

Sanh with two additional ones. MACV temporarily placed the SOG 

teams operating from the base under III Marine Amphibious Force’s 

control. The South Vietnamese, at Westmoreland’s urging, added a 

South Vietnamese Ranger battalion to establish its presence in the 

expected climactic battle. Additional American and allied troops 

massed in northern I Corps. In mid-January, Westmoreland, implementing his earlier contingency plan, ordered the headquarters and 

two brigades of the 1st Cavalry Division to deploy to the Hue–Phu 

Bai area; later he rounded out the division with a brigade of the 101st 

Airborne Division transferred from II Field Force. At the same time, the 

South Korean Marine brigade shifted northward in I Corps, allowing 

III Marine Amphibious Force to place part of the 1st Marine Division 

north of the Hai Van Pass. The South Vietnamese Joint General Staff, 

pressed by Westmoreland, dispatched two South Vietnamese airborne 

battalions to Hue to augment a two-battalion task force already there. 

By the end of January, MACV had concentrated more than 50 percent 

of all its American combat battalions in I Corps.27

In the small hours of 21 January, the North Vietnamese opened 

their long-awaited attack on Khe Sanh with a fierce but unsuccessful ground assault on a Marine outpost on one of the nearby hilltops 

north of the base, followed by an artillery and mortar bombardment 

26 Quotations are from Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 00547 to Wheeler, 12 Jan 68, tab 23, 

Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec–31 Jan 68), and Westmoreland MAC 0160 to Sharp info 

Wheeler, 23 Jan 68, Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68. Both in CMH. In latter file, see also Msgs, 

Wheeler JCS 00343–68 to Westmoreland info Sharp, 11 Jan 68; and Sharp to Wheeler, 14 Jan 68. 

Typical retrospective rationalizations for holding Khe Sanh are in Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, 

pp. 162–63; Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, pp. 335–38; and Shore, Khe Sanh, pp. vi–viii. III Marine 

Amphibious Force reluctance to commit itself to holding the position is recalled in Chaisson, Oral 

History, pp. 370–73, MCHC. 27 Reinforcement decisions can be followed in tab A–8, Westmoreland History file no. 27 (19–26 

Dec 67), and tabs A–1, 23, 26, 28, 32, and 71, Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–31 Jan 

68), CMH; Chaisson, Oral History, pp. 215–16; Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, pp. 160, 163–64, 

182. Studies and Observations Group control is mentioned in Chaisson Diary, 5 Dec 67–13 Feb 68, 

box 9, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

40

that blew up the marines’ ammunition dump. In response, MACV 

ordered the Seventh Air Force to initiate Operation Niagra, a previously 

planned round-the-clock campaign of B–52 and tactical air strikes and 

artillery bombardment targeted by an intensive reconnaissance effort, 

which included the use of advanced sensors originally procured for the 

anti-infiltration barrier. A special ad hoc group in MACV headquarters 

selected targets for the B–52 missions. General Westmoreland closely 

supervised the conduct of the Niagra campaign, occasionally specifying particular targets for bombing and reconnaissance. MACV and III 

Marine Amphibious Force began an equally large-scale aerial resupply 

effort for the base, using both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. To 

handle casualties, MACV prepared to open an Army surgical hospital 

in northern I Corps while two Navy hospital ships took position offshore. General Westmoreland secured permission from Admiral Sharp 

to continue bombing targets in Laos during the Tet cease-fire. The 

MACV staff began planning an amphibious feint against the southern 

Democratic Republic of Vietnam to divert enemy reinforcements from 

Khe Sanh.28

Preoccupied, as was the rest of the U.S. government, with the analogy between Khe Sanh and Dien Bien Phu, the MACV commander put 

his staff historian to work on a study of the earlier battle aimed at demonstrating its differences from the impending one. When the historian 

delivered a rather pessimistic initial report, Westmoreland emphatically told his staff, “We are not, repeat not, going to be defeated at Khe 

Sanh” and “strode deliberately from the room.”29

Such expressions of confidence notwithstanding, General 

Westmoreland attempted to prepare his superiors, and his own command, for the worst. On 23 January, he warned General Wheeler that 

there were “problem areas to be overcome or circumvented” in the 

coming battle and that many aspects of the engagement would require 

“an additional element of interpretation” to prevent the press and 

public from developing “erroneous and misleading assessments of our 

battlefield posture.” He urged that the administration take precautions 

so that “a withdrawal from the Khe Sanh salient or an initial setback” 

would not precipitate “an erosion of our military and civilian determination” to achieve America’s objectives in South Vietnam.30

28 The opening battles are recounted in Shore, Khe Sanh, pp. 33–45; Davidson, Vietnam at 

War, pp. 558–59; John Schlight, The War in South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive, 1965–1968

(Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force, 1988), pp. 277–85; Bernard 

C. Nalty, Air Power and the Fight for Khe Sanh (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, United 

States Air Force, 1973), passim. See also Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68; and Westmoreland 

History file no. 28 (Dec 27 67–Jan 31 68), especially tabs 32, 49, and 73. Both in CMH. Jones, War 

Without Windows, pp. 161–68, describes work of the Khe Sanh targeting group. 29 Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, pp. 337–38, describes the historical report and his reaction to 

it. See also tab 49, Westmoreland History file no. 28 (Dec 27–Jan 31 68), CMH. 30 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 0160 to Sharp info Wheeler, 23 Jan 68, Westmoreland Message 

files, Jan 68; MFR, Bryan, 20 Jan 68, sub: CIIB Meeting, 20 Jan 68, tab 32, Westmoreland History 

file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–31 Jan 68). Both in CMH.
41

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

Even more ominous, on the twenty-fourth, Westmoreland cabled 

to Admiral Sharp a recommendation that the Commander in Chief, 

Pacific (CINCPAC), and MACV begin contingency planning for the 

use of tactical nuclear weapons in northern Quang Tri if necessary to 

prevent a major defeat. He noted that in the uninhabited mountains 

around Khe Sanh, such weapons could be used with great effect and 

with “negligible” civilian casualties. Sharp on the thirtieth accepted 

Westmoreland’s proposal and ordered planners from MACV and 

CINCPAC’s component commands to meet on Okinawa on 1 February. 

Assigning the project the code-name Fracture jaw, Sharp enjoined all 

concerned to “bear in mind the very sensitive nature” of the planning and to restrict knowledge of it to as few people as possible on an 

“absolutely essential need to know basis.” Even before Sharp’s action, 

Westmoreland had put a small MACV staff group to work on a detailed 

concept for the operation.31

Command Problems in I Corps

The impending crisis in I Corps brought to a head festering disagreements between the Military Assistance Command and the III Marine 

Amphibious Force over command arrangements. It also sharpened the 

doubts of General Westmoreland and the Army-dominated MACV staff 

about the ability of the III Marine Amphibious Force headquarters to 

direct the increasingly large and complex multiservice campaign that 

was developing. General Westmoreland in response set in motion 

changes in both air and ground command in I Corps, which plunged 

MACV into a new round of political and doctrinal conflict with the 

marines. 

During the planning for Operation Niagra, General William W. 

Momyer, the Seventh Air Force commander and Westmoreland’s deputy 

COMUSMACV for air, seized the opportunity to renew his service’s 

campaign for operational control of the marines’ fixed-wing tactical 

aircraft. Momyer was a strong proponent of his service’s doctrine that 

airpower in a theater of operations should be under the central direction of the theater deputy commander for air. Hence, he considered 

the arrangement that CINCPAC had established early in 1965, under 

which III Marine Amphibious Force retained command of its aircraft 

wing and had first call on use of its planes, to be wrong in principle 

and unsatisfactory in practice. The problem worsened as Army divisions entered I Corps and fighting intensified along the Demilitarized 

Zone. With MACV mediating, the Seventh Air Force and III Marine 

Amphibious Force improvised working arrangements to coordinate 

31

 Msgs, Westmoreland to Sharp, MAC 01164, MAC 01369, MAC 01439, 24 Jan 68, 29 Jan 68, 

and 30 Jan 68; Sharp to Westmoreland, Ryan, Beach, Hyland, and Krulak, 30 Jan 68 (quotation is 

from this message); Sharp to Westmoreland, 30 Jan 68; Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68. All in 

CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

42

their operations; but Momyer considered these a poor substitute for 

central direction of all fixed-wing air activity by himself as deputy 

COMUSMACV for air. The air campaign in support of Khe Sanh would 

require the most precise coordination of B–52 and tactical air strikes, as 

well as helicopter missions and artillery fire, in a restricted area—coordination, Momyer insisted, that could be achieved only by placing the 

marines’ jet fighters and bombers under the control of the Seventh 

Air Force. Articulate, forceful, and persistent, Momyer pressed his case 

upon Westmoreland.32

On 17 January, Westmoreland opened the doctrinal battle. He 

informed Lt. Gen. Robert E. Cushman, the III Marine Amphibious Force 

commander, that in view of “the increased deployment of Army forces 

into I Corps, impending battles and the need for having more operational flexibility of the air effort,” he was “contemplating placing operational control of the I [sic] Marine Air Wing under my Deputy for Air.” 

Westmoreland reassured Cushman that III Marine Amphibious Force 

would retain operational control of its helicopters. He also declared 

that the proposed new arrangement was a “temporary measure to meet 

the current situation.” The MACV commander sent a similarly worded 

message to Admiral Sharp. Emphasizing that the “impending major 

battle” made necessary “an immediate change in the control of tactical 

air in I CTZ [Corps Tactical Zone],” he insisted that it was “no longer 

feasible nor prudent to restrict the employment of the total tactical air 

resources to given areas.” “I feel the utmost need,” he said, “for a more 

flexible posture to shift my air effort where it can best be used in the 

coming battles.”33

The tentative wording of Westmoreland’s message to Cushman 

suggests that it might have been a trial balloon, designed to test reaction of III Marine Amphibious Force and other interested commands. 

If so, the balloon quickly drew a volley of arrows. On the eighteenth, 

General Momyer discussed the plan with Cushman and his staff but 

failed to win their agreement to the change. General Cushman the same 

day denounced the plan as “doctrinally and functionally” unsuited 

to his requirements. He protested to Westmoreland that the proposal 

amounted to “replacing my aviation commander and control over his 

32 Earlier air command controversies are recounted in Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 1962–1967,

chs. 3 and 8. Air command arrangements in effect through late 1967 are contained in MACV 

Directive no. 95–4, 13 Jul 65, copy in MCHC Archives. See also Chaisson, Oral History, pp. 229–30, 

235–37, MCHC; Ltrs, Chaisson to Mrs Chaisson, 17 Oct 67 and 14 Nov 67, box 7, John R. Chaisson 

Papers, Hoover Institution; Nalty, Fight for Khe Sanh, pp. 68–80; Schlight, Years of the Offensive, 

pp. 108–09, 203–05, 262–64, 269–70; William W. Momyer, Airpower in Three Wars (Washington, 

D.C.: Department of the Air Force, 1978), pp. 284–87. 33 Quotations are from Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 00791 to Cushman, 17 Jan 68; and 

Westmoreland MAC 00797 to Sharp info Wheeler, Gen John Paul McConnell, Air Force Chief of 

Staff, Gen Leonard F. Chapman Jr., Commandant of the Marine Corps, and Lt Gen Victor H. Krulak, 

18 Jan 68; Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68, CMH; Westmoreland History Notes, 28 Dec 67–31 

Jan 68, tab A–1, Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–31 Jan 68), CMH; MACV History, 

1968, vol. 1, p. 436.
43

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

assets with one who is not directly under my command; yet my overall 

responsibilities in I CTZ remain the same.” “I am unalterably opposed 

to any change [in air command],” Cushman concluded, “and to any 

fractionalization of the Marine air/ground team.”34

If General Cushman punctured the trial balloon, Admiral Sharp 

blew it out of the sky. Responding quickly to Westmoreland’s overture, Sharp made evident his extreme reluctance to change the rules 

he had established in 1965. Those rules, he declared, “conform to doctrine and to the accepted principles of command.” Any alteration of 

them “must be viewed in the broadest context if we are not to create 

more problems than we seek to remedy.” In particular, any proposal 

to “divest CG, III Marine Amphibious Force of operational control of 

his own assets” would require “full consideration of all aspects of the 

problem”—consideration that would be done by Admiral Sharp, not 

General Westmoreland. “I will make any decision necessary,” Sharp 

told his subordinate. The admiral explained later: “I sent that message 

to be sure that [Westmoreland] didn’t take things in his own hands and 

do something which I considered mine to do exclusively.”35

Heeding Sharp’s warning, Westmoreland and Momyer settled for 

another compromise ad hoc command arrangement for Operation 

Niagra. On 21 January, after further discussions with Cushman and his 

staff, Westmoreland directed Momyer, as his deputy for air operations, to 

develop a plan “to concentrate all available air resources” in the Khe Sanh 

battle area and to “coordinate and direct” the actions of Air Force, Navy, 

and Marine tactical aircraft and B–52s in defense of the base. However, he 

also declared that “the direct support of Marine units by the 1st Marine Air 

Wing is not affected by this plan.” Reestablishing existing arrangements, 

Westmoreland required III Marine Amphibious Force to place at Seventh 

Air Force disposal only those Marine sorties not required for support of 

the Marine divisions. He also made the Seventh Air Force responsible for 

battlefield support of the 1st Cavalry and Americal Divisions as well as the 

South Vietnamese army units in I Corps.36

This directive received immediate endorsement from Admiral Sharp, 

though only after searching review by the CINCPAC staff. Implementing 

it, the Air Force and marines divided the Khe Sanh area into zones. The 

Marine air control agency inside the base controlled all strikes (made 

mostly by Marine aircraft) in the zones closest to the position while the 

Seventh Air Force, through an airborne command and control center, 

directed operations in the outer zones. The 1st Marine Aircraft Wing 

34

 Cushman message is quoted in MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 436–37. 35 Msg, Sharp to Westmoreland info Wheeler, McConnell, Chapman, and Krulak, 18 Jan 

68, Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68, CMH. Final quotation is from Adm U. S. Grant Sharp, 

“Reminiscences of Adm U. S. Grant Sharp, USN (Ret),” 2 vols., Program, Transcript of Interviews 

by Cdr Etta Belle Kitchen, USN (Ret), for Oral History Program, U.S. Naval Institute, 20 Sep 69–7 

Jun 70, pp. 641–42 (hereafter cited as Sharp, “Reminiscences”); see also pp. 643–46. 36 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 00992 and MAC 00994 to Sharp info Wheeler, 21 Jan 68, 

Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68, CMH. Quotations are from latter message.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

44

reinforced its command and control facilities in northern I Corps and 

established liaison with the Seventh Air Force’s Niagra targeting element at Tan Son Nhut. Under this arrangement, Operation Niagra proceeded without major mishaps. The marines were thoroughly satisfied 

with the system. General Momyer, however, considered it cumbersome 

and at best marginally satisfactory. He continued his campaign for full 

operational control of the marines’ aircraft.37 

Even as the Niagra command arrangement went into effect, a misunderstanding between Generals Westmoreland and Cushman over 

support of the 1st Cavalry Division helped keep the air control issue 

alive. During a visit to III Marine Amphibious Force on 19 January, the 

MACV commander directed Cushman to make sure that the Army division, which was taking position near Hue between the two Marine divisions, received adequate support from the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. This 

instruction was in conflict with existing practice, which Westmoreland 

reaffirmed in his 21 January Niagra directive, under which the Seventh 

Air Force had primary responsibility for supporting the Army units in 

I Corps. The Marine wing was slow to tie the 1st Cavalry Division into 

its strike request and control network, because the cavalry lacked the 

necessary communications equipment and III Marine Amphibious Force 

had to assemble an outfit for it from its own resources. In the interim, on 

the twenty-third, Westmoreland visited the 1st Cavalry Division command post and heard reports of difficulty in obtaining missions from the 

Marine wing. Westmoreland, as he later recalled, “raised hell about this 

situation” with III Marine Amphibious Force. The marines in response 

accelerated their effort to establish communications with the division, 

which soon was receiving adequate air support. This incident appears to 

have contributed to Westmoreland’s growing dissatisfaction with the air 

control situation in I Corps, ensuring that the MACV commander would 

remain receptive to persistent Air Force arguments for change.38

By the time of the 1st Cavalry Division incident, General Westmoreland 

was preparing to alter much more than air command relations in I Corps. 

He had concluded that he could not rely on III Marine Amphibious Force 

headquarters to fight the big battle that he expected. This decision was the 

37 Msgs, Sharp to Westmoreland, 21 Jan 68; Cushman to Westmoreland, 21 Jan 68; Westmoreland 

Message files, Jan 68, CMH; Sharp, “Reminiscences,” p. 645. Schlight, Years of the Offensive, pp. 

276–86, reflects the Air Force view of the arrangement. For Marine views, see MFR, Maj Gen Norman 

J. Anderson, USMC, 29 Jan 68, Anderson Papers, MCHC; Ltrs, Gen Keith B. McCutcheon, Deputy 

CofS (Air), Headquarters, Marine Corps, to Anderson, 23 Jan 68, and Anderson to McCutcheon, 7 

Feb 68; box 20, Keith B. McCutcheon Papers, MCHC. 38 Westmoreland’s story of the 1st Cavalry Division incident is in his History Notes, 28 Dec 67–

31 Jan 68, tab A–1, Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–31 Jan 68), CMH. The III Marine 

Amphibious Force (III MAF)/1st Marine Aircraft Wing version is in Ltr, Anderson to Brig Gen 

Edwin Simmons (Ret) Director, Marine Corps History and Museums, 8 Sep 83, Anderson Papers, 

MCHC; and Interv, MCHC with Maj Gen Norman J. Anderson, USMC, 17 Mar 81, pp. 192–95 

(hereafter cited as Anderson Interv). Westmoreland indicates his continued commitment to single 

management in Msg MAC 01326 to Krulak, info Wheeler, McConnell, Chapman, and Sharp, 28 Jan 

68, Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68, CMH. 
45

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

product of a long accumulation of disputes and irritants between MACV 

and the Marine command. Besides perennial Army-Marine professional 

rivalry, disagreements over the proper balance between offensive warfare 

and pacification, arguments over the McNamara barrier (work on which 

continued until 20 January when Westmoreland and Cushman stopped it 

pending the outcome of the Khe Sanh battle), and III Marine Amphibious 

Force’s lack of enthusiasm for fighting at Khe Sanh contributed to contentious relations between the two headquarters and between MACV and the 

Marine Corps. General Westmoreland’s relations with General Cushman 

were less than ideal. The two men differed in temperament and command 

style; Westmoreland considered Cushman sluggish and lacking in initiative in his response to the crisis facing III Marine Amphibious Force, a 

view shared privately by some marines.39

Over and above these specifics, Westmoreland had concluded that the 

marines were deficient in the general quality of their leadership, staff work, 

and tactical performance. These doubts came to a head on 20 January, 

when General Davidson, the MACV J–2, returned from a liaison visit to 

Khe Sanh. Davidson reported that the marines had neglected to dig in 

vital facilities, including their ammunition dump, which was destroyed in 

the first bombardment, and that the base commander, in the face of voluminous intelligence from both MACV and III Marine Amphibious Force, 

still did not believe there were two North Vietnamese divisions outside 

his perimeter. Two days later, Westmoreland informed General Wheeler 

that “the military professionalism of the Marines falls far short of the 

standards that should be demanded by our armed forces. . . . Their standards, tactics, and lack of command supervision throughout their ranks 

requires improvement in the national interest.” As would be expected, the 

marines then and later disputed Westmoreland’s aspersions. They pointed 

out that they trained and fought under the same tactical manuals as the 

Army and that most major troop dispositions and operations in I Corps, 

including the building of the barrier and the defense of Khe Sanh, in fact, 

were directed by COMUSMACV. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the 

issue, General Westmoreland approached the prospective critical battle in 

the north with severely diminished confidence in III Marine Amphibious 

Force and a “somewhat insecure” feeling about “the situation in Quang 

Tri Province.”40

39 Disagreements between MACV and III Marine Amphibious Force are summarized in Jack 

Shulimson, Lt. Col. Leonard A. Blasiol, USMC, Charles R. Smith, and Capt. David A. Dawson, 

USMC, Marines in Vietnam: The Defining Year, 1968 (Washington, D.C.: History and Museums 

Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1997), pp. 12–31. For a Marine expression of dissatisfaction with Cushman, see Ltr, Chaisson to Mrs Chaisson, 8 Feb 68, box 7, Chaisson Papers, Hoover 

Institution. In same collection and box, see Ltr, Chaisson to Mrs Chaisson, 30 Nov 67. 40

 Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 554–56, describes his visit to Khe Sanh and Westmoreland’s reaction to his report. Quotations are from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01011 to Wheeler [no info to Sharp], 

22 Jan 68, Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68, CMH. In same files, see Msg, Wheeler WDC 1065 

to Westmoreland, 22 Jan 68. From its number, Wheeler sent the latter message through Army rather 

than JCS channels. Cushman defends his and the marines’ performance in Interv, MCHC with General 

Robert E. Cushman, 13 Sep 73, pp. 33–34 (hereafter cited as Cushman Interv); Chaisson Diary, 26 Jan 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

46

Even without the tensions between MACV and III Marine 

Amphibious Force, command rearrangements for the U.S. forces in 

I Corps were overdue. The war in the five northern provinces had 

grown large and complex. During 1967, I Corps accounted for nearly 

half of all the allied and enemy killed in action in South Vietnam; 

by early 1968, MACV had committed half of its American ground 

combat power there. With two Army divisions under its operational 

control, III Marine Amphibious Force was evolving from a simple 

Marine air-ground team into what amounted to a field army, all the 

time retaining responsibility for advice and support of the South 

Vietnamese I Corps and for pacification. It had to direct two different campaigns at the same time: a conventional infantry and artillery battle from fixed positions in northern I Corps and an intensive 

mixed large-unit and guerrilla struggle in the southern part of the 

corps area. To cope with its enlarged tasks, the Marine headquarters 

made some organizational modifications early in 1968. It acquired 

from MACV an Army brigadier general to serve as assistant to General 

Cushman on matters affecting that service and secured a second 

assistant commander for each of its Marine divisions. The 1st Marine 

Aircraft Wing also added an assistant commander and enlarged its 

command and control facilities north of the Hai Van Pass. It was 

clear, however, that larger changes were needed, in particular the 

creation of an intermediate headquarters through which III Marine 

Amphibious Force could control its northern theater of battle.41

General Westmoreland had something even more drastic in mind. 

After Davidson’s report of 20 January, the MACV commander decided 

to send his deputy, General Abrams, to oversee operations in northern I Corps and if necessary take overall tactical command away from 

General Cushman. Westmoreland explained this action as necessary 

to strengthen III Marine Amphibious Force’s capacity to control its 

forces. However, his dispatch of the four-star Abrams, who outranked 

Cushman, instead of a lieutenant general junior to the marine, indicated COMUSMACV’s loss of confidence in the III Marine Amphibious 

Force commander. Abrams at this time concurred in Westmoreland’s 

dim view of Marine professionalism. He told General Wheeler early in 

January: “While the Marines are second to none in bravery, esprit and 

the intrinsic quality of their men, I consider them less . . . qualified in 

68, box 9, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution, confirms Westmoreland’s worries about the marines 

and their commanders. 41 Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 556–57; Chaisson, Oral History, pp. 268–69; Westmoreland, 

Soldier Reports, p. 315. Westmoreland History Notes, 28 Dec 67–31 Jan 68, tab A–1, CMH; MFR, 

Bryan, 14 Jan 68, sub: CIIB Meeting, 13 Jan 68, tab 24; Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec 

67–31 Jan 68). Both in CMH; Interv, Lt Col Douglas R. Burgess with Gen Bruce Palmer, Jr, 1975, pp. 

264–65, Senior Officers Oral History Program, MHI (hereafter cited as Palmer Interv); Shulimson 

et al., Marines in Vietnam, 1968, pp. 235–37; Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 01166 to Chapman, 24 Jan 

68; Cushman to Westmoreland, 25 Jan 68; Westmoreland MAC 01300 to Cushman, 27 Jan 68. All in 

Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68, CMH.
47

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

the techniques and tactics of fighting than the U.S. Army, the Korean 

Army, and the Australians.”42

On 25 January, General Westmoreland informed Admiral Sharp that 

he was considering establishing a “provisional field army (tactical)” in 

the Hue–Phu Bai area under Abrams’ command. Abrams was to exercise 

operational control over “all US ground elements in I CTZ (including 

those of III Marine Amphibious Force)” with “primary emphasis” on 

those north of the Hai Van Pass, as well as “maneuver authority” over the 

South Vietnamese units in the area. The following day, Westmoreland 

significantly amended this plan. He renamed the new headquarters 

MACV Forward, in order, he said, “to accommodate the sensitivities of 

the Vietnamese and hopefully to avoid possible press efforts to portray 

this action in an unfavorable light.” After a conference with General 

Cao Van Vien, chief of the Joint General Staff, Westmoreland dropped 

mention of “maneuver authority” over the South Vietnamese Army and 

indicated merely that the I Corps commander, Lt. Gen. Hoang Xuan 

Lam, would work with Abrams as a counterpart and Vien’s representative. Concerning Abrams’ own authority, Westmoreland said nothing 

specific. He declared only that “this action will start the wheels moving 

toward attainment of a capability which will hopefully provide the 

essential control mechanism and give me flexibility to cope with the 

exigencies of the situation.”43

Westmoreland’s imprecision concerning Abrams’ exact authority 

may have resulted from continuing arguments over that issue within 

MACV headquarters and between MACV and III Marine Amphibious 

Force. General Cushman and his subordinates, although they perforce 

acquiesced in the creation of MACV Forward, suspected and resented 

the motives behind it. Maj. Gen. Rathvon McC. Tompkins, whose 3d 

Marine Division was in overall command of the defense of Khe Sanh, 

later declared of the establishment of MACV Forward: “I thought 

it was the most unpardonable thing that Saigon did” in that it was 

“tantamount to . . . a relief of a commander.” Within MACV headquarters, Brig. Gen. John R. Chaisson, the Marine chief of the Combat 

Operations Center and a trusted adviser to General Westmoreland, 

campaigned strenuously against any action that could be construed as 

superseding Cushman. “I fought like mad . . . for two days,” Chaisson 

recalled. At one point, he warned that if Westmoreland took tactical 

command away from the marines at the outset of the war’s biggest 

42

 Westmoreland gives conventional explanations of this decision in Soldier Reports, p. 315; 

and History Notes, 28 Dec 67–31 Jan 68, tab A–1, Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–

Jan 31 68), CMH. Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 557, believes Westmoreland intended to supersede 

Cushman. Abrams’ view of the marines is quoted in Lewis Sorley, Thunderbolt: General Creighton 

Abrams and the Army of His Times (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), pp. 208–09. 43

 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 01215 to Sharp info Wheeler, 25 Jan 68; and MAC 01233 to Sharp, 

26 Jan 68. Both in Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68, CMH. Westmoreland History Notes, 28 

Dec 67–31 Jan 68, tab A–1; MFR, Bryan, 27 Jan 68, sub: CIIB Meeting, 27 Jan 68, tab 49. Both in 

Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–31 Jan 68), CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

48

battle, “he could never again . . . expect the real loyalty of any Marine 

field commanders in the country.” Chaisson and other opponents of 

the field army concept secured Westmoreland’s tentative agreement 

that, while Abrams would oversee the conduct of the battle, he would 

leave Cushman in immediate charge and transmit orders to the Marine 

and Army divisions through III Marine Amphibious Force. The issue, 

however, was not fully settled. Chaisson wrote on the twenty-eighth: 

“This isn’t over yet and may hit the papers.”44

Despite the uncertainty over its terms of reference, work on setting 

up MACV Forward began at once. General Abrams visited III Marine 

Amphibious Force on the twenty-sixth and secured the marines’ lessthan-enthusiastic agreement to creation of the new headquarters. 

Logistic preparations began for housing the staff, expected to include 

366 officers from all services, at Phu Bai, an American base just south 

of Hue, and for installing communications and other facilities. The 

headquarters was to go into operation around 5 February.45

Final Preliminaries

While MACV’s attention remained fixed on northern I Corps 

during January, the command also received additional indications of 

a wider enemy threat to cities and coastal areas elsewhere. U.S. and 

South Vietnamese troops uncovered caches of new Communist-bloc 

weapons in the Mekong Delta and the environs of Saigon. Captured 

documents spoke of infiltration of enemy personnel into the capital 

and referred to the need to prepare the people for an imminent general 

uprising. Another document described a reorganization of the enemy 

territorial commands around Saigon into a pie-slice configuration radiating outward from the city, as if to facilitate a converging assault. A 

pattern developed of small enemy attacks on South Vietnamese police 

stations, prisons, and Chieu Hoi centers,46 as well as American air bases. 

Nevertheless, most evidence, including signal intelligence, continued 

to point to the main effort coming in the northern two corps areas; 

and most MACV officers remained skeptical of the indications of a 

major attack on the cities. The II Field Force staff, for example, doubted 

the timeliness and authenticity of the captured Saigon-area command 

reorganization order, which contained outdated information on the 

44 Tompkins is quoted in Shulimson et al., Marines in Vietnam, 1968, p. 238. First Chaisson 

quotation is from his Oral History, pp. 230–34; second is from Ltr, Chaisson to Mrs Chaisson, 28 

Jan 68, box 7, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution. In same collection, box 9, see Chaisson Diary, 

27–28 Jan 68. 45

 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01264 to Sharp info Wheeler, 26 Jan 68, Westmoreland Message 

files, Jan 68, CMH. HQ 3d Marine Div Handwritten Memo, 27 Jan 68, sub: Meeting . . . concerning 

MACV (Fwd) . . . , encl 123, 3d Marine Div Msgs, Jan 68, MCHC. 46

 These were facilities that screened and housed defectors from the Viet Cong, known as Hoi

Chanhs, under the Saigon government’s Chieu Hoi (“Open Arms”) amnesty program for people who 

voluntarily left the revolutionary movement.
49

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

local terrain. Still, the indications were sufficient to induce General 

Westmoreland to warn General Wheeler and Admiral Sharp on 20 

January: “The enemy is presently developing a threatening posture in 

several areas in order to seek victories essential to achieving prestige 

and bargaining power. He may exercise his initiatives prior to, during 

or after Tet.”47

As General Westmoreland indicated, the allies remained uncertain 

of the timing of the expected offensive. The intelligence community 

became increasingly convinced that the enemy’s “D-day” was set for 

the Tet period, but few analysts picked the holiday itself as the time. 

Most doubted that the Communists would risk alienating the people 

by making war during the most sacred of Vietnamese festivals, noting 

that the enemy in the past had used the Tet cease-fires for redeployment and resupply, not for widespread attacks. Americans and South 

Vietnamese alike seemed unaware that the Vietnamese several times 

before in their history had launched surprise assaults on their enemies 

during Tet. General Westmoreland believed that the enemy most likely 

would strike before the holiday, and then try to exploit the cease-fire to 

regroup for a second effort. His intelligence chief, General Davidson, on 

the other hand, expected the enemy to maneuver during the truce and 

attack after Tet. “Neither of us,” the MACV commander later acknowledged, “saw a high probability of an attack on the day of Tet, so harsh 

and disaffecting would be the psychological impact on the very people 

the enemy was trying to rally to his side.”48

Impressed by indications that the enemy was moving toward 

Saigon, MACV and II Field Force repositioned American troops the 

better to protect the capital. The initiative came from Lt. Gen. Frederick 

Weyand, the field force commander. Weyand’s force, at MACV’s direction, had been preparing for an offensive against War Zone D and 

other North Vietnamese base areas near the Cambodian border. On 

9 January, Weyand telephoned General Westmoreland and requested 

a meeting, which took place at MACV headquarters the next day. 

Weyand reviewed for Westmoreland recent intelligence, drawn mainly 

from II Field Force analysis of enemy radio traffic, which indicated that 

47

 Quotation is from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 00943 to Wheeler and Sharp, 20 Jan 68; see 

also Westmoreland MAC 00275 to Wheeler and Sharp, 7 Jan 68; and Sharp to Wheeler info 

Westmoreland, 20 Jan 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68, CMH. Wirtz, Tet Offensive, pp. 

181, 183, 191–94, 201–03, 210; Jones, War Without Windows, pp. 134, 158–60; U.S. District Court, 

Westmoreland Memorandum of Law, app. B, p. 119; Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, pp. 157–58; 

CIA Paper, The Intelligence Background of the Current Communist Offensive, 15 Feb 68, copy in 

CMH. II Field Force doubts about the Saigon command reorganization are noted in MFR, Graham 

A. Cosmas, 6 May 92, sub: Telephone Interv of Col James R. Paschall, 6 May 92, CMH (hereafter 

cited as Paschall Interv). 48

 Wirtz, Tet Offensive, pp. 106–11; Westmoreland History Notes, 28 Dec 67–31 Jan 68, tab 

A–1, Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–31 Jan 68), CMH. Oberdorfer, Tet! pp. 71–72, 

reviews Vietnamese historical precedents, noting that Westmoreland had a statue of the victorious 

commander of one such Tet attack in his living quarters. Quotation is from Westmoreland, Soldier 

Reports, p. 318; see also pp. 317, 319.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

50

Communist main force units in 

III Corps were moving inward 

from their border sanctuaries 

toward Saigon. He requested permission to reposition American 

units to repel possible attacks on 

“province and district population 

centers.” Westmoreland, who 

claimed later that he also had 

been studying the same information and considering a change 

in plans, decided to cancel the 

projected border-area offensive. 

Instead, he permitted II Field 

Force to pull its troops in closer 

to the capital, which the field 

force did gradually in the course 

of several operations.

While Weyand’s action in retrospect seemed prescient, it may 

have reflected as much the field 

force commander’s general preference for population protection 

over offensives in remote areas as 

any expectation of a major attack 

on Saigon. Weyand’s staff, as noted, discounted heavily the document 

on the enemy’s capital-area command reorganization; and the field 

force commander himself doubted that Saigon itself would be attacked. 

At any event, as a result of these decisions, by the end of January, 27 

U.S. maneuver battalions were operating within 30 kilometers and easy 

helicopter lift of the capital, twice the number that would have been 

there if MACV had followed its original plan. The South Vietnamese 

also adjusted their deployments so that by the time of Tet, more than 

half the allied maneuver battalions in III Corps and most of the territorial forces were defending the approaches to Saigon or operating along 

the infiltration corridors that connected the capital to the enemy’s war 

zones.49

As evidence accumulated of an imminent Communist offensive, 

General Westmoreland revived his effort to cancel the Tet cease-fire. 

49

 II Field Force Vietnam (II FFV) Tet Offensive After Action Report (AAR), 31 Jan–18 Feb 

68, pp. 1–5; II FFV Press Briefing on VC Tet Offensive, 20 Mar 68. Both in CMH. Westmoreland 

History Notes, 28 Dec 67–31 Jan 68, tab A–1, Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–31 Jan 

68), CMH. MACV History, 1968, vol. 2, pp. 893–94, and Ford, CIA and Vietnam, p. 115, detail 

the intelligence indications behind General Weyand’s recommendation. Sharp and Westmoreland, 

Report, pp. 157–58. For questions as to how much foresight Weyand actually had, see Graham Interv, 

24 May 82, sess. 1, and 3 Nov 82, sess. 2, pp. 7–9; and Davidson Interv, 30 Mar and 30 Jun 82, sess. 

1, p. 48; Paschall Interv, 6 May 92.

General Weyand
51

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

The enemy had committed dozens of violations of the New Year’s truce, 

which the allies had extended by 12 hours at the request of the pope. 

Citing this fact, as well as the need to deny the enemy any opportunity 

for unmolested attack preparations, Westmoreland in mid-January 

urged General Vien and President Nguyen Van Thieu to join him in 

recommending cancellation of the Tet cease-fire. The Vietnamese 

insisted that “tradition and morale considerations” compelled them to 

give their troops a “respite” at Tet, but did agree to shorten the ceasefire period from 48 to 36 hours. Westmoreland, with the concurrence 

of Ambassador Bunker and Admiral Sharp, transmitted this proposal 

to Washington. It met initial resistance from Secretaries Rusk and 

McNamara and other officials, who expressed concern that a change 

in the allies’ Tet plans might disrupt diplomatic exploration of the new 

North Vietnamese statement on bombing and negotiations. However, 

after the opening North Vietnamese bombardment of Khe Sanh on the 

twenty-first, the administration accepted the 36-hour proposal.50

Further truncation of the cease-fire quickly followed. On the 

twenty-fourth, Westmoreland and Bunker jointly recommended to the 

State and Defense Departments cancellation of the truce in I Corps 

and the lower portion of North Vietnam, on grounds that a pause of 

even 36 hours would give the enemy “advantages which we can not 

afford.” The administration promptly agreed, as did President Thieu 

when Bunker and Westmoreland presented the proposal to him. The 

allies decided, however, to delay announcement of the cancellation 

until noon on the twenty-ninth, the day their cease-fire was to go into 

effect, so as to deny the other side any opportunity to react. On the 

twenty-eighth, Westmoreland informed his field commanders that 

“normal military operations” in I Corps and the Demilitarized Zone, 

as well as air attacks on enemy troops and lines of communication 

in southern North Vietnam, were to continue throughout the truce, 

which would be in effect in the rest of South Vietnam from 1800 hours 

on the twenty-ninth through 0600 on the thirty-first. Earlier, MACV 

had initiated Operation Hobby Horse, its own effort to take advantage 

of the truce. Under this plan, all American commanders were to use 

their reconnaissance and intelligence resources to locate enemy units 

and base areas and be ready for immediate attacks as soon as the ceasefire expired.51

50 Msgs, Westmoreland to Sharp, 29 Dec 67; MAC 00338 to Sharp info Wheeler, 9 Jan 68; MAC 

00943 to Wheeler and Sharp, 20 Jan 68; Sharp to Westmoreland info Wheeler, 9 Jan 68; Wheeler JCS 

00554–68 to Westmoreland info Sharp, 18 Jan 68; Sharp to Wheeler info Westmoreland, 20 Jan 68. 

All in Westmoreland Message files, Dec 67 and Jan 68, CMH. MFR, Westmoreland, 9 Jan 68, sub: 

Meeting with Gen Vien, 1730 hrs, 8 Jan 68, tab 18; MFR, Westmoreland, 16 Jan 68, sub: Meetings 

with Pres Thieu, 0900, and Gen Vien, 1500, 15 Jan 68, tab 26. Both in Westmoreland History file no. 

28 (27 Dec 67–31 Jan 68), CMH. 51

 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 01165, MAC 01219 to Sharp and Wheeler, 24, 25 Jan 68; MAC 01307 

to Momyer, Cushman, and Veth, 28 Jan 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68, CMH. Msgs, 

Embassy Saigon/MACV to Sec State and Sec Def, Saigon 16851, 24 Jan 68, tab 39; Sec State 104215 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

52

While the Military Assistance Command prepared for contingencies in I Corps and elsewhere, it also carried on much business as 

usual. General Westmoreland, General Wheeler, and Admiral Sharp 

exchanged views on the military implications, dangers, and possibilities of a cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam. They also 

reviewed, and found not particularly alarming, a seasonal increase in 

enemy activity in northern Laos. With the Army chief of staff, General 

Johnson, Westmoreland concerted arrangements for remedying a 

shortage of replacements for U.S. Army, Vietnam. On the twenty-third, 

MACV, like the rest of the American government, was startled by the 

sudden North Korean seizure of the American intelligence ship U.S.S. 

Pueblo. This event soon forced MACV to begin contingency planning 

for return of its two Republic of Korea divisions to South Korea should 

the crisis there escalate further. The public relations campaign continued. General Westmoreland entertained 43 visiting members of 

Congress during January and made plans for hosting, among others, 

retired General James A. Van Fleet and a delegation of Argentine officers 

in February. Continuing the optimism offensive, Ambassador Komer, 

at a Saigon news conference on the twenty-fourth, reported significant 

pacification advances during the past year; he predicted still greater 

strides in 1968.52

During the final days of January, General Westmoreland continued 

to expect the major enemy attack to come at Khe Sanh, probably before 

Tet. On the twenty-second, he told General Wheeler and Admiral Sharp 

that the enemy was likely to attempt a “country-wide show of strength 

just prior to Tet, with Khe Sanh being the main event,” and with subsidiary attacks on Pleiku, Kontum, and several Special Forces camps in 

II Corps. In III and IV Corps, he envisioned attacks by fire on province 

capitals and increased terrorism in and around Saigon.53

Yet the great assault on Khe Sanh did not come. On 24 January, 

North Vietnamese troops overran a Laotian position near the South 

Vietnamese border, driving a Laotian army battalion and several thousand refugees eastward toward the Marine base. Khe Sanh and its hilltop 

outposts came under fire from artillery as heavy as 152-mm., to which 

the Americans responded with a daily average of more than 500 tactical 

air sorties. Westmoreland declared on the twenty-fifth that intelligence 

indicated a major enemy attack that day. However, the hours passed with 

only sporadic shelling. Westmoreland reported to Admiral Sharp on the 

twenty-sixth: “The enemy has not jumped off on his major attack. Why 

to Am Emb Saigon, 25 Jan 68, tab 41. Both in Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–31 Jan 68), 

CMH. Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 02698 to Component and Field Force Cdrs, 24 Jan 68, tab 40, ibid. 52 These activities can be followed in Westmoreland Message files for Dec 67 and Jan 68. 

General Westmoreland’s daily schedule, with note concerning the 43 members of Congress, is tab 

A–2, Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–31 Jan 68), CMH. Sharp, “Reminiscences,” pp. 

566–67; Wirtz, Tet Offensive, pp. 212–13; Hammond, Military and the Media, 1962–1968, p. 340. 53 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01049 to Wheeler and Sharp, 22 Jan 68, quoted in Wirtz, Tet 

Offensive, p. 212.
53

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

we do not know. Hopefully, the air strikes have hurt him, but we have 

only tenuous intelligence suggesting this.”54

Meanwhile, intelligence concerning a nationwide enemy threat to 

South Vietnam’s cities and the possibility of an attempted general uprising became steadily less tenuous. Troops of the 199th Light Infantry 

Brigade, operating near Saigon, captured two Viet Cong who claimed 

that local force companies were preparing to guide main force units 

in an attack on the capital. On 27 January, at General Westmoreland’s 

regular Weekly Intelligence Estimate Update meeting with the senior 

members of his staff, General Davidson declared that a major countrywide enemy offensive was coming, which would include thrusts at 

Kontum and Pleiku. However, he specified neither additional objectives nor a starting date. The following day, South Vietnamese military 

police at Qui Nhon in II Corps apprehended eleven Viet Cong who 

told interrogators the enemy intended to invade cities during Tet. The 

captives had with them two tapes, for broadcast over captured radio 

stations, which announced that revolutionary forces had occupied 

Saigon, Hue, and Da Nang and called on the people to rise against 

the government. On the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth, the Central 

Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency both issued 

analyses that declared the enemy was preparing for widespread coordinated attacks. The agencies, however, hedged on whether the offensive 

would be truly countrywide and considered it most likely to begin after, 

rather than during, Tet. About a week before Tet, a South Vietnamese 

intelligence agency, the Military Security Service, captured a senior Viet 

Cong cadre in the Saigon area who confirmed under interrogation that 

the enemy was planning a general offensive. However, the Military 

Security Service, which like other Vietnamese intelligence agencies jealously hoarded its information, neglected to pass this report to the J–2 

of the Joint General Staff; hence, it never reached MACV. Skepticism 

continued to prevail in the MACV J–2 and the other intelligence agencies that the enemy really would attempt a general uprising.55

The allies’ Tet cease-fire began on schedule at 1800 on the twentyninth in II, III, and IV Corps but was short-lived. There was last-minute 

confusion when the South Vietnamese, who were supposed to make 

the first announcement of the cancellation in I Corps, failed to do so 

because their press office had closed for the holiday. The American mission finally issued the statement on its own late in the afternoon. They 

need hardly have bothered. Soon after midnight on 30 January, forces of 

the enemy’s Military Region 5 command, evidently acting prematurely 

due to a mix-up in orders, attacked key towns and allied installations 

54

 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 01165, MAC 01168, and MAC 01263 to Wheeler and Sharp, 24, 

25, 26 Jan 68; Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68, CMH. Quotation is from latter message. 55 Wirtz, Tet Offensive, pp. 214–18; Lung, General Offensives, pp. 21–30, 35–36, 40; Interv, 

Charles B. MacDonald with Lt Gen Phillip B. Davidson, 7 Sep 73, copy in CMH; Davidson Interv, 

30 Mar and 30 Jun 82, sess. 1, pp. 44–46; CIA Paper, sub: Warning of the Tet Offensive, pp. 7–8, 

CMH; CIA Paper, 15 Feb 68, CMH; Davidson, Vietnam Secrets, pp. 106–07.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

54

in southern I Corps and parts of II Corps. General Davidson at once 

realized the implications of this event. He told General Westmoreland 

around 0700 hours that morning: “just as sure as you and I are sitting 

here, this is going to happen tonight and tomorrow morning all over 

the country.” His commander agreed.56

The allies took what final steps they could to prepare their forces. 

At 1000 hours Saigon time, President Thieu formally cancelled the 

truce throughout South Vietnam. At 1125, Maj. Gen. Walter T. Kerwin, 

the MACV chief of staff, sent “flash priority” messages to all U.S. commanders instructing them to resume operations. He enjoined them to 

place all troops on maximum alert and take defensive precautions at 

headquarters, logistical installations, airfields, billets, and population 

centers. General Westmoreland reinforced this warning through telephone calls to every senior commander. However, since he made such 

calls frequently for a variety of reasons, it is uncertain whether these 

efforts fully convinced all his subordinates of the immediacy and gravity of the threat. On 11 January, the Joint General Staff had directed 

South Vietnamese commanders to limit Tet leaves to no more than 5 

percent of their strength. Despite this order, outside of I Corps, up to 50 

percent of the soldiers of most units were absent for the holiday with or 

without authorization. When the truce was cancelled, the Joint General 

Staff sent last-minute alert messages to its forces; but these warnings 

were too late to recall many men. In I Corps, because of the threat to 

Khe Sanh and the earlier abrogation of the truce, South Vietnamese 

units were at more nearly full strength and readiness, although even 

there the absence rate was over 20 percent.57

General Westmoreland sent a prompt, rather optimistic, summary 

of the action to Admiral Sharp and General Wheeler. He commented 

that the North Vietnamese had “displayed what appeared to be desperation tactics” in assaulting populated areas and had tried to achieve 

surprise by attacking during the truce. Reaction of allied forces to the 

offensive, Westmoreland asserted, “has been generally good.” The 

enemy, by engaging in open battle, had suffered at least 700 casualties 

so far and “when the dust settles, there will probably be more.” He 

56 Wirtz, Tet Offensive, pp. 210, 219; Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, p. 319; and History Notes, 

tab A–1, Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–31 Jan 68), CMH, describes the confusion over 

the truce announcement; in Soldier Reports, see also pp. 322–23. Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, 

p. 183. Quotation is from Davidson Interv, 30 Mar and 30 Jun 82, sess. 1, pp. 53–54. Captured enemy 

documents subsequently confirmed the mix-up in starting times; see DOD Intelligence Information 

Report no. 6–026–1418–68, 18 Apr 68, sub: VC Plans, CMH. Ford, “Tet 1968,” pp. 181–89, 278. 57 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01392 to Wheeler and Sharp info Bunker, 30 Jan 68, Westmoreland 

Message files, Jan 68, CMH; Wirtz, Tet Offensive, pp. 220–21; PFIAB, “Intelligence Warning,” pp. 

6–7. Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 5802 to Momyer, Cushman, Weyand, Peers, Maj Gen George S. 

Eckhardt, Senior Adviser, IV Corps, and Veth, 3 May 68; Cushman to Westmoreland, 5 May 68; 

Lt Gen William R. Peers, CG, IFFV NHT 599 to Westmoreland, 5 May 68; Weyand HOA 0595 to 

Westmoreland, 6 May 68; and Eckhardt CTO 111 to Westmoreland, 5 May 68, all in Westmoreland 

Message files, May 68, CMH, review varying states of alertness in the different corps areas.
55

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

concluded: “All my subordinate commanders report the situation well 

in hand.”58

Around Saigon on the thirtieth, the allies took some extra precautions. The South Vietnamese Capital Military District, responsible for 

defense of the city, confined all its troops to barracks. It also, too late 

to have much effect, tightened control of the major routes into Saigon. 

The district obtained an airborne battalion to strengthen its defenses. 

Two of the airborne companies deployed to protect a major prison 

and the national radio station. The two other companies remained in 

reserve at district headquarters. At Tan Son Nhut, the Vietnamese Air 

Force security elements that normally guarded the base went on alert. 

Fortuitously, additional airborne troops also were present at the field 

waiting to be airlifted to Da Nang the next day. In downtown Saigon, 

field police assumed defense positions at important street intersections. At II Field Force, General Weyand had alerted his troops on the 

twenty-ninth to expect corpswide attacks on allied installations during 

the truce. His forces improved the defenses of Bien Hoa and rehearsed 

plans for countering an attack on Tan Son Nhut. Weyand met with 

his counterpart, Lt. Gen. Le Nguyen Khang, the III Corps commander, 

to review reports of impending attacks on Bien Hoa, the Saigon radio 

station, and other facilities. The two commanders, who had a close 

working relationship of long standing, informally agreed that if a general enemy offensive occurred, Khang would oversee operations within 

Saigon while Weyand took care of the rest of III Corps.59

During this final flurry of warnings and preparations, the Military 

Assistance Command still gave little indication that it expected anything more in Saigon than an upsurge of Viet Cong terrorism. Rumors 

that the headquarters might be “hit” circulated through corridors and 

offices. A staff officer who ventured out of the MACV complex for a 

late meal found the nearby streets ominously deserted, even as the rest 

of the city was filled with holiday crowds and loud with exploding firecrackers, legally available this Tet holiday after years of a government 

ban. Nevertheless, the command made no real attempt to augment the 

close-in defenses of its own headquarters building, which consisted of 

a chain-link fence and military police guard towers and checkpoints. 

Officers in high-level sensitive positions, including General Davidson, 

the intelligence chief, dispersed for the night to their lightly guarded 

villas in the city, although some foresightedly equipped themselves 

with pistols, M16 rifles, and in Davidson’s case a M60 machine gun. A 

number of colonels, including several from MACV J–2, attended a pool 

58 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01438 to Sharp and Wheeler, 30 Jan 68, tab 53, Westmoreland 

History file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–31 Jan 68), CMH. See also Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01433 to 

Wheeler, 30 Jan 68, Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68, CMH. 59 Lung, General Offensives, pp. 42–45; Wirtz, Tet Offensive, pp. 218–19; Paschall Interv, 6 May 

92; II FFV Press Briefing on VC Tet Offensive, 20 Mar 68, CMH; II FFV Tet Offensive AAR, 31 

Jan–18 Feb 68, p. 9.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

56

party in Bachelor Officer Quarters One in downtown Saigon, seemingly oblivious to any impending crisis.60 

General Westmoreland’s South Vietnamese security guards had 

been doubled, both at his villa and during his movements around 

Saigon, in response to an intelligence report at the turn of the year that 

he was targeted for assassination. Hence, he was well protected as Tet 

approached. The MACV commander spent a busy day on the thirtieth, 

meeting with principal staff officers and conferring frequently by telephone with Ambassador Bunker and his field commanders concerning 

the attacks in the north and the nationwide alert. He also found time 

to attend parts of a briefing by the Seventh Air Force and U.S. Army, 

Vietnam, on post-exchange losses, met with the new Time-Life Saigon 

bureau chief, and played a mid-day game of tennis. Late in the evening, 

Westmoreland returned to his rented villa and went to bed. Around 

0300 on the thirty-first, his aide, Maj. Charles Sampson, U.S. Marine 

Corps, awakened him to receive a call from MACV headquarters. Over 

the telephone, Westmoreland heard that the North Vietnamese and Viet 

Cong were attacking cities throughout South Vietnam and that enemy 

sappers had struck the U.S. Embassy. By that time, all over Saigon, the 

sound of real gunfire had replaced the reports of firecrackers. Citizens 

in many neighborhoods awoke to see in their streets armed strangers clad in the black pajamas and rubber-soled sandals of Viet Cong 

fighters.61

How Much of a Surprise?

The Communists’ General Offensive–General Uprising caught the 

Military Assistance Command, in common with the rest of the U.S. 

and South Vietnamese governments, at least partially by surprise. 

While aware for months that a major attack was coming, MACV had 

anticipated a full-scale conventional assault on Khe Sanh and possibly 

other places in northern I Corps, with lesser efforts elsewhere in the 

two northern corps areas and some increase of pressure in III Corps. 

The command did not expect the offensive to occur during Tet, to be 

of nationwide scope, and to include a serious effort to take control of 

the big cities. To the end, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory 

Board later concluded, commanders and intelligence officers “did not 

visualize the enemy as capable of accomplishing his stated goals as they 

appeared in propaganda and in captured documents” and so viewed 

60 Davidson Interv, 30 Mar and 30 Jun 82, sess. 1, pp. 54–56; Jones, War Without Windows, pp. 

168–71; Wirtz, Tet Offensive, pp. 221–22; Lung, General Offensives, pp. 12–13. 61

 Westmoreland’s activities can be followed through his History Notes, 28 Dec 67–31 Jan 68, 

tab A–1, and his personal schedule, tab A–2, in Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–31 Jan 

67). Both in CMH. See also Soldier Reports, pp. 323–25, 328. Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01449 to 

Wheeler and Sharp, 31 Jan 68, Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68, is his first summary of the attacks for his superiors. Lung, General Offensives, pp. 12–13, describes the atmosphere in Saigon as 

the offensive opened.
57

Prelude to Tet: Warnings and Preparations

their calls for a “general uprising” as “merely exhortatory, and not as a 

blueprint for what was to follow.” MACV, on the basis of its own view 

of what was militarily practical for the enemy, centered its attention on 

northern I Corps as the one region of South Vietnam where the North 

Vietnamese had a chance to achieve a preponderance of strength. The 

enemy’s assessments and logic, however, were quite different.62 

Nevertheless, the allies did receive, and heed, enough warning to 

prevent their forces from being caught completely off guard. In III 

Corps, they had redeployed to protect Saigon. Elsewhere, simply as a 

consequence of their normal dispositions, they had enough troops at 

most threatened points to deny the enemy significant tactical success.

Indeed, it may be questioned whether the allies, had they known 

from the beginning the true nature of the enemy plan, could have 

done much more than they did to disrupt it. The Viet Cong regularly 

infiltrated the cities to conduct terrorism and small-scale attacks. 

They could expand those efforts whenever they were willing to risk 

heavier casualties and exposure of their clandestine urban political 

and military organization. Their first-wave Tet attack force entered the 

cities in small groups mingled with normal civilian traffic, with their 

weapons hidden in innocent-seeming trucks, carts, and sampans. The 

allies could have stopped such movement only by a complete cutoff 

of traffic into and out of the cities, with its attendant severe economic 

and political consequences. MACV could have withheld reinforcements from I Corps to strengthen the defense of the cities, but only at 

the risk of a spectacular North Vietnamese battlefield victory in South 

Vietnam’s militarily most vulnerable region.63

The allies routinely kept large numbers of troops and police in and 

around the cities to protect political and administrative centers, prevent 

terrorism, and carry out pacification; and every American and South 

Vietnamese base possessed its own permanent security force. When 

organized enemy units began moving toward their assault positions, 

the allies often detected them and, as in III Corps, redeployed their 

own troops in reaction. In sum, short of cancelling the Tet cease-fire 

earlier, curtailing furloughs in the South Vietnamese Army, and further 

reinforcing security at key installations, the allies could have done little 

more to prepare for the assault; and their usual disposition of forces 

made a major Viet Cong success unlikely. Paradoxically, allied commanders’ certainty of the latter fact helped the Communists achieve 

the degree of surprise that they did.

62 Quotation is from PFIAB, “Intelligence Warning,” pp. 4–5, see also p. 3. For other similar evaluations, see Wirtz, Tet Offensive, pp. 222–23; U.S. District Court, Westmoreland Memorandum of 

Law, app. B, p. 122, and app. A, pp. 135–36, 217–18; CIA Paper, sub: Warning of the Tet Offensive, 

pp. 13–14, CMH; and Davidson, Vietnam Secrets, pp. 103–04. 63 Allied troop dispositions are reviewed in Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, p. 174. The ease of 

infiltrating relatively small numbers of enemy troops into Saigon is emphasized in MACV History, 

1968, vol. 2, p. 894. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

58

While the strictly military effects of the Tet surprise thus were likely 

to be containable, the same could not be said of the psychological and 

public relations impact in the United States. The president and his senior 

advisers in Washington knew of the intelligence indicating the attack 

was coming. However, a subsequent review concluded, the reports did 

not convey “the full sense of immediacy and intensity which was present in Saigon” by the end of January. As noted previously, General 

Westmoreland’s initial backchannel account of the 30 January attacks 

declared that the situation was well in hand. The Johnson administration, as a result, did little to prepare either itself or the American people 

for the coming shock. Its few tentative public warnings were submerged 

in the continuing stream of reassurance that the war was going well. 

The Tet offensive thus would pose for the American government not 

only the military problem of repelling enemy forces but also the more 

difficult task of reconciling the earlier drumbeat of claims that the foes 

were on the decline with the sudden brutal fact of Communist troops 

fighting in the streets of Saigon, Hue, and scores of other supposedly 

secure cities and towns.64

64

 Quotation is from PFIAB, “Intelligence Warning,” pp. 5–6. Ambiguity of information reaching 

Washington is also emphasized in paper, sub: What info did Washington have on coordinated attacks on 

cities?, folder 42, Thomas C. Thayer Papers, CMH. Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, pp. 315–16, 321–

22, acknowledges that he continued to emphasize optimism during late 1967 and did too little to alert 

the American public to the coming offensive. Hammond, Military and the Media 1962–1968, p. 342, 

summarizes the Johnson administration’s failure to prepare the American public for the offensive.

Viet Cong attack Bachelor Officers Quarters in Saigon.
3

Tet and Its Aftermath

The offensive that erupted the length and breadth of South Vietnam on 30–31 January was unprecedented in the war in scope and intensity. At least 84,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops took direct 

part in the attacks; probably most of the enemy’s other available forces 

had offensive missions, many of which were not carried out. During 

the first two days of the attack, the Communists struck five of South 

Vietnam’s six autonomous cities, 36 provincial capitals, 64 district 

towns, and the major American air bases with varying combinations of 

ground assaults and attacks by fire. They temporarily occupied parts of 

many cities, including Saigon; and they took virtually complete control 

of Hue for the better part of a month, being driven out only after weeks 

of stubborn house-to-house fighting by U.S. Army, U.S. Marine, and 

South Vietnamese Army units. Casualties and destruction were extensive: more than 2,100 American and 4,000 South Vietnamese soldiers 

killed in a month’s combat, tens of thousands of South Vietnamese 

civilians dead and injured, hundreds of thousands homeless, sections 

of Saigon and other cities in ruins, South Vietnam’s economy temporarily paralyzed, and rural pacification seemingly destroyed.1 (Map 2)

At the cost of nearly 50,000 men killed in the first month of fighting—many of them hard-to-replace Viet Cong local troops, guerrillas, 

and political cadre—the offensive fell far short of the politico-military 

goals Hanoi set for it. The attackers, who suffered from local deficiencies 

in communications and coordination, were repulsed at many points, 

were unable to hold for long the objectives they did seize, and failed 

to destroy any large allied or South Vietnamese units. Most important, 

the Saigon government and its armed forces did not collapse and the 

urban population did not rise in support of the offensive. The General 

Uprising never took place. Yet military failure paradoxically produced 



 Convenient overviews of the Tet offensive are in Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, pp. 158–61, 

183–84; and MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 38, 536 and vol. 2, an. A. The classic journalistic 

overview is in Oberdorfer, Tet!. For casualties, see MACV Fact Sheet, 8 Mar 68, sub: Losses for 

Period 29/1800 Hrs Jan 68 to 05/2400 Hrs Mar 68, tab 16, Westmoreland History file no. 30 (1–31 

Mar 68), CMH; II FFV Tet Offensive AAR, 31 Jan–18 Feb 68, CMH, pp. 25–26. For the question of 

enemy numbers, see Davidson, Vietnam Secrets, pp. 82–84; and Morris Deposition, p. 36, Vietnam: 

A Documentary Collection, card 345. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

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61

Tet and Its Aftermath

political success, not in South Vietnam but in the United States. The 

fact that the offensive had occurred at all and the magnitude of its 

casualties and destruction shattered the faith of many American political leaders in the possibility of victory. A shaken President Johnson 

and his advisers continued with increased urgency the major reconsideration of U.S. strategy and war aims that they had begun late in the 

previous year.2 

Regaining Control

The Communist assault on Saigon temporarily disrupted the routine 

of MACV headquarters and placed the “Saigon Warriors” of “Pentagon 

East” very nearly on the firing line. Tan Son Nhut Air Base, which bordered the MACV compound, came under intense infantry, mortar, and 

rocket attack during the small hours of 31 January. At the unfortified 

headquarters, the personnel on duty, alarmed by the reports pouring 

in of fighting nationwide and by the sound of nearby gunfire, hastily 

improvised a thin defense perimeter manned by frightened clerks and 

military police led by equally frightened junior staff officers. Inside the 

building, other officers and enlisted men pulled desks into the corridors 

as last-ditch barricades. Fortunately, these defenses were never tested. 

American and South Vietnamese security forces, reinforced by South 

Vietnamese airborne units fortuitously on the base and by armored cavalry dispatched by II Field Force, stopped the main Viet Cong infantry 

attack well short of Tan Son Nhut’s vital areas and the MACV complex. 

Nevertheless, occasional sniper fire and mortar rounds during the next 

several days gave headquarters life an unaccustomed spice of danger.3

General Westmoreland lost no time in seeking to regain control 

of the situation. He spent most of the morning of the 31st at the U.S. 

Embassy, which had been attacked by Viet Cong sappers who had 

broken into the courtyard before being trapped and killed by American 

military police and paratroopers. The MACV commander oversaw the 

post-attack cleanup. He also reassured the State Department by longdistance telephone that, contrary to initial news reports, the enemy had 

not entered the U.S. Embassy building itself; and he held an impromptu 

press conference on the grounds. Westmoreland then moved on to 

MACV headquarters, where he received briefings on the situation and 

began telephoning the field force and III Marine Amphibious Force 

 For typical American evaluations of the enemy defeat, see Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, 

pp. 159, 161–62; MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 73–74 and vol. 2, an. A, pp. 894–95; II FFV Tet 

Offensive AAR, 31 Jan–18 Feb 68, CMH, pp. 15, 21, 24, 34. For American domestic reaction, see 

Oberdorfer, Tet! ch. 5, and Hammond, Military and the Media, 1962–1968, chs. 15 and 16.

 The battle for Tan Son Nhut is described in MACV History, 1968, vol. 2, pp. 896–98. For details 

of the first days at MACV headquarters, see Jones, War Without Windows, pp. 175–90; Westmoreland 

History Notes, 1–31 Mar 68, tab 1, Westmoreland History file no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68), CMH; Davidson 

Interv, 30 Mar and 30 Jun 82, sess. 1, pp. 56–60; and Chaisson to Mrs Chaisson, 1, 2, and 18 Feb 68, 

box 7, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

62

commanders to obtain information and give operational guidance. He was joined at headquarters during that and the following 

day by General Abrams and other 

senior officers of the staff, many 

of whom had their own tales to 

tell of tense drives across a city 

that suddenly had become a 

battleground.4

Despite the presence of 

Westmoreland and his key subordinates, MACV headquarters 

was only partially operational for 

several days. Many staff personnel who were off-duty at the start 

of the attack could not reach 

their jobs because of the fighting 

elsewhere in Saigon. Some were 

trapped in their billets for days as 

troops shot it out with holed-up 

Viet Cong infiltrators. Short of 

staff at the outset, the headquarters also lacked timely information because of overloaded and in some 

cases battle-damaged communications networks. MACV was slow, for 

example, to appreciate the seriousness of the situation in Hue. Yet at 

the same time, the headquarters labored to meet a flurry of special 

information demands from anxious Washington officials. Until early 

March, Generals Wheeler and Johnson telephoned Westmoreland 

daily. These demands, Westmoreland declared in mid-February, were 

“rapidly overwhelming us and beginning to detract from the performance of our primary duties.”5



 Westmoreland’s movements are recounted in Westmoreland History Notes, 28 Dec 67–31 Jan 

68, tab A–1, Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–31 Jan 68) and Westmoreland Calendar of 

Activities, Feb 68, tab 2, Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68). Both in CMH. Oberdorfer, 

Tet! pp. 26–39, describes initial confusion in press accounts. Sorley, Thunderbolt, pp. 211–12; Ltr, 

Chaisson to Mrs Chaisson, 1 Feb 68, box 7, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution; and Davidson 

Interv, 30 Mar and 30 Jun 82, sess. 1, pp. 56–60, describe adventures of senior officers making their 

way to headquarters. 

 Palmer Interv, 1975, pp. 277–78. Communications problems are described in Davidson Interv, 

30 Mar and 30 Jun 82, sess. 1, pp. 59–60. Wirtz, Tet Offensive, pp. 230, 235–40, recounts early 

MACV efforts to obtain accurate information on the Tet battles. Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 01464

to Wheeler, Sharp, Bunker, 1 Feb 68; Wheeler JCS 01275 to Westmoreland info Sharp, 3 Feb 68; 

Wheeler JCS 02445 to Westmoreland, 1 Mar 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Feb–Mar 68, 

CMH. Quotation is from Draft Msg, Westmoreland to Sharp and Wheeler, “relayed in essence by 

telephone to Gen Wheeler on 13 Feb 68,” tab 53, Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), 

CMH.

Westmoreland tours the embassy,

31 January 1968.
63

Tet and Its Aftermath

During this period, U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV) headquarters, the 

commanders and staff of which were quartered within the well-protected Long Binh base a short distance north of Saigon, took on much 

of the task of collecting information about the fighting throughout the 

country, making reports to higher authority, and coordinating resupply and helicopter and medical support of American units. The USARV 

deputy commander, Lt. Gen. Bruce Palmer, later recalled: “We were 

able to keep MACV informed on things that they didn’t know about, 

as well as [U.S. Army Pacific] and [Department of the Army], to get very 

quick action as needed.” Although the field force and division commanders directed the battle, USARV, according to General Palmer, “got 

into some tactical shifting of our own” in response to urgent immediate requirements.6 

As the fighting in Saigon died down and people began returning, 

MACV headquarters rapidly adjusted to round-the-clock operations 

under enemy threat. The headquarters commandant, Lt. Col. Jack 

O’Shaughnessy, organized and took command of a 530-man MACV 

defense force made up of headquarters officers and enlisted men 

organized in four provisional rifle companies. As a precaution against 

future mortar and rocket attacks, the director of construction oversaw 

installation of a casemate around the combat operations center and 

other vital parts of the building. General Westmoreland and his senior 

officers bivouacked in the headquarters for several weeks after Tet 

because of the press of work and because at first, as General Davidson 

put it, it was “just too goddamned dangerous to get out in the streets.” 

They returned to their villas only briefly during the day, for showers 

(the headquarters lacked this amenity) and short naps. Gradually, a 

semblance of regular routine returned, including the holding of the 

regular Saturday morning staff conference; and General Westmoreland 

resumed his trips to the field and to meetings of agencies, such as the 

Coordinating Committee for U.S. Missions in Southeast Asia. By midMarch, the situation had settled down to the point where Westmoreland 

could afford time for a brief visit to his family at Clark Air Force Base 

in the Philippines.7

Even then, working at headquarters remained far more strenuous 

than during pre-Tet days. General Chaisson, director of the Combat 

Operations Center (COC), described his routine for his wife:

 Quotation and description of USARV activities is from Palmer Interv, 1975, pp. 278–79. See 

also Msg, Palmer ARV 344 to Gen Johnson, 12 Feb 68, Creighton W. Abrams Papers, CMH.

 MACV History, 1968, vol. 2, p. 864. Westmoreland History Notes, 1–29 Feb 68, tab 1, 

Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68); Westmoreland History Notes, 1–31 Mar 68, tab 1, 

Westmoreland History file no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68). All in CMH. Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, p. 

163; Palmer Interv, 1975, p. 280; U.S. District Court, Westmoreland Memorandum of Law, app. A, 

p. 57; Msg, Westmoreland MAC 03705 to Sharp info Wheeler, 18 Mar 68, Westmoreland Message 

files, Mar 68, CMH. Quotation is from Davidson Interv, 30 Mar and 30 Jun 82, sess. 1, p. 58; see 

also pp. 56–60. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

64

Get up at five; go down to COC; Westy shows at six; fifty-five minutes of briefing; then to 

breakfast in his mess with C/S and Westy; then back to my desk for a couple of hours; then 

to field or briefings; twice a week home for lunch & bath; afternoon pushing papers; 1945 

a beer in Westy’s office; then to dinner in his mess; back to desk till 2230; then late evening 

briefing and selection of Arc Light targets. 2300–2400 bedtime. Interruptions as required 

through the night. I’ve been home now two nights in 6 and 1/2 weeks. . . .8

Literally from the first day of the offensive, General Westmoreland, 

his principal staff officers, and his field commanders assessed the 

enemy attack as a failure, one which had left the Viet Cong and North 

Vietnamese in an exposed, vulnerable position. General Davidson 

later declared: “It became apparent quite early, I’d say almost by sundown of the first day, that while we were going to have some trouble, 

. . . now they were playing in our ball game. We knew where they 

were; we just had to go get them, and we were going to go get them.” 

General Weyand, deploying his reserves to counter the enemy’s attack 

on Saigon, reached the same conclusion early in the morning of the 

thirty-first.9

In a typical evaluation, General Westmoreland on 4 February acknowledged that the enemy had “dealt the GVN a severe blow” by bringing 

the war to the cities. However, he had paid a “high price” in casualties, 

had failed to hold any towns, and had not triggered a general uprising or disrupted the South Vietnamese government and armed forces. 

Westmoreland noted that the major airfields and the allies’ nationwide 

communications system had remained in operation throughout the first 

wave of attacks and that the South Vietnamese Army and territorial forces 

in the main were fighting well. The MACV commander viewed the assaults 

on the cities as the second part of a three-fold offensive, which had begun 

with the autumn border battles and probably would culminate in a drive 

to take Khe Sanh and overrun northern I Corps. He credited the enemy 

with the capacity for another round of city attacks as well as the northern 

offensive but expressed confidence that his forces “have the strength, disposition, and are in the proper frame of mind to keep at the enemy and 

inflict even greater losses if he persists in the attack.”10

Early Communist assessments of the offensive’s shortcomings 

closely paralleled those of MACV. A COSVN directive, copies of which 

were captured during February, claimed a great victory over U.S. forces 

 Ltr, Chaisson to Mrs Chaisson, 16 Mar 68, box 7, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution; see other 

letters in this box for additional color on MACV headquarters during the offensive. 

 Quotation is from Davidson Interv, 30 Mar and 30 Jun 82, sess. 1, pp. 63–64. For Weyand’s 

assessment, see Oberdorfer, Tet! pp. 140–42; and II FFV Press Briefing on VC Tet Offensive, 20 Mar 

68, CMH. 10

 Westmoreland quotations are from Msg, MAC 01614 to Wheeler info Sharp and Bunker, 4 Feb 

68, Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH. In same file, see Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 01464 

to Wheeler, Sharp, Bunker, 1 Feb 68; MAC 01497, MAC 01539, MAC 01588 to Sharp and Wheeler, 

1, 2, 3 Feb 68; MAC 01592 to Sharp info Wheeler and Bunker, 3 Feb 68. Msg, COMUSMACV to 

CG III MAF et al., 4 Feb 68, in MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, p. 26.
65

Tet and Its Aftermath

and the “puppet” army and government. However, the directive went 

on to list a number of “shortcomings and weaknesses,” specifically failure to seize key objectives, destroy enemy units, hold occupied areas, 

and bring about mass popular uprisings. Preparing the revolutionary forces for hard days to come, this directive and subsequent ones 

redefined the General Offensive–General Uprising as “a prolonged 

strategic offensive that includes many military campaigns and local 

uprisings” and admitted that “we cannot yet . . . achieve total victory 

in a short period.” General Davidson and his staff initially doubted 

the authenticity of this document because of its appearance so soon 

after the offensive began, but other captured documents repeated the 

same points. Davidson finally decided that COSVN had prepared the 

directive before the attack as a precaution against the possibility of less 

than total success.11

As the Viet Cong were driven or withdrew from the cities, MACV 

and mission assessments grew steadily more confident in tone. 

Apprehension remained, however, over the threat to northern I Corps, 

where the North Vietnamese divisions had yet to make their move. 

Westmoreland, his views shared by Ambassadors Bunker and Komer, 

emphasized that the enemy, by abandoning protracted rural insurgency for a “go-for-broke” effort directed at the urban centers, had 

exposed his forces to allied firepower and created a power vacuum in 

the countryside for the pacification program to fill. Far from being a 

disaster for the allies, the enemy offensive thus was an opportunity 

if the Americans and South Vietnamese could take advantage of it. 

Exemplifying this point of view, Ambassador Komer declared on 12 

February: “If the GVN can recover quickly enough from the near preTet disaster, and we can go on the counter-offensive in other areas 

while containing the NVA up north, we may well force Hanoi to the 

negotiating table or otherwise materially shorten the war.”12

The allied military response to the Tet offensive required few modifications of General Westmoreland’s established system of command. III 

Marine Amphibious Force, the field forces, and the South Vietnamese 

corps fought the battles under the guidance of Westmoreland and his 

11 Circular from Central Office of South Vietnam (COSVN) Current Affairs Committee and 

Military Affairs Committee of South Vietnam Liberation Army Headquarters Concerning a 

Preliminary Assessment of the Situation, 31 Jan 68, in Gareth Porter, ed., Vietnam: The Definitive 

Documentation of Human Decisions, 2 vols. (Stanfordville, N.Y.: E. M. Coleman Enterprises, 1979), 

2:485–86; quotations are from this document. Davidson Interv, 30 Mar and 30 Jun 82, sess. 1, pp. 

15–18. A parallel captured evaluation is reported in Msg, Westmoreland MAC 02063 to Wheeler, 

Sharp, Bunker, Abrams, 13 Feb 68, Abrams Papers, CMH. 12

 Quotation is from Memo, Komer for Westmoreland, 12 Feb 68, Westmoreland Memos, RWK 

[Robert W. Komer] (1967–68), DepCORDS files, CMH. See also Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 01858 

to Wheeler and Sharp, 9 Feb 68; Westmoreland MAC 1901 to Sharp info Wheeler, 10 Feb 68; 

Westmoreland MAC 01975 to Sharp and Wheeler, 12 Feb 68; Abrams PHB 166 to Westmoreland, 25 

Feb 68; Westmoreland MAC 02701 to Sharp info Wheeler, Johnson, Bunker, Abrams, 26 Feb 68. All 

in Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH. MFR, Chaisson, 5 Apr 68, sub: MACV Commanders’ 

Conf, 31 Mar 68, tab 68, Westmoreland History file no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68), CMH. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

66

counterpart, General Vien, with whom the MACV commander worked 

closely throughout the crisis. In immediate response to the attack on 

Saigon, MACV and II Field Force activated a temporary U.S. headquarters, Task Force Ware (later renamed Hurricane Forward), under the 

II Field Force deputy commander, to control American units fighting 

in the capital. Westmoreland also launched a campaign, under consideration before Tet, to strengthen the South Vietnamese command 

structure in the Capital Military District and place a more capable officer in charge of it. However, South Vietnamese political machinations 

prevented immediate action on the American proposal. In the interim, 

General Vien assumed personal direction of the battle for Saigon.13

General Westmoreland directed a few force redeployments in 

response to the enemy offensive. He reluctantly dispatched American 

combat units to Saigon and other hard-pressed cities to assist South 

Vietnamese clearing and securing efforts. Continuing the shift of 

MACV’s forces to counter the expected enemy offensive in northern I Corps, in mid-February he began moving the headquarters and 

two brigades of the 101st Airborne Division, which had arrived in III 

Corps just before Christmas, to Thua Thien Province. Aside from these 

movements, however, and some shifting of units within corps areas, 

allied dispositions did not change significantly as a result of the Tet 

attacks.14

In the aftermath of Tet, General Westmoreland saw no need to 

revise his basic strategy. Westmoreland insisted to General Vien that 

the “mission, objectives, and goals” set in the Combined Campaign 

Plan for 1968 “remain valid.” The plan, he declared, was “sufficiently 

flexible to permit the corps commanders . . . to accomplish destruction 

of VC units in the vicinity of cities, open and secure LOCs, and support 

the Revolutionary Development effort as required by the situation in 

the corps zones.”15

Westmoreland did acknowledge that the enemy offensive had caused 

the allies to “re-evaluate our priorities” by devoting more resources to 

protection of the cities. Yet the MACV commander, throughout the 

13

 Westmoreland describes his method of command in Msg MAC 02740 to Wheeler, 27 Feb 68, 

Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH. Examples of his activities are in Westmoreland Message 

files and Historical files, Feb–Mar 68, CMH; MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, p. 219 and vol. 2, p. 899; 

Msgs, Eckhardt HOA 1741 to Abrams, 1 Dec 67, and Abrams MAC 11885 to Eckhardt, 8 Dec 67, 

both in Abrams Papers, CMH. Also Clarke, The Final Years, pp. 308–09; Sharp and Westmoreland, 

Report, pp. 170–71. 14 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01808 to Wheeler info Sharp and Bunker, 8 Feb 68, Westmoreland 

Message files, Feb 68, CMH; Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, p. 159; Chaisson, MFR, 18 Feb 68, 

sub: Unit Deployments, tab 65, Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), CMH; Chaisson, 

Oral History, pp. 217–18, MCHC. 15

 First quotation is from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 0218 to Wheeler info Sharp, 12 Feb 68, 

Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68; see also Seventeen Questions Posed by AP [Associated Press] 

and Gen Westmoreland’s Answers, 24 Feb 68, tab 77, Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 

68). Both in CMH. Second quotation is from Ltr, COMUSMACV to CJCS, 12 Mar 68, in MACV 

History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 19–20.
67

Tet and Its Aftermath

weeks after Tet, struggled to prevent the allies from huddling around 

the cities and surrendering the military initiative, and the countryside, to the enemy. While acknowledging the need to clear and secure 

the urban areas as the first military priority, Westmoreland continually emphasized pursuit and attack of enemy forces and the earliest 

possible return of U.S. and South Vietnamese regular troops to their 

customary rural areas of operation. Repeatedly, he hammered on the 

fact that the Tet attacks had left enemy units exposed in a way they had 

not been previously and urged his commanders and his allies to seek 

out and destroy them. He emphasized as well the urgency of restoring military support of pacification. With General Vien, Westmoreland 

traveled to all four corps areas to preach the gospel of the offensive 

and prod commanders and advisers to develop and execute plans for 

attacking Communist units, reopening roads, and reestablishing the 

government presence in the villages.16

Response to these exhortations varied in speed and effectiveness 

from region to region, but by early March the allies gradually were 

turning urban defense back to the police and territorial forces and 

resuming search-and-destroy and pacification operations. On 11 

March, for example, II Field Force and III Corps initiated a combined 

campaign to destroy enemy forces in the five provinces surrounding 

Saigon. Elsewhere, more modest but significant operations were getting 

under way, even as the allies still awaited the expected major North 

Vietnamese attack in northern I Corps.17

As urgent as the need to resume the military offensive was the 

requirement to relieve civilian distress and repair the damage, much of 

it caused by allied firepower, resulting from the fight to expel the enemy 

from the cities and towns. General Westmoreland and Ambassadors 

Bunker and Komer realized that, for both humanitarian and practical political reasons, the South Vietnamese government had to act at 

once to help its injured and homeless citizens and restore as much 

as possible of normal social and economic life. They also knew that 

the government, never a model of administrative efficiency, had been 

stunned by the shock of the enemy offensive. Many of its officials, 

totally preoccupied with their own survival and with military security, often neglected or obstructed efforts to restore economic activity 

16

 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 1901 and MAC 02018 to Wheeler info Sharp, 10 Feb 68 and 12 

Feb 68; Westmoreland MAC 02740 to Wheeler, 27 Feb 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Feb 

68, CMH. Msg, CG II FFV to COMUSMACV, 10 Feb 68, tab 48; Memo, JGS RVNAF for Cdrs of 

CTZs, 16 Feb 68, sub: Activity Guidelines for Corps Tactical Zones, tab 59; MFR, Chaisson, 27 Feb 

68, sub: Commander’s Guidance, tab 86. All in Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), 

CMH. Westmoreland History Notes, 1–31 Mar 68, tab 1, Westmoreland History file no. 30 (1–31 

Mar 68), CMH; in same file, see tabs 6, 10, 23, and 26. MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 19–20, 25. 17

 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 02960 and MAC 02984 to Wheeler info Sharp, 2, 3 Mar 68; 

Westmoreland MAC 03572 to Sharp and Wheeler, 15 Mar 68; Peers NHT 0305 to Westmoreland, 

6 Mar 68; Weyand HOA 0367 to Westmoreland, 19 Mar 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, 

Mar 68, CMH. For overviews of operations, see Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, pp. 165–66; and 

MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 390–93.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

68

and basic public services. Even so, local governments and individual 

Vietnamese in the provinces were beginning self-help recovery and 

relief efforts. After a visit to the Mekong Delta during the first days of 

February, General Abrams reported that officials in every province had 

appointed relief committees and begun providing food, clothing, and 

medical assistance to their homeless citizens. The challenge for the U.S. 

Embassy and MACV was to push the central government to support 

and expand upon these initiatives.18 

To get President Thieu and his officials moving promptly and in the 

right directions, Westmoreland and Komer, with Ambassador Bunker’s 

approval, on 2 February hastily drew up plans for a nationwide 

Operation Recovery, to be directed by a Central Recovery Committee, 

chaired by Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky. With its own combined 

American-Vietnamese staff, the Central Recovery Committee would 

mobilize the various ministries for the effort and coordinate their 

actions. On 3 February, President Thieu promptly accepted the plan 

when Bunker, Westmoreland, and Komer presented it to him. The 

Central Recovery Committee, quartered in the presidential palace, was 

18

 The reconstruction problem is conveniently summarized in Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, 

pp. 332–33, and Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, pp. 170, 235. Official obstruction of recovery 

is noted in Memo, Komer for Bunker and Westmoreland, 7 Feb 68, Chronological File: Komer 

(1968), DepCORDS files, CMH. Early South Vietnamese self-help efforts are described in Msg, 

Westmoreland MAC 01628 to Wheeler info Sharp, Bunker, 4 Feb 68, Westmoreland Message files, 

Feb 68, CMH.

Aftermath of Viet Cong attack on Saigon
69

Tet and Its Aftermath

in operation within a few days. Headed by Ky, with Komer and his 

military deputy, Maj. Gen. George W. Forsythe, overseeing respectively 

policy and operations, and with a staff of representatives from the 

ministries, MACV, and U.S. Agency for International Development, the 

Central Recovery Committee directed the work of subordinate councils 

at province, district, and village levels. On the U.S. side, CORDS set up 

an operations center at MACV to monitor activities and relay requests 

for materiel and engineering support. Throughout the country, the 

CORDS staff acted as the nucleus of the recovery organization, spurring action at every level and collecting information on progress and 

requirements.19

During the next several months, Vietnamese officials, under the 

direction of the Central Recovery Committee and aided and urged 

on by American “bottleneck breakers and problem solvers,” fed and 

sheltered refugees, restored public utilities and services, and reestablished the normal flow of commerce within and between the cities 

and towns. They also conducted an intensive psychological warfare 

campaign to capitalize on popular resentment of the Communists’ 

violation of the sacred Tet festival and promote people’s self-help 

and self-defense movements. The South Vietnamese side of the effort 

gradually lost momentum, especially after President Thieu, fearing that 

Ky was gaining political advantage by his leadership of the recovery 

campaign, supplanted the vice president as chairman of the Central 

Recovery Committee. Nevertheless, despite setbacks, including a new 

wave of displaced persons from a second round of Communist attacks 

in May, by mid-1968 urban life was returning to what had passed for 

normality before Tet and the worst physical and economic damage of 

the offensive had been repaired. Operation Recovery and its MACV and 

CORDS sponsors had contributed much to these achievements, as had 

the long-suffering, resilient people of South Vietnam.20

Even as they promoted urban recovery, MACV and CORDS also 

tried to revive the rural pacification program, which barely had begun 

in earnest before the enemy offensive. It became clear, as Komer’s staff 

pieced together the results across South Vietnam, that the Communist 

attack in most places had bypassed the villages and hamlets. However, 

the government had withdrawn many of the Regional and Popular 

19

 Msg, Bunker Saigon 17920 to President, 4 Feb 68, tab 26, Westmoreland History file no. 29 

(1–29 Feb 68), CMH; in same file, Westmoreland History Notes, 1–29 Feb 68, tab 1; Fact Sheet, 2 Feb 

68, sub: Project Recovery, tab 11; Msgs, Bunker to Sec State, 2 and 3 Feb 68, tabs 16 and 24; Memo, 

Bunker for COMUSMACV, Dir USAID, Dir Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office (JUSPAO), 5 Feb 68, sub: 

GVN Organization for Relief of Destruction Caused by VC, tab 28; Msg, Bunker Saigon 17922 to Sec 

State, 4 Feb 68, Cable Chron-State (Jan–May 68), CMH; MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 536–37. 20 For overviews of Project Recovery, see MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 537–44, and tab 91, 

Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), CMH. Quotation is from Komer, Item for [Bunker] 

Cable, 7 Feb 68, Chronological File: Komer (1968); DepCORDS files, CMH. Also Memo, Komer 

for Bunker, 23 Apr 68, Bunker—Memos for RWK (1967–68); and Msg, Komer to Corps SAs [senior advisers], 25 May 68, Cable Chron-Military (1968). Politics of Thieu’s replacement of Ky are 

recounted in Hammond, Military and the Media, 1962–1968, pp. 354–55.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

70

Forces, National Police, and civilian Revolutionary Development 

cadres to the province and district capitals for defense and relief work, 

leaving the countryside open to Viet Cong recruiting, taxation, and 

propagandizing. Fortunately, the Viet Cong also had pulled their own 

local force and guerrilla units out of the villages to attack the towns, 

where they suffered heavy losses and remained engaged. Thus, the 

countryside after Tet constituted a power vacuum that both sides had 

to race to fill. General Westmoreland told Admiral Sharp late in March: 

“We unquestionably suffered a real setback [in pacification], but the 

enemy suffered grievous losses, too. The real question is whether we 

can recover and forge ahead more quickly than he.”21

Ambassador Komer recognized this fact long before the final 

reports were in. From the first days of the offensive, he and General 

Westmoreland hastened to push government troops and pacification 

cadres out of the towns and back into the hamlets. On 9 February, 

Westmoreland, in a message drafted by Komer, directed corps senior 

advisers and CORDS deputies to exert “maximum advisory pressure” 

on their counterparts to that end, lest a “major pacification setback” 

occur “largely through default.” Both men repeated this exhortation 

regularly thereafter and induced President Thieu and General Vien to 

do the same. At American urging, the Joint General Staff instituted 

special “show-the-flag” operations by Regional Force companies with 

attached intelligence personnel and civilian cadre to restore a government presence in hard-pressed villages. Komer and his CORDS advisers 

oversaw the revision of province Revolutionary Development plans to 

accelerate recovery and adopted a simplified set of objectives emphasizing security, psychological warfare, elimination of the Communist 

infrastructure, and local self-defense. All elements of the American mission maintained pressure on President Thieu to replace province chiefs 

and military commanders who had proven inadequate in the crisis.22

Government forces gradually moved back into the countryside. Early 

in April, according to Komer, 545 of 629 Revolutionary Development 

teams had returned to their hamlets and 519 regularly stayed over21

 Overviews of the pacification setback can be found in Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, pp. 

160–61, 235; MACV History, 1968, vol. 2, pp. 888, 902, 905; and II FFV Tet Offensive AAR, 31 

Jan–18 Feb 68, p. 25. Quotation is from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 08814 to Sharp, 29 Mar 68, Cable 

Chron-Military (1968), DepCORDS files, CMH. In this collection, see also Msg, Bunker Saigon 

21382 to Sec State, 7 Mar 68, Cable Chron-State (Jan–May 68); Memos, Komer for Bunker, 14 and 

21 Feb 68, Chronological File: Komer (1968). Also, Msg, Palmer ARV 344 to Gen Johnson, 12 Feb 

68, Abrams Papers, CMH; Graham Interv, 24 May and 3 Nov 82, sess. 1, pp. 34–37. 22 Davidson Interv, 24 May and 30 Jun 82, sess. 1, pp. 69–70, credits Komer’s early correct 

assessment of pacification. Quotation is from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 04132 to Corps SAs and 

DepCORDSs, 9 Feb 68, Cable Chron-Military (1968), DepCORDS files, CMH. In same collection, see Msgs, Westmoreland to Corps SAs, 10 Mar 68; Westmoreland MAC 08814 to Sharp, 

29 Mar 68. Memo, Komer for Minister Tri, 28 Mar 68, sub: Revolutionary Development Cadre, 

tab 57, Westmoreland History file no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68); MFR, Chaisson, 1 Jun 68, sub: MACV 

Commanders’ Conf, 19 May 68, tab 55, Westmoreland History file no. 32 (1–31 May 68). Both in 

CMH.
71

Tet and Its Aftermath

night there. Of 51 South Vietnamese battalions assigned to support 

pacification, 46 were operating in their assigned areas. President Thieu 

replaced two corps commanders and fifteen province chiefs, to the net 

advantage of pacification. According to the CORDS Hamlet Evaluation 

System, the percentage of the South Vietnamese urban and rural population living in relatively secure areas, which had fallen immediately 

after Tet, began gradually rising during the spring and was approaching 

pre-offensive levels by the middle of the year. A government-sponsored 

hamlet self-defense movement made headway in some areas, and there 

were indications of peasant disillusionment at the Viet Cong’s failure 

to achieve their promised great victory at Tet. The rural economy recovered quickly, with no long-lasting shortages or price inflation. The 

progress achieved was fragile, and advisers in the hardest-hit provinces 

estimated that it would take six to nine months to restore the program 

to full momentum (pessimists doubted it ever had much momentum). 

Nevertheless, contrary to alarmist reports immediately after Tet in both 

the news media and official channels, pacification, thanks in part to 

timely MACV and CORDS efforts to revive it, was far from dead.23

I Corps: MACV Versus the Marines

While taking steps to control the situation in the rest of the country, General Westmoreland throughout February and March focused 

much of his attention on northern I Corps, where he expected enemy 

forces to launch the next and potentially most dangerous phase of their 

offensive. The MACV commander told General Wheeler on 9 February 

that “the only really serious threat that faces me now” was in the area 

between the Demilitarized Zone and Hai Van Pass. There the rain and 

fog of the northeast monsoon and the enemy’s cutting of Highway 1, 

the allies’ sole land supply line, intensified the threat posed by massed 

North Vietnamese divisions.24

Events strengthened the MACV commander’s concern. At Hue, the 

North Vietnamese augmented their initial attack force and waged a 

bitter month-long battle to hold the city. At Khe Sanh, besides continuing rocket and artillery bombardment, they assaulted two of the 

Marine garrison’s hilltop outposts and were repulsed only after handto-hand fighting. On 7 February, using tanks for the first time in South 

Vietnam, they overran the Special Forces camp at Lang Vei 14 kilometers southwest of the Marine combat base. General Westmoreland 

23 Statistics are from Msg, Komer Saigon 24361 to Bunker, 9 Apr 68, Cable Chron-State (Jan–

May 68), DepCORDS files, CMH. In same file, see Msg, Bunker Saigon 21382 to Sec State, 7 Mar 

68. Memo, Komer for Bunker, 23 Apr 68, Bunker—Memos for RWK (1967–68); Msg, Komer to 

Westmoreland, MAC 9389, [ca. Jul 68], Backchannel file (1967–68). All in DepCORDS files, CMH. 

MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 519–20, 527–29. Command changes are described in Clarke, Final 

Years, pp. 308–13. 24

 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01858 to Wheeler and Sharp, 9 Feb 68, Westmoreland Message 

files, Feb 68, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

72

and General Abrams, who activated MACV Forward headquarters at 

Phu Bai in mid-February, viewed these events, and the buildup of 

additional North Vietnamese forces in striking distance of Hue and Da 

Nang, as presaging a full-scale Communist offensive aimed at seizing 

all of Quang Tri and Thua Thien Provinces, possibly to establish a position of strength from which to enter negotiations.25

President Johnson and his advisers anxiously watched the developing siege of Khe Sanh. The president, disturbed by ominous press 

reports that likened the marines’ situation and probable fate to those 

of the French at Dien Bien Phu, repeatedly pressed Westmoreland, 

through General Wheeler, for reassurance that the base would not fall. 

The MACV commander in response reiterated his conviction that airpower and artillery would crush any North Vietnamese assault, as well 

as his assertion that the outpost must be held for both military and 

morale reasons. On 4 February, the president secured from the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff their written concurrence with Westmoreland’s views. At 

25 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 01592 to Sharp info Wheeler and Bunker, 3 Feb 68 and MAC 

01975 to Sharp and Wheeler, 12 Feb 68; and Abrams PHB 169 and PHB 231 to Westmoreland, 26 

Feb 68 and 5 Mar 6. All in Westmoreland Message files, Feb and Mar 68, CMH. MFR, Chaisson, 18 

Feb 68, sub: Unit Deployments, tab 65, Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), CMH. Also 

Enemy plans: CIA Rpt, 20 Feb 68, copy in CMH; Ford, “Tet 1968,” pp. 152–62, 168–77, 275–77. 

Battles for Hue and Khe Sanh are described in detail in Shulimson et al., Marines in Vietnam, 1968, 

chs. 9–12 and 14.

President Johnson reviewing the relief map of Khe Sanh
73

Tet and Its Aftermath

Johnson’s direction, Westmoreland, beginning on 5 February, made a 

special daily report on operations at Khe Sanh and in the Demilitarized 

Zone area, including statistics on B–52 and tactical air strikes, tons 

of supply delivered to the base, and American casualties. While seeking reassurance and military details, the president left the conduct of 

this battle to his field commander. Johnson and his advisers, Wheeler 

told Westmoreland, recognized that “you are the responsible commander and that no one can direct tactical operations in the field from 

Washington.”26

Among President Johnson’s greatest worries about Khe Sanh was 

that the military might ask permission to use tactical nuclear weapons 

there to prevent disaster. Reassurances to the contrary from Wheeler and 

Westmoreland were less than convincing. Westmoreland, for example, on 

3 February, after the usual expression of confidence, added that “should 

the situation in the Demilitarized Zone area change dramatically,” the 

United States must be “prepared to introduce weapons of greater effectiveness against massed forces,” with “either tactical nuclear weapons or 

chemical agents” as “active candidates for employment.” During the first 

weeks of February, CINCPAC, MACV, and III Marine Amphibious Force 

continued the top-secret contingency planning, code-named Fracture

Jaw, which they had begun late in January for using tactical nuclear weapons around Khe Sanh. On the ninth, General Westmoreland approved a 

MACV operational plan for this purpose. By that time, however, the issue 

had become public in the United States, with Senator Eugene McCarthy 

and others charging that the military was preparing to use nuclear weapons in South Vietnam. The administration, facing a domestic and foreign 

outcry, publicly disavowed any such intent. Secretly, on the twelfth, at 

Wheeler’s direction, Admiral Sharp and General Westmoreland discontinued all Fracture Jaw planning, placed the documents under tight security 

control, and instructed the few staff personnel involved not to disclose 

even the existence of the plans.27 

With nuclear weapons thus effectively ruled out, the Military 

Assistance Command used every other means at its disposal to 

26 Quotation is from Msg, Wheeler JCS 01316 to Westmoreland info Sharp, 4 Feb 68, 

Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH. Msgs, Wheeler JCS 01147, JCS 01305, JCS 01320, and 

JCS 02885 to Westmoreland, 1, 3, 4 Feb 68 and 13 Mar 68; Westmoreland MAC 01586, MAC 01637, 

MAC 02018, and MAC 02954 to Wheeler info Sharp, 3, 5, 12 Feb 68, 2 Mar 68; Westmoreland MAC 

01666 to Wheeler info Sharp and Bunker, 5 Feb 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Feb–Mar 68, 

CMH. MFR, Westmoreland, 16 Feb 68, sub: President’s Position on Khe Sanh, tab 60, Westmoreland 

History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), CMH. 27 Quotation is from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01586 to Wheeler info Sharp, 3 Feb 68; 

Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH. Msgs, Wheeler JCS 01154 to Sharp and Westmoreland, 

1 Feb 68; Wheeler JCS 01272 to Westmoreland info Sharp, 3 Feb 68; Wheeler JCS 01678 to Sharp 

info Westmoreland, 10 Feb 68; Westmoreland MAC 01900 and MAC 02007 to Cushman, 10, 12 Feb 

68; Westmoreland MAC 01902 to Sharp, 10 Feb 68; Sharp to Wheeler info Westmoreland, 2 Feb 68; 

Sharp to Westmoreland et al., 6 and 12 Feb 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH. 

Controversy in the United States is covered in Hammond, Military and the Media, 1962–1968, pp. 

361–63.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

74

strengthen northern I Corps against the coming blow. Despite worsening weather, the command kept up round-the-clock air and artillery bombardment of the North Vietnamese divisions besieging Khe 

Sanh. With fighting still going on all over South Vietnam, General 

Westmoreland took the calculated risk of thinning American forces 

in II and III Corps to obtain additional reinforcements for northern I Corps, notably the aforementioned shift of the 101st Airborne 

Division from the Saigon area to Thua Thien. He told General 

Cushman on 23 February, “I have no more reserves” and warned the 

Marine commander, “you will have to go on extreme economy of 

force s[outh] of the Hai Van [and] cut corners everyplace” if still more 

troops were needed in the north. Reacting to the appearance of North 

Vietnamese tanks at Lang Vei, Westmoreland set the MACV staff to 

work augmenting I Corps anti-armor weaponry. In cooperation with 

Admiral Sharp, he resumed planning for an amphibious feint above 

the Demilitarized Zone to divert North Vietnamese troops from the 

battle in Quang Tri.28

As February gave way to March, the great North Vietnamese attack 

still did not materialize. The allies continued hammering the enemy 

with airpower, further expanded their logistical base north of the Hai 

Van, and deployed their reinforcements. They also began planning a 

counteroffensive to destroy Communist forces in the coastal lowlands 

and then break the siege of Khe Sanh.29

As the crisis in the north intensified, so also did General 

Westmoreland’s doubts about the competence of III MAF’s leadership. His discontent came into the open on 7 February, at a meeting 

at III MAF headquarters to deal with the fall of Lang Vei and with an 

apparent new North Vietnamese threat to Da Nang. Discerning what 

he considered to be an “absence of initiative” among the marines, 

Westmoreland gave direct instructions to General Cushman’s subordinate commanders for organizing the rescue of the surviving Lang Vei 

defenders and for deploying battalions from the Americal Division to 

reinforce Da Nang. This experience, and other irritations, strengthened 

Westmoreland’s resolve to set up a new headquarters to oversee the 

28 Khe Sanh bombardment is summarized in Shulimson et al., Marines in Vietnam, 1968, pp. 475–

86. See also Memo, Col D. A. Gruenther, Dir Operations Research/Systems Analysis, Hqs MACV 

(MACEVAL), for COMUSMACV, 5 Apr 68, sub: An Analysis of the Khe Sanh Battle, Westmoreland 

History file no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68), CMH. Quotation is from Chaisson Diary, 23 Feb 68, box 9, Chaisson 

Papers, Hoover Institution; see also MFR, Chaisson, 24 Feb 68, sub: Commander’s Guidance, tab 76, 

Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), CMH. Development of amphibious feint is summarized 

in MACV History, 1968, vol. 2, pp. 781–82; see also Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH. 29 Westmoreland History Notes, 1–29 Feb 68, tab 1, Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 

Feb 68), CMH; Westmoreland History Notes, 1–31 Mar 68, tab 1; MFR, Chaisson, 3 Mar 68, sub: 

COMUSMACV Visit to ICTZ, tab 5; Msg, CG III MAF to COMUSMACV, 12 Mar 68, tab 24. All in 

Westmoreland History file no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68), CMH; Msg, Abrams PHB 218 to Westmoreland, 4 

Mar 68; Cushman to Westmoreland, Abrams, Rosson, 8 Mar 68; Abrams PHB 261 to Westmoreland, 

9 Mar 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Feb–Mar 68, CMH. MACV History, 1968, vol. 2, p. 

619.
75

Tet and Its Aftermath

battle for I Corps, as well as his interest in bringing the marines’ fixedwing aircraft under the control of the Seventh Air Force.30

The establishment of MACV Forward, decided upon before Tet, went 

ahead essentially on schedule. The staff, drawn from MACV and USARV 

headquarters, began arriving at Phu Bai on 3 February and formally 

activated the new command on the ninth. General Abrams, his move 

north delayed by the enemy offensive, took up his duties three days 

later. Abrams carried with him orders from Westmoreland to “provide 

instructions” to General Cushman “on all tactical matters in I CTZ,” to 

direct the reception and operations of incoming reinforcements, and 

“to effect such organizational arrangements as necessary to maintain 

a maximum defense posture, reaction capability, and preparations 

to apply maximum pressure on the enemy.” General Westmoreland 

declared subsequently that he intended Abrams to give Cushman 

“whatever instructions he deemed necessary . . . to include assuming 

direct command of elements in I Corps if he deemed it appropriate.” 

More succinctly, General Chaisson observed that General Abrams “is 

running the I CTZ show.”31

Abrams used his sweeping authority with restraint. He attempted 

to improve coordination of the allied forces fighting to recapture Hue 

and exhorted the field commanders there to speed up the attack. He 

ordered intensified reconnaissance of the A Shau Valley base area west 

of Hue, closely supervised efforts to reopen lines of communication 

in northern I Corps, and helped initiate planning for the relief of 

Khe Sanh. The effect of his efforts was uncertain. The marines at III 

Marine Amphibious Force complained that at Hue, for example, MACV 

Forward merely complicated an already difficult command situation by 

giving orders directly to subordinate units. For the most part, General 

Cushman and his division commanders conducted the defense of Khe 

Sanh and the battle for Hue much as they had before Abrams took 

charge. Nevertheless, the deputy MACV commander was in position in 

I Corps, ready to take over operations if III Marine Amphibious Force 

faltered under the climactic enemy assault.32

30 The 7 February meeting is described in Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, pp. 341–43; 

Westmoreland History Notes, 1–29 Feb 68, tab 1, Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), 

CMH; and Chaisson Diary, 7 Feb 68, box 9, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution; see also entry for 

23 Feb 68, ibid. Other indications of COMUSMACV’s irritation at III Marine Amphibious Force 

are in Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 01604 and MAC 02128 to Cushman, 4, 15 Feb 68, Westmoreland 

Message files, Feb 68, CMH. 31

 First quotation is from Ltr, Westmoreland to Abrams, 16 Feb 68, sub: Letter of Instructions, tab 

58, Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), CMH; second is from Westmoreland History 

Notes, 28 Dec 67–31 Jan 68, tab A–1, Westmoreland History file no. 28 (27 Dec 67–31 Jan 68), CMH; 

third is from Ltr, Chaisson to Mrs Chaisson, 18 Feb 68, box 7, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution. 

Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 02270 and MAC 02452 to Sharp, 17, 21 Feb 68, Westmoreland Message 

files, Feb 68, CMH; Msgs, Abrams MAC 01446 and MAC 01591 to Cushman, 31 Jan 68 and 3 Feb 

68, Abrams Papers, CMH. MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 217–18. 32 Msgs, Abrams PHB 056, PHB 085, PHB 154, and PHB 169 to Westmoreland, 14, 16, 23, 26 Feb 

68; Abrams PHB 086, PHB 087, PHB 126, PHB 171, and PHB 196 to Cushman info Westmoreland, 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

76

General Abrams spent much of his time at MACV Forward planning 

for his headquarters’ demise. When General Westmoreland activated 

MACV Forward, he also announced his intention to convert it, around 

mid-March, into a corps headquarters to command U.S. forces north of 

the Hai Van Pass under operational control of General Cushman. This 

reorganization, Westmoreland claimed, would improve coordination 

of the Army and Marine forces in northern I Corps while reducing the 

number of subordinate headquarters with which III Marine Amphibious 

Force had to deal. The new headquarters, designated Provisional Corps, 

Vietnam, went into operation on 10 March under the command of Lt. 

Gen. William B. Rosson, who moved north to Phu Bai from his previous 

post as commanding general of I Field Force. Under terms of reference 

worked out by Generals Abrams and Cushman in consultation with 

the service component commanders, Provisional Corps controlled the 

operations of the 3d Marine, 1st Cavalry, and 101st Airborne Divisions 

and had responsibility for most of Thua Thien and all of Quang Tri 

Provinces. General Cushman, besides exercising operational control of 

Provisional Corps, directly commanded the 1st Marine and Americal 

Divisions in southern I Corps and retained his corpswide advisory and 

pacification functions. To assist Cushman, who now acted in effect 

as a field army commander, in handling his enlarged Army contingent, General Westmoreland assigned additional Army officers to the 

III MAF staff. At the same time, he augmented the Army-dominated 

Provisional Corps staff with Marine officers, including a Marine deputy 

corps commander.33

With the activation of Provisional Corps as a subordinate command 

under III Marine Amphibious Force, General Westmoreland seemingly 

backed away from his initial threat to supersede the marines in control 

of I Corps. General Chaisson expressed relief that his commander had 

remedied an initially “real bad” reorganization by “putting Rosson in 

under Cushman and easing Abe out.” General Rosson, who earlier had 

worked under III MAF operational control as commander of Task Force 

Oregon (forerunner of the Americal Division), lost no time in establishing harmonious relations with the marines. On his part, General 

Cushman declared later that he “got along just fine with Bill Rosson and 

the other Army commanders. . . .” Nevertheless, suspicion of MACV’s 

16, 20, 26 Feb 68, 1 Mar 68; Abrams PHB 128 to Maj Gen John J. Tolson, CG, 1st Cav Div, info 

Westmoreland, 20 Feb 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Feb–Mar 68, CMH. Chaisson, Oral 

History, pp. 219–20, MCHC. Command problems at Hue are summarized in Shulimson et al., 

Marines in Vietnam, 1968, pp. 237–38. 33 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 02270 and MAC 02452 to Sharp, 17 Feb, 21 Feb 68; Westmoreland 

MAC 03188 to Abrams and Cushman, 7 Mar 68; Westmoreland MAC 03022 and MAC 03430 to 

Gen Johnson, 3, 12 Mar 68; Westmoreland MAC 03291 to Gens Johnson and Chapman, 9 Mar 68; 

Abrams PHB 111, PHB 175, PHB 199, and PHB 234 to Westmoreland, 19, 27 Feb 68, 1, 6 Mar 68; 

Palmer to Westmoreland, 27 Feb 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Feb–Mar 68, CMH. MFR, 

Chaisson, 11 Mar 68, sub: COMUSMACV Visit to ICTZ, tab 25, Westmoreland History file no. 30 

(1–31 Mar 68); MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 219, 245.
77

Tet and Its Aftermath

intentions persisted among Marine officers, in Washington as well as 

at Da Nang. One Marine Corps headquarters staff officer opined: “It 

is obvious that there are other moves in this chess game to come, and 

don’t believe they are meant to be advantageous to our Corps.”34

Seeming to justify Marine suspicions, as Provisional Corps went 

into operation, General Westmoreland challenged the marines on one 

of their most cherished points of doctrine: control of airpower. With 

Army and Marine divisions intermingled in I Corps and a desperate 

battle in prospect, Westmoreland became increasingly uneasy about 

the existing improvised air control system and receptive to General 

Momyer’s continuing arguments for fundamental reorganization. In 

mid-February, he concluded, he told Admiral Sharp, that it was “essential that I look to one man to coordinate this air effort and bring this 

firepower to bear on the enemy in the most effective way in line with 

my day-to-day guidance.” That man could only be his deputy for 

34

 First quotation is from Ltr, Chaisson to Mrs Chaisson, 14 Mar 68, box 7, Chaisson Papers, 

Hoover Institution; second is from Cushman Interv, 13 Sep 73, pp. 37–38, MCHC; third is from Ltr, 

Brig Gen Earl E. Anderson, USMC, to McCutcheon, 19 Feb 68, box 20, McCutcheon Papers, MCHC. 

Msg, Westmoreland MAC 05919 to Wheeler, Gen Johnson, and Sharp, 5 May 68, Westmoreland 

Message files, May 68. Interv, Lt Col James E. Smith and Lt Col Edward P. Smith with Gen William 

B. Rosson, 1981, pp. 388–90, Senior Officers Oral History Program, MHI (hereafter cited as Rosson 

Interv).

General Rosson (right) accompanied by Lt. Col. Hugh J. Bartley
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

78

air operations, General Momyer. Admiral Sharp, who Westmoreland 

saw to it was thoroughly briefed on the proposal, this time accepted 

Westmoreland’s reasoning, primarily out of recognition, in Sharp’s 

words, “of the necessity for maximum effective application of total 

air assets and for certain changes in light of the new ground force 

arrangements.”35

On 7 March, Westmoreland issued an order drafted by Momyer, 

which Sharp had approved with minor amendments, requiring General 

Cushman to place his fixed-wing strike and reconnaissance aircraft and 

the Marine tactical air control system under the “mission direction” 

of General Momyer in his capacity as deputy COMUSMACV for air 

operations. III Marine Amphibious Force was to retain command of 

its helicopters and transport aircraft. Requests for air support from III 

Marine Amphibious Force and Provisional Corps were to be collated 

by those headquarters and their direct air support centers and passed 

to the MACV Tactical Air Support Element, which allocated airpower 

throughout South Vietnam. Under direction from the Tactical Air 

Support Element, the Seventh Air Force Tactical Air Control Center 

then would issue the detailed mission orders. Marines would be added 

to the staffs of both those agencies. As a minor concession to mollify 

the III Marine Amphibious Force, Westmoreland declared that he would 

review the working of the system after its first 30 days in operation. In 

practice, it took the Seventh Air Force and III Marine Amphibious Force 

a few weeks to combine their two air control systems and to resolve 

details, including the location of the I Corps Direct Air Support Center, 

which had been left unsettled in the original directive. The first missions under what came to be called single management were not flown 

until 21 March.36

Despite Westmoreland’s reassurances, the entire Marine chain of 

command perceived the new system as an Air Force attempt to separate 

their aircraft from their ground forces, as had happened in the Korean 

35 First quotation is from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 02365 to Sharp info Wheeler, Momyer, 

Abrams, Cushman, 19 Feb 68, Abrams Papers, CMH; second is from Msg, Sharp to Wheeler and 

Westmoreland, 3 Mar 68, Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH. Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 

02364 to Cushman info Abrams, 19 Feb 68; Westmoreland MAC 02771 to Sharp info Wheeler, 27 

Feb 68. Both in Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH. Interv, Project corona harvest with 

Adm Ulysses S. Grant Sharp, 19 Feb 71, pp. 646–48, Air Force Chief of History Office (AFCHO) 

(hereafter cited as Sharp Interv); Ltr, Anderson to McCutcheon, 4 Mar 68, box 20, McCutcheon 

Papers, MCHC. Westmoreland retrospectively explains his decision in Soldier Reports, pp. 

342–44. 36 Msgs, Sharp to Wheeler and Westmoreland, 3 Mar 68; Westmoreland MAC 03276 to Abrams, 

8 Mar 68; Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH. Ltr, Westmoreland to CG III MAF, 7 Mar 

68, sub: Single Management of Strike and Reconnaissance Assets, tab 13; Ltr, Westmoreland to 

DepCOMUSMACV for Air Operations, 8 Mar 68, same sub, tab 14. Both in Westmoreland History 

file no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68), CMH. MACV Fact Sheet on Preplanned Close Air Support, 4 Apr 68, tab 

19, Westmoreland History file no. 31 (1–3 Apr 68), CMH. Msgs, Abrams PHB 225 to Momyer, 5 

Mar 68; Abrams PHB 234 to Westmoreland, 6 Mar 68. Both in Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, 

CMH; MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, p. 437.
79

Tet and Its Aftermath

War. The marines began their war on single management as soon as 

Westmoreland announced his intention to institute it and never let 

up thereafter. Their commandant, General Leonard F. Chapman, told 

Marine officers: “The integrity of our air/ground team concept and possibly even our force structure is at issue. We must all face this challenge 

resolutely to forestall any future inroads on the Marine air/ground 

team.” General Cushman and General Victor H. Krulak, commander 

of Fleet Marine Force Pacific, campaigned continuously at their respective levels, while General Chapman took the marines’ case to the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff. Through informal and formal channels, the marines 

brought the issue to the attention of President Johnson, the incoming 

secretary of defense, Clark M. Clifford, and the news media.37

The Marine leaders attacked single management on both doctrinal 

and practical grounds. They contended that Sharp and Westmoreland 

had exceeded their authority by imposing an air command arrangement 

contrary to Defense Department doctrine for organizing joint forces. 

They claimed that single management deprived the Marine divisions in 

Vietnam, which relied on tactical air support to compensate for limited 

37 Quotation is from Commandant, Marine Corps (CMC) Green Letter 4–68 to all General 

Officers, 9 Apr 68, sub: Air Control in I Corps, CMC Green Ltr Book, 1968; and Memo, CMC for 

JCS, 4 Mar 68, sub: Single Management, HQMC DC/S (Air) Single Manager File, Jan 68–15 Aug 

70, MCHC; Anderson Interv, 17 Mar 81, pp. 196–97. Msgs, Wheeler JCS 3602 and JCS 3665 to 

Westmoreland, 2 Apr 68 and 3 Apr 68, Westmoreland Message files, Apr 68, CMH; Sharp Interv, 19 

Feb 71, pp. 642, 648–49.

Secretary of Defense Clifford (right) and presidential adviser Walt W. Rostow.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

80

quantities of organic artillery and helicopter gunships, of an important element of their inherent firepower. They insisted that the change 

was unnecessary, because the two air control systems in I Corps had 

coexisted without major difficulty, and unified command for specific 

operations could be arranged when required, as at Khe Sanh. Finally, the 

marines declared, on the basis of a steady stream of data from III Marine 

Amphibious Force, that single management had made the securing of 

air support slower and more complicated for ground commanders by 

inserting additional headquarters into the process and by replacing a 

“consumer-oriented” Marine strike request and control system with the 

Air Force’s “producer-oriented” one. In conclusion, the marines asked 

Admiral Sharp and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to direct General Westmoreland 

to restore the previous arrangement under which III Marine Amphibious 

Force had controlled its own aircraft and provided those sorties it could 

spare to the Seventh Air Force. General Cushman went so far as to suggest that, if a single manager for airpower were needed in I Corps, it 

should be himself, since he commanded a considerable air force and his 

strike request and control system easily could handle aircraft of other 

services.38

General Westmoreland strongly defended single management. He 

disavowed any intention to revise current joint doctrine or break up the 

Marine air-ground team, and he promised that Marine airplanes would 

continue to fly missions for Marine ground troops unless urgent tactical needs dictated otherwise. Citing Seventh Air Force evaluations, he 

insisted that the system, after initial adjustment problems, was working 

with steadily increasing efficiency. He noted that the Army provided the 

Marine divisions in I Corps with helicopter, artillery, reconnaissance, 

engineer, and communications support; hence, the marines could not 

legitimately object to sharing their airpower with the other services. 

Above all, Westmoreland emphasized the need for unified control of 

MACV’s airpower given the intermingling of Army and Marine units 

in I Corps, the creation of Provisional Corps, and the need to concentrate forces in situations like the defense of Khe Sanh. Under these 

conditions, he told Wheeler, “the continuation of dual strike support 

systems was operationally unacceptable” to him as “the responsible 

commander in Vietnam.” Increasingly irritated at what he considered 

the marines’ “parochial inflexibility,” Westmoreland declared in retrospect that single management was the only issue during his tenure at 

MACV over which he considered resigning.39

38 Typical Marine arguments are in Marine Corps Brief for JCS, Single Management, 9 Apr 

68, encl. 1 to CMC Green Ltr 4–68, CMC Green Ltr Book, 1968, MCHC; Msg, CG III MAF to 

COMUSMACV, 20 Feb 68, tab 72, Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), CMH; Msg, CG 

III MAF to COMUSMACV, 22 Apr 68, in MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, p. 439. The detailed development of the marines’ arguments and their campaign against single management can be followed 

through the HQMC DC/S (Air) Single Manager File, Jan 68–15 Aug 70, MCHC. 39 Phrases quoted are from Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 04266 and MAC 04367 to Wheeler, 29, 

31 Mar 68, Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH. In same files, see Msgs, Westmoreland 
81

Tet and Its Aftermath

When the issue reached the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Navy, Marine, 

and—to Westmoreland’s disgust—the Army chiefs came out against 

single management. All were reluctant to upset existing hard-won 

roles and missions agreements, and they distrusted Air Force intentions 

toward their own air arms. Only General John P. McConnell, the Air 

Force chief of staff, along with General Wheeler, upheld Westmoreland. 

Wheeler’s support came with qualifications. The chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff late in April advised the secretary of defense against 

vetoing single management, on the premise that it was “militarily 

unsound to dictate to responsible senior commanders of the level of 

COMUSMACV and . . . CINCPAC, how to organize their forces and 

exercise command and control of them.” Wheeler added, however, 

that single management in Vietnam should not be seen as a precedent 

governing the future control of Marine air units. Instead, it was an 

MAC 02674 to Wheeler, 25 Feb 68; Westmoreland MAC 02771 to Sharp, 27 Feb 68; Westmoreland 

MAC 04545 to Cushman, 5 Apr 68. Memo, Westmoreland for Wheeler, 24 Feb 68, sub: Single 

Management . . . , tab 85. Both in Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), CMH. Seventh 

Air Force views are summarized in MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 437–38. Westmoreland’s anger 

at the marines is reflected in Soldier Reports, pp. 343–44.

An F–4B Phantom of Marine Attack Squadron 542 completes

a bombing run on a heavily fortified enemy position.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

82

“expedient adopted to meet a situation imposed by the enemy,” which 

Westmoreland “can and should” adjust as the situation changed.40

Even as Wheeler made his recommendation, circumstances compelled General Westmoreland to modify the workings of single management. As the time for the first thirty-day review approached, it was 

apparent that single management was slower and more cumbersome 

than the old system in handling requests for ground force support 

and had resulted in the Marine divisions receiving fewer tactical air 

sorties—facts that III Marine Amphibious Force and the 1st Marine 

Aircraft Wing documented in great detail. Admiral Sharp, increasingly 

concerned about III MAF complaints on this point, early in May over 

Westmoreland’s protests dispatched a CINCPAC team to Vietnam to 

evaluate the system. The team, after consultation with all the concerned 

commanders, essentially affirmed the validity of Marine criticisms of 

single management’s workings. At the same time, General Wheeler also 

expressed unease about single management’s reported unresponsiveness to ground commanders.41

Before the CINCPAC team made its report, Westmoreland and 

Momyer, under pressure from all sides, agreed to change single management in practice to save it in principle. Following MACV commanders’ 

conferences on the subject on 2 and 8 May, Momyer, at Westmoreland’s 

direction, developed a revised air strike request and control procedure 

that went into effect later that month, after thorough review and 

approval by Admiral Sharp. Under it, the Seventh Air Force allocated 

large blocs of sorties weekly to each corps area commander, who then 

could employ them as he saw fit. This meant in practice that III Marine 

Amphibious Force regularly received back about 70 percent of the 

Marine sorties it turned over to the Seventh Air Force. Other changes at 

the same time enhanced the system’s speed and flexibility in responding to support requests from ground commanders. These alterations 

alleviated Sharp’s and Wheeler’s concerns about single management, 

though they did not fully satisfy the marines.42

40

 Quotation is from Msg, Wheeler JCS 4560 to Westmoreland, 27 Apr 68, Westmoreland 

Message files, Apr 68, CMH. In same files for Mar 68, see Msgs, Wheeler JCS 3422 and JCS 3562 

to Westmoreland, 27 and 31 Mar 68. Msg, CMC to CG Fleet Marine Force, Pacific (FMFPAC), 

26 Mar 68, McCutcheon folder, Memos for the Record, 1966–68; Ltr, McCutcheon to Brig Gen 

Earl E. Anderson, USMC, and Maj Gen Norman J. Anderson, USMC, 9 Apr 68, box 20. Both in 

McCutcheon Papers, MCHC. General Westmoreland later referred to General Johnson’s vote against 

him as “an amazing thing.” See Interv, Maj Paul L. Miles, Jr, with William Westmoreland, 6 Mar 71, 

Paul L. Miles Papers, MHI, p. 14. 41 Msg, National Military Command Center to COMUSMACV, 30 Mar 68, tab 64, Westmoreland 

History file no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68), CMH; Msg, CG FMFPAC to CMC, 3 May 68, HQMC Message 

files, MCHC; Ltr, Hutch to McCutcheon, [May 68]; CINCPAC Evaluation Team, Draft Report, sub: 

Single Management of Air Support, HQMC DC/S (Air) Single Manager File, Jan 68–15 Aug 70. 

Both in MCHC. Msg, Wheeler JCS 5196 to Westmoreland info Sharp 13 May 68, Westmoreland 

Message files, May 68, CMH; Ltr, Chaisson to Mrs Chaisson, 2 May 68, box 7, Chaisson Papers, 

Hoover Institution. 42

 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 6075 and MAC 6343 to Sharp, 9 May 68, 15 May 68; Kerwin 
83

Tet and Its Aftermath

Not coincidentally, the Office of the Secretary of Defense issued 

its final decision on single management only after these changes were 

under way. On 15 May, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul H. Nitze, acting 

for Secretary Clifford, endorsed Wheeler’s view that COMUSMACV, as 

the unified commander on the scene, must be allowed to organize his 

own forces as he deemed necessary to meet the threat. Nitze, however, also repeated Wheeler’s dictum that single management was not 

a precedent for centralized control of airpower under “other combat 

conditions”; and he declared further that MACV should “revert to 

normal command arrangements for III MAF when the tactical situation 

permits.” Taking note of Marine Corps complaints about the workings 

of single management and of the changes MACV was making, Nitze 

directed General Wheeler to continue to review “personally” the operation of the system and to determine, in conjunction with Sharp and 

Westmoreland any additional revisions needed to “minimize delays 

between requests for air support and their execution.”43

Nitze’s ruling represented a partial victory for both sides. 

Westmoreland and Momyer gained the principle, and to a degree the 

reality, of centralized Seventh Air Force direction of fixed-wing airpower. 

MACV also ended the dual air control system in I Corps, an action that 

even General Cushman acknowledged in retrospect had been necessary. 

The marines, if only for doctrinal reasons, continued their campaign 

for formal termination of single management. Nevertheless, under the 

May revisions of the system and through later incremental changes, 

they were assured of the availability of their airplanes to support their 

own ground troops. Army forces throughout South Vietnam perhaps 

benefited most from single management. The changes the Seventh Air 

Force made in its strike request and control system to defuse III Marine 

Amphibious Force complaints made the Air Force system work more 

like that of the marines, ensuring Army division commanders highly 

responsive close air support. As a result, the Army in Vietnam became 

a strong defender of single management.44

to Westmoreland, Abrams, et al., 11 May 68; Sharp to Westmoreland info Momyer and Cushman, 

11 May 68; Westmoreland MAC 6342 to Wheeler info Sharp, 15 May 68; Sharp to Wheeler info 

Westmoreland, 25 May 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, May 68, CMH. Westmoreland 

History Notes, 1–31 May 68, tab 1, Westmoreland History file no. 32 (1–31 May 68), CMH; Msgs, 

CG III MAF to CMC, 4 May 68; CG FMFPAC to CMC, 22 and 26 May 68. All in HQMC Message 

files, MCHC. 43

 Quotations are from Memo, Dep Sec Def Paul H. Nitze for CJCS, 15 May 68, sub: Opcon of 

III MAF Aviation Assets, HQMC DC/S (Air) Single Manager File, Jan 68–15 Aug 70, MCHC; in 

same file, see Memo, CJCS for Dep Sec Def, 15 May 68, sub: Single Management . . . , and Msg, 

CJCS to CINCPAC and COMUSMACV, 20 May 68. Wheeler transmits Nitze’s ruling to Sharp and 

Westmoreland in Msg, JCS 5378, 17 May 68, Westmoreland Message files, May 68, CMH. MACV 

History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 439–40. 44 The marines’ continuing campaign against single management can be followed through the 

HQMC DC/S (Air) Single Manager File, Jan 68–15 Aug 70 and HQMC Message files for the same period, all in MCHC. Ltr, Cushman to McCutcheon, 10 Jul 70, box 12, McCutcheon Papers, MCHC, contains the III Marine Amphibious Force commander’s acknowledgement of the need for air command 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

84

By the time the single management controversy was resolved, 

the question largely had lost its urgency. During March, the North 

Vietnamese, battered by American airpower, gradually abandoned their 

siege of Khe Sanh. Army units employing airmobile tactics and Marine 

units advancing along Highway 9 linked up with the defenders on 6 

April. Similarly, the Communist threat to overrun Quang Tri and Thua 

Thien withered under allied counterattacks. Greater changes in the 

war also were in progress. Generals Westmoreland and Momyer and 

Admiral Sharp, three principals in the airpower controversy, were preparing to end their tours at MACV, Seventh Air Force, and CINCPAC. 

A partial cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam, ordered by 

President Johnson on 31 March, reduced demands on MACV’s airpower 

resources. When Secretary Nitze issued his ruling, the United States 

and North Vietnam were preparing to begin peace negotiations. These 

events stemmed largely from the political and psychological impact 

of the Tet offensive in the United States, an impact MACV’s actions 

inadvertently intensified.45

Losing the Battle of Perceptions

Besides repairing physical damage and trying to recover the military and pacification initiative in South Vietnam, MACV and the rest 

of the U.S. mission struggled to counteract the psychological devastation the Tet offensive had inflicted in the United States. Of all their 

post-Tet efforts, this one proved the least successful. The nationwide 

Communist attacks, coming as they did after months of optimistic 

reporting from MACV and the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, profoundly 

shocked the American press, public, and government. The more than 

600 reporters in South Vietnam, and their editors in the United States 

and around the world, generally portrayed the offensive as a disastrous 

allied defeat. Their stories emphasized the death, destruction, horror, 

and confusion of the post-Tet fighting; their commentaries presented 

the setback as probably irreversible and the war as unwinnable by the 

United States.46

changes in I Corps. Brig Gen Henry W. Hise, USMC, Comments on Draft History of U.S. Marines 

in Vietnam 1969, 3 Sep 86, Vietnam Comment File, MCHC; Ltr, McCutcheon to Lt Col C. G. Dahl, 

USMC, 18 Jul 68, box 20, McCutcheon Papers, MCHC. 45

 The relief of Khe Sanh is summarized in Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, pp. 164, 186–

87, and Shulimson et al., Marines in Vietnam, 1968, pp. 283–90. General Momyer’s replacement 

is discussed in Msgs, McConnell to Westmoreland, 22 Apr 68, and Westmoreland MAC 05392 to 

McConnell, 23 Apr 68, Westmoreland Message files, Apr 68, CMH. 46

 General Wheeler expresses anxiety over the state of U.S. public opinion in Msg JCS 2721 to 

Westmoreland and Sharp, 8 Mar 68, Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH. News media coverage of Tet is analyzed in great detail and its defeatism criticized in Peter Braestrup, Big Story: How 

the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and 

Washington, 2 vols. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press and Freedom House, 1977). The impact of the 

offensive on both official and unofficial America is well summarized in Hammond, Military and the 

Media, 1962–1968, chs. 15 and 16, and Oberdorfer, Tet! chs. 5 and 7.
85

Tet and Its Aftermath

Among American officials and political leaders, the Tet crisis provided a justification for long-term doubters to break with administration 

policy; and it turned many supporters of the war into new doubters. A 

flow of undigested, often alarmist, early reports from lower echelons 

of MACV and the U.S. mission intensified official concern and undermined the credibility of General Westmoreland’s and Ambassador 

Komer’s assessments. Reflecting the gloom of the time, the secretary of 

defense’s systems analysis office, in its February Southeast Asia report, 

pronounced that the offensive had “killed” the pacification program 

“as currently conceived.”47

From the first day of the offensive, General Westmoreland and 

his senior staff worked to get their version of events over to the news 

reporters in Saigon. Following his impromptu press conference at the 

U.S. Embassy the morning of the thirty-first, Westmoreland held a 

more extended formal session on 1 February. Thereafter, the MACV 

commander, Ambassador Komer, and members of the senior staff met 

frequently with reporters individually and in groups. General Chaisson 

wrote to his wife on 2 March: “More reporters. Every day now I have 

one. [Brig. Gen. Winant] Sidle [the MACV chief of information] is my 

booking agent.” Besides trying to sell the press MACV’s assessment of 

the offensive, the command also enforced more strictly its rules on 

release of military information, especially concerning casualties and 

damage from rocket and artillery bombardments, so as to deny the 

enemy knowledge of the effects of their attacks. Westmoreland, as 

had been his pre-Tet practice, used selected visitors to the command 

as conduits for his views. Although the Defense Department curtailed 

trips to South Vietnam in response to the enemy offensive, Generals 

Wheeler and Westmoreland arranged for a previously scheduled visit 

by retired General Bruce C. Clarke to go forward in hopes that Clarke 

would “report his impressions in appropriate channels and media.” In a 

new departure, Westmoreland, with Generals Chaisson and Davidson, 

on 21 February briefed the assembled foreign ambassadors to Saigon 

in order, as he put it, “to counter misimpressions based on rumors or 

extreme press reports.”48

47

 Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, p. 334, retrospectively claims the administration lost its nerve 

after Tet. Low-level reporting is denounced in Memo, Komer for Bunker, 9 May 68, Bunker—Memos 

to RWK (1967–68); quotation from Southeast Asia report is from Msg, Komer MAC 4188 to Alain 

C. Enthoven, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Analysis, 26 Mar 68, Backchannel file 

(1967–68). Both in DepCORDS files, CMH. Other official expressions of pessimism about pacification can be found in United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.6.(c), pp. 26, 33. 48 Transcript, Gen Westmoreland’s Press Conference, 1 Feb 68, tab 3, Westmoreland 

History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), CMH. Amb Komer’s Press Backgrounder, 24 Feb 68, 

Chronological File: Komer (1968), DepCORDS files, CMH. Chaisson quotation is from 

Ltr to Mrs. Chaisson, 2 Mar 68, box 7, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution. Information 

control: Msgs, Sharp to Westmoreland info Wheeler, 24, 29 Feb 68; Westmoreland MAC 

02766 to Sharp info Wheeler, 27 Feb 68; Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH; 

visits: Msgs, Wheeler JCS 1304 and JCS 1315 to Sharp and Westmoreland, 3, 4 Feb 

68 (quotation from latter message); Westmoreland MAC 01625 to Wheeler and Sharp, 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

86

The tone of MACV’s public relations became more restrained early 

in March, as the result of guidance from newly installed Secretary of 

Defense Clark Clifford. Concerned lest overoptimistic statements produce another public backlash if the enemy attacked again in force, 

Clifford instructed the Military Assistance Command through General 

Wheeler to be “conservative” in assessing the situation and avoid denigrating the enemy, forecasting his plans, and predicting allied victory. 

The command instead should “express the view that there is tough 

fighting ahead and that the enemy has residual capabilities not yet 

committed”—a view Westmoreland had been expressing all along. 

Westmoreland pointed out to Wheeler that he needed to maintain 

an optimistic tone to keep up the morale of his own and the South 

Vietnamese forces. Nevertheless, he privately passed Clifford’s instructions on to his staff and senior commanders.49

Within the government, MACV and the U.S. Embassy used every 

available channel to reassure their superiors in Washington that all was 

far from lost in Vietnam and that the enemy was taking a severe beating. Yet their reports met much official skepticism. MACV’s statistics 

on enemy casualties, for example, came into question, especially as 

the claimed number of enemy killed and wounded approached the 

estimated total strength of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Tet 

attack force. After a review of unit reports by his inspector general, 

Westmoreland defended the accuracy of MACV’s body counts. Enemy 

sources that subsequently became available indicated that Communist 

losses were indeed extremely high, 50 percent or more in some battalions. Nevertheless, controversy and recrimination over the estimates 

of enemy casualties and strength persisted within the government and 

indeed within the MACV J–2 section, where junior intelligence officers 

continued to claim that the command was understating the enemy’s 

numbers and overstating his losses.50

After Tet, the Central Intelligence Agency revived its longstanding 

order-of-battle controversy with MACV. In September of the previous 

4 Feb 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH. Final quotation is from 

Westmoreland History Notes, 1–29 Feb 68, tab 1, Westmoreland History file no. 29 

(1–29 Feb 68), CMH. 

49

 Quotation is from Msg, Wheeler CJCS 2721 to Westmoreland and Sharp, 8 Mar 68; see also 

CJCS 2626, 5 Mar 68; Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 03280 to Wheeler info Sharp, 8 Mar 68; Sharp to 

Wheeler info Westmoreland, 10 Mar 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH. Chaisson 

Diary, 9 Mar 68, box 9, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution; Hammond, Military and the Media, 

1962–1968, pp. 367–68. 50 Msg, Sharp to Westmoreland info Wheeler, 23 Mar 68, Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH; 

and Memo, Komer for Bunker, 8 Apr 68, Chronological File, Komer (1968), DepCORDS files, CMH. 

Casualties: MFR, Bryan, 3 Feb 68, sub: CIIB Meeting, 3 Feb 68, tab 17, Westmoreland History file no. 

29 (1–29 Feb 68), CMH. Msgs, Wheeler JCS 1439 to Westmoreland and Sharp, 6 Feb 68; Westmoreland 

MAC 01754 to Wheeler info Sharp, 7 Feb 68; Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68; Jones, War Without 

Windows, ch. 17; Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 11551 to Address Indicator Group 7055, Director National 

Security Agency (DIRNSA), et al., 24 Apr 68, tab 59, Westmoreland History file no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68); 

and CIA Intelligence Information Report, 13 Aug 70. Both in CMH.
87

Tet and Its Aftermath

year, after a lengthy and acrimonious controversy, the agency and 

MACV had reached a compromise on the Communist order of battle. 

In the compromise, the CIA representatives agreed to delete from 

the order of battle the 150,000 or so part-time Viet Cong self-defense 

troops and to accept a strength of about 300,000 for the remaining 

military categories. Many CIA analysts regarded this arrangement as a 

sellout of their agency position, and they took the Tet offensive as an 

occasion to renew the fight for what they considered to be the truth. 

During February, the agency asserted (and leaked to the press) that the 

Communist force in South Vietnam in fact numbered between 400,000 

and 600,000 men, nearly double the earlier agreed-upon total. CIA 

analysts added back into the order of battle the irregular categories earlier excluded at the insistence of MACV, claiming that those elements 

had played a major role in the Tet assaults. The Military Assistance 

Command and CINCPAC rejected this estimate on the same substantive and public relations grounds they had used the previous year. 

Westmoreland argued in addition that no members of the contested 

enemy categories had been captured during the offensive and that the 

enemy units contacted in the fighting all previously had been listed in 

the MACV order of battle.51

In contrast to the compromise reached in 1967, this time neither 

side in the controversy was willing to alter its position for the sake of 

presenting a public united front. In mid-April, an interagency order-ofbattle conference at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, ended in 

deadlock, with the CIA and State Department supporting an estimate of 

480,000–615,000, MACV and CINCPAC holding to 278,000–328,000, 

and the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff vainly 

trying to promote a compromise. Early in May, the directors of the 

CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency agreed not to publicize any new 

enemy strength figures until interagency differences could be resolved. 

At the same time, the Office of the Secretary of Defense launched a 

review of the entire order-of-battle issue. Despite these efforts, the dispute dragged on without resolution.52

51

 Memo, Enthoven for Sec Def, 26 Apr 68, sub: Differences in the Estimates of Enemy Forces in 

SVN, CMH. Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 5301 to Sharp and Wheeler, 22 Apr 68; Sharp to Wheeler, 

26 Apr 68. Both in Westmoreland Message files, Apr 68. Memo, Sidle for COMUSMACV, sub: 

Release of 1st Quarter 1968 Enemy Strength Figures, 11 Apr 68, CMH, illustrates the public relations 

element of the argument. For other views, see Davidson, Vietnam Secrets, pp. 51–53; and Graham 

Interv, 30 Mar 82, sess. 1, p. 16, and 30 Jun 82, sess. 2, pp. 34–36. Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 

1962–1967, ch. 13, describes the 1967 debates. 52 Msgs, Davidson MAC 04572 to Westmoreland, 5 Apr 68; Wheeler JCS 4816 to Sharp and 

Westmoreland, 4 May 68; Westmoreland MAC 06055 to Wheeler and Sharp, 9 May 68; Sharp to 

Wheeler info Westmoreland, 11 May 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Apr–May 68, CMH. 

Memos, Thomas L. Hughes, Bureau of Intelligence Research for Sec State, 29 Apr 68, sub: Conflicting 

MACV and CIA Assessments of Enemy Strength in South Vietnam; Enthoven for Sec Def, 26 Apr 

68, sub: Differences in the Estimate of Enemy Forces in SVN; and Nitze for CJCS, 3 May 68, sub: 

VC/NVA Order of Battle, and for Director CIA, 6 May 68, same sub; all in CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

88

Well before the order-of-battle dispute reached its inconclusive 

denouement, senior American officials in Vietnam realized that, all their 

public and private efforts notwithstanding, they were losing the war of 

perceptions. General Abrams, just returned from a trip to Washington, 

told a MACV commanders’ conference on 31 March that “while the 

enemy failed in RVN, he won in the U.S. This is manifested by the 

loss in political support suffered by the President in recent weeks.” In 

a memorandum to Ambassador Bunker soon thereafter, Robert Komer 

was even more direct:

Despite our efforts, official Washington (not to mention the Congress and the public) has 

totally misread the real situation here. Washington has focused on our own losses, not on 

the enemy’s. It has been swayed far more by the press than by our own reporting. It has 

counseled with its fears rather than its hopes. As a result, all too many see cutting our losses 

as the only way out of a painful impasse. . . .53

Reinforcement Request and Policy Decision

The Military Assistance Command and the Joint Chiefs of Staff unintentionally intensified the administration’s defeatist mood. They did 

so by reopening during the Tet offensive the issue of further American 

troop deployments to Vietnam and its companion question of mobilizing the reserves. In mid-1967, the administration, in its reinforcement 

Program Five, in effect leveled off MACV’s American troop strength at 

the highest point sustainable without a reserve call-up. In addition, by 

year-end, President Johnson was well on the way to adopting a policy 

of holding both ground force strength and the bombing of the north 

at existing levels while gradually turning the fighting over to the South 

Vietnamese. General Westmoreland accommodated himself to the 

policy that he saw taking shape, expressing confidence that he could 

accomplish his mission with the troops that he had and announcing his 

intention to begin shifting the war’s burden to Saigon’s forces. However, 

he continued to assert that with more men and broader authority to 

attack the enemy’s Laotian and Cambodian bases and supply routes he 

could prevail in much less time. General Wheeler and the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff were even less satisfied with the Program Five decision. They 

persisted in advocating a more aggressive strategy in Southeast Asia 

and viewed with increasing dismay the effects of failure to mobilize for 

the Vietnam War on America’s worldwide military posture.54 

53 Abrams quotation is from MFR, Chaisson, 5 Apr 68, sub: MACV Commanders’ Conference, 

31 Mar 68, tab 68, Westmoreland History file no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68), CMH. Komer quotation is from 

Memo for Bunker, 8 Apr 68, Chronological File: Komer (1968), DepCORDS files, CMH. 54

 Earlier debates and decisions on reinforcements are recounted in Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 

1962–1967, chs. 12 and 13. 
89

Tet and Its Aftermath

By early 1968, in General Wheeler’s view, the mobilization issue 

had reached the crisis stage. Influenced by the apprehension that the 

Tet offensive had created in Washington, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman viewed the situation in South Vietnam with less confidence than 

did Westmoreland, Bunker, and Komer. Wheeler was even more pessimistic about the ability of the American armed forces to deal with any 

additional threats that might develop. In February 1968, the strategic 

reserve in the United States consisted, aside from divisions earmarked 

for NATO, only of the 82d Airborne Division and parts of two Marine 

divisions and aircraft wings. All American forces, including those 

deployed overseas, had been stripped of skilled specialists and subjected 

to constant personnel turnover to sustain the units in South Vietnam, 

with deleterious effects on combat readiness. Even with these sacrifices, 

the services, especially the Army and the Marine Corps, could barely 

maintain their strength in Vietnam; and they faced new demands for 

men to replace heavy Tet casualties. From the Joint Chiefs’ viewpoint, 

immediate mobilization was necessary to restore worldwide American 

military strength. General Wheeler sought to use the Tet emergency to 

bring it about.55

To do this, Wheeler needed a request from General Westmoreland 

for substantial reinforcements. Such a request, however, was not immediately forthcoming. Westmoreland was confident that he could defeat 

the Tet offensive with the troops on hand and knew that he already 

had or had been promised most of what the United States could provide without mobilization. Hence, he regarded further reinforcements 

as desirable but not essential. His only major concern was the possibility that the South Koreans, if the Pueblo crisis worsened, might want to 

withdraw their two divisions and marine brigade from South Vietnam, 

which would require their replacement “man for man” with American 

or other non-Vietnamese troops. Beyond his immediate situation, the 

general knew that President Johnson wanted to top off the American 

commitment and had publicly endorsed that position.56

Westmoreland’s immediate post-Tet requests were modest. On 3 

February, in response to a presidential inquiry, he asked only for additional air transport squadrons and air drop equipment for resupply of 

Khe Sanh; for accelerated issue of M16 rifles, M60 machine guns, and 

55 Wheeler’s concerns are summarized in Herbert Y. Schandler, The Unmaking of a President: 

Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 107–09. The 

Army’s difficulties are summarized in Col Reamer Argo, Talking Paper, 12 Aug 69, sub: The World 

Situation Dec 67–Feb 68 vs the U.S. Army’s Capability to React, tab 94, Westmoreland History file 

no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), CMH. The problem of casualties and replacements is addressed in Msg, Palmer 

ARV 393 to Gen Johnson, 16 Feb 68, Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH. 56 Quotation is from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01599 to Sharp info Wheeler et al., 4 Feb 68; 

see also Msgs, Sharp to Wheeler et al., 31 Jan 68; Westmoreland Message files, Jan–Feb 68, CMH. 

Westmoreland outlines his tactical and strategic concerns in paper, “The Origins of the Post-Tet 1968 

Plans for Additional Forces in RVN,” 18 Apr 70, passim, copy in CMH. See also Westmoreland, 

Soldier Reports, pp. 352–53. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

90

mortars to the South Vietnamese Army; for replacement helicopters 

and reconnaissance aircraft; and for early shipment of a Navy Seabee 

battalion already part of Program Five. He also urged the administration to do its utmost to prevent any Korean withdrawals and to speed 

up negotiations with Seoul, begun before Tet, for an additional Korean 

light infantry division. Finally, in a supplementary message on the 

seventh, Westmoreland suggested that the administration reduce or 

slow down the effort, initiated under Program Five, to replace 12,000 

military logistic personnel with Vietnamese civilians. He claimed that 

the Tet offensive had demonstrated that local workers could not be 

relied upon in emergencies, such as the Viet Cong attacks on the cities 

and American bases.57

With Westmoreland slow to request additional troops, General 

Wheeler took the initiative. Besides moving immediately to meet 

Westmoreland’s equipment requirements, Wheeler on 8 February, via 

a personal backchannel message, asked the field commander: “Do you 

need reinforcements?” Wheeler told Westmoreland that the administration could provide the bulk of the remaining national reserve, 

namely the 82d Airborne Division and about half a Marine division. He 

also declared that if Westmoreland considered reinforcements “imperative,” he “should not be bound by earlier agreements.” “In summary, if 

you need more troops, ask for them.” Reinforcing Wheeler’s question, 

Admiral Sharp at about the same time suggested to Westmoreland that 

this might be an opportune moment to ask for additional men and 

equipment. Both Wheeler and Sharp directed Westmoreland to keep 

his replies within the backchannel, presumably to allow orchestration 

of the military’s approach to the president and secretary of defense.58

On 8 February, responding to these proddings from his superiors, 

General Westmoreland submitted both a short-range reinforcement 

request and a statement of possible additional requirements, over and 

above Program Five, for the rest of 1968. He asked that the 82d Airborne 

Division and the Marine division be prepared for deployment in the 

unlikely but possible event of the fall of Khe Sanh or other important 

positions in northern I Corps, which would require MACV to counterattack to regain the lost ground. To ease the strain on allied logistics 

in the area, Westmoreland suggested that the units, if deployed, come 

57 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 01586 and MAC 01717, to Wheeler info Sharp, 3 Feb 68 and 7 Feb 

68, Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH. Negotiations between Washington and Seoul about 

the light infantry division are summarized in MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 346–47. See ibid., vol. 

1, pp. 228–29, for background on civilianization. 58 Schandler, Unmaking of a President, pp. 95–99, emphasizes Wheeler’s role in eliciting reinforcement requests from MACV. Quotation is from Msg, Wheeler JCS 01529 to Westmoreland info 

Sharp, 8 Feb 68; see also JCS 01303 (same addressees), 3 Feb 68; Sharp to Westmoreland, 5 Feb 

68; and Westmoreland MAC 01718 to Sharp, 7 Feb 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, 

CMH.
91

Tet and Its Aftermath

in over the beach near Quang Tri City in April when weather and sea 

conditions would permit such an operation.59

In a second message, Westmoreland furnished Wheeler a preliminary list of “the additional resources required in the coming year if we 

are to achieve our national purpose in South Vietnam,” predicated “on 

the assumption that the 525,000 force structure ceiling will be lifted.” 

Westmoreland accorded “number one priority” in this list to provide 

still more equipment for the South Vietnamese armed forces, including 

helicopters and armored personnel carriers, to accelerate their modernization so that they could assume “a greater share of the burden of 

defeating the enemy.” Next in importance came securing the Korean 

light infantry division or a U.S. equivalent for deployment in northern 

II Corps and early dispatch of the remaining Program Five forces, followed by mention of the need for another jet airfield near Hue and 

Phu Bai. Turning finally to “restoration of items eliminated by the 

525,000 force structure ceiling,” Westmoreland stated a requirement 

for an additional American infantry division “particularly if operations 

in Laos are authorized,” a four-battalion engineer group to help with 

post-Tet reconstruction, enough helicopter units to convert one of his 

infantry divisions into a second airmobile division, more air transport 

and fighter squadrons, and vessels to expand the Mobile Riverine Force 

that operated in the Mekong Delta. He also repeated his request for 

reduction of the civilianization program.60

These requests were still not immediate and urgent enough for 

Wheeler’s purposes. Observing that the administration could handle 

only one major problem at a time, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman 

on 9 February instructed Westmoreland to delay formal submission of 

his supplementary program until early March and concentrate instead 

on “your immediate requirements stemming from the present situation in South Vietnam.” Wheeler made clear to Westmoreland that the 

immediate requirement should be for the earliest possible deployment 

of the 82d Airborne Division and the marines to insure against the 

chance that the South Vietnamese Army might “falter here and there” 

and to “assist in defense or pursuit operations.” He concluded:

Please understand I am not trying to sell you on the deployment of additional forces which 

in any event I cannot guarantee, and I do not want to minimize the problems which would 

be encountered and the difficulties of all kinds associated with such a decision. However, 

my sensing is that the critical phase of the war is upon us, and I do not believe that you 

should refrain from asking for what you believe is required under the circumstances.61

59 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01810 to Sharp and Wheeler, 8 Feb 68, Westmoreland Message 

files, Feb 68, CMH. Westmoreland, “Additional Forces,” pp. 3–9, CMH, retrospectively summarizes 

the rationale for this request. 60 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01812 to Wheeler info Sharp, 8 Feb 68, Westmoreland Message 

files, Feb 68, CMH; Westmoreland, “Additional Forces,” pp. 11–16. 61

 Msgs, Wheeler JCS 01589 and JCS 01590 to Westmoreland info Sharp, 9 Feb 68, Westmoreland 

Message files, Feb 68, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

92

Responding to Wheeler’s guidance, Westmoreland promptly 

deferred his longer range request and asked for immediate dispatch of 

elements of the 82d Airborne Division and part of a Marine division. 

This request itself required careful shaping by General Wheeler. In a 

series of exchanges with Sharp and Westmoreland, Wheeler between 9 

and 12 February guided the MACV commander from a statement that 

he would “welcome” additional troops to a “firm request” for immediate dispatch to I Corps of a brigade of the 82d Airborne Division and 

a Marine regimental landing team (roughly equivalent in size to an 

Army brigade), a total reinforcement of about 10,500 troops. He asked 

that the remainder of the 82d Airborne Division and of a Marine division be prepared for possible later deployment.62

With an “emergency” reinforcement request from Westmoreland at 

last in hand, Wheeler then led the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a paradoxical maneuver aimed at forcing a reserve call-up. On 12 February, the 

Joint Chiefs warned McNamara, then in his last days as defense secretary, that dispatch of the additional troops would dangerously deplete 

the United States’ combat-ready strategic reserve. The Joint Chiefs 

suggested that the emergency deployment be “deferred at this time,” 

although the 82d Airborne Division and two-thirds of a Marine division and air wing should be prepared for possible later movement to 

Vietnam. They urged in addition that any further deployments to South 

Vietnam be compensated for by an equivalent or larger mobilization of 

reserves and by an extension of active-duty terms of service, for both 

of which the administration immediately should seek congressional 

authorization. The Joint Chiefs thus linked the supposed urgent need 

for more troops in Vietnam to the rebuilding of the strategic reserve so 

as to push the president into precisely what he so long had avoided: a 

national mobilization.63

President Johnson declined to be pressured. On 12 February, at a 

White House meeting with his senior civilian and military advisers, 

Johnson directed the dispatch to Vietnam of Westmoreland’s emergency reinforcements. At the same time, the president, at Secretary 

McNamara’s recommendation, postponed a decision on calling the 

reserves and directed further Defense Department study of the issue. 

Wheeler’s maneuvering had resulted to this point only in further 

reduction of the already inadequate strategic reserve.64

62 Msgs, Wheeler to Westmoreland info Sharp, JCS 01633, JCS 01691, and JCS 01695, 9, 11, 

12 Feb 68; Westmoreland MAC 01849, MAC 01858, and MAC 01975 to Wheeler and Sharp, 9, 12 

Feb 68; Westmoreland MAC 01924 and MAC 02018 to Wheeler info Sharp, 11, 12 Feb 68; Sharp 

to Wheeler info Westmoreland et al., 10, 11, 12 Feb 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, 

CMH. 63 The JCS recommendation is reproduced in United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.6.(c), pp. 

2–6. See also Schandler, Unmaking of a President, pp. 99–101. 64 United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.6.(c), p. 6; Schandler, Unmaking of a President, p. 

101; Msg, Wheeler JCS 1725 to Sharp and Westmoreland, 12 Feb 68, Westmoreland Message files, 

Feb 68, CMH.
93

Tet and Its Aftermath

Deployment of the reinforcements went forward without delay. 

Air and sea movement of the 3d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, and 

the 27th Marine Regimental Landing Team began on 14 February and 

was completed by the end of the month. The 27th Marine Regimental 

Landing Team bolstered defenses south of Da Nang and freed other 

III MAF units to reopen Hai Van Pass. The 82d Airborne Division’s 

brigade, after assembling at Chu Lai, moved to Phu Bai to round out 

the 101st Airborne Division, which had left one of its brigades behind 

in III Corps when it moved north. Reflecting the parlous state of the 

nation’s strategic reserve, the new units entered Vietnam in what 

General Westmoreland described as “marginal shape.” For example, 

the 3d Brigade had been hastily brought up to strength by reducing the 

other two brigades of its parent division almost to cadre level. Although 

containing a large contingent of Vietnam veterans, the brigade had to 

undergo a shakedown period, a period of refresher training and other 

preparations, at Chu Lai before it could enter combat. 65

With the “emergency” reinforcement question decided, President 

Johnson, faced with continued agitation from the Joint Chiefs for a 

reserve call-up, sent General Wheeler to South Vietnam to assess the 

longer term military requirements. The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman 

arrived in Saigon on 23 February with minimal public fanfare, accompanied by Philip C. Habib of the State Department, Maj. Gen. William 

E. DePuy, the chairman’s assistant for counterinsurgency, and a small 

staff. Wheeler’s purpose, he told General Westmoreland, was to “get a 

comprehensive view of where we stand today,” including results of the 

Tet offensive, the state of friendly and enemy forces, and the capability of MACV’s combined forces to accomplish their basic tasks under 

current conditions. The administration, Wheeler declared, “must face 

up to some hard decisions in the near future regarding the possibility 

of providing you additional troops, recouping our strategic reserves in 

CONUS [continental United States], and obtaining the necessary legislative support in terms of money and authorities.” He implied that 

President Johnson and Secretary McNamara would base those decisions 

largely on his findings.66

65 Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, p. 184. Quotation is from Westmoreland History Notes, 

1–29 Feb 68, tab 1, Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), CMH. Msgs, Abrams PHB 

083 to Cushman info Westmoreland, 16 Feb 68; Abrams PHB 046 to Westmoreland, 13 Feb 68; Lt 

Gen Robert H. York, CG XVIII Abn Corps, BRG 158 to Westmoreland, 19 Feb 68; Westmoreland 

MAC 02454 to York, 21 Feb 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH. The 27th Marine 

Regimental Landing Team’s deployment problems are described in Shulimson et al., Marines in 

Vietnam, 1968, pp. 572–74. 66 JCS pressure for mobilization is covered in United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.6.(c), 

pp. 6–12 and Schandler, Unmaking of a President, pp. 102–03. Quotations are from Msg, Wheeler 

JCS 1974 to Westmoreland info Sharp, 17 Feb 68, Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH. In 

same file, see Msgs, Wheeler JCS 1695, JCS 02087, and JCS 02113 to Westmoreland info Sharp, 12, 

21 Feb 68; Westmoreland MAC 02018, MAC 02381, and MAC 02512 to Wheeler info Sharp, 12, 

20, 22 Feb 68. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

94

Wheeler’s visit was brief and informal, infused with a sense of 

urgency. The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, recovering from a severe 

heart attack suffered the previous year, seemed to Westmoreland and 

others at MACV to be haggard, nervous, and close to exhaustion, his 

view of the Vietnam situation heavily colored by Washington and 

media pessimism. On the night of his arrival, a Communist rocket 

fell near Wheeler’s Saigon lodgings, inducing him to move in with 

General Westmoreland who was still living at MACV headquarters. 

At Wheeler’s request, MACV during his two-day visit dispensed with 

much of the customary ritual of formal briefings and trips around the 

country. Except for a flight to Da Nang to meet with Generals Abrams 

and Cushman, Wheeler and his entourage spent all their time in Saigon 

conferring with General Westmoreland, his senior commanders and 

staff, and President Thieu, Vice President Ky, and General Vien.67

The discussions centered on development of a large reinforcement 

request intended to serve several purposes. The request would provide 

MACV with reserves to counter a possible second wave of nationwide 

Communist attacks. It would make available troops for what General 

Westmoreland hoped would be expanded, more decisive operations in 

Southeast Asia. Finally, the request would advance General Wheeler’s 

purpose of strengthening the national reserve. According to General 

Chaisson, who accompanied Wheeler and Westmoreland on their trip 

to Da Nang, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman emphasized that “we 

have to mobilize to handle long term small wars . . . and multiple contingencies” and declared that “the President must act or we are all in 

trouble.” Westmoreland, for his part, “wants what he thinks he needs; 

no more discount jobs.” The two generals agreed to request forces 

adequate for the worst contingency: complete collapse of the South 

Vietnamese Army, a renewed and expanded enemy offensive, and a 

South Korean pullout from Vietnam. They also agreed to request forces 

for the best contingency: continued South Vietnamese stability and 

military improvement plus authorization for ground attacks on the Ho 

Chi Minh Trail, the Laotian and Cambodian sanctuaries, and enemy 

bases in North Vietnam above the Demilitarized Zone. Both generals 

believed that the administration, in the crisis atmosphere created by 

Tet, would be receptive to proposals for such actions, especially with 

Clark Clifford, a man of supposedly hawkish views on the war, due to 

replace the de-escalation-minded McNamara as secretary of defense. 

Each for his own reasons, the two commanders wanted what General 

67 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 02366 to Wheeler info Sharp, 19 Feb 68; Wheeler JCS 2024 to 

Westmoreland info Sharp, 19 Feb 68. Both in Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH. Msg, 

Kerwin to Abrams, Komer, Momyer, et al., 22 Feb 68, Abrams Papers, CMH. For atmosphere and 

incidents of visit, see Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, p. 354; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 501–02; 

Davidson Interv, 30 Mar and 30 Jun 82, sess. 1, p. 68; Westmoreland History Notes, 1–29 Feb 68, 

tab 1, Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), CMH; Interv, LBJL with Earle G. Wheeler, 7 

May 70, pp. 2–3 (hereafter cited as Wheeler Interv).
95

Tet and Its Aftermath

Westmoreland later called “reserves in the rack,” and they designed 

their reinforcement plan to obtain them.68

In its details, the troop request was a hasty improvisation. It had 

some basis in MACV’s 8 February supplemental requirement for 1968, 

which had called for two additional divisions and many support units, 

and in lists from the component commands of troops needed to fill out 

Program Five and support the emergency reinforcements. Beyond these 

specifics, however, the request appears to have been based more on the 

need to come up with a certain overall number rather than a careful 

unit-by-unit justification. According to General Davidson, the MACV 

chief of intelligence, “the staff was just getting together two hundred 

thousand troops; for what they were going to be used I don’t think 

even the Chief [of Staff] knew. . . . There wasn’t any great foresight to 

it.” In contrast to the usual procedure with reinforcement requests, 

this one was developed without consultation with Admiral Sharp; 

although General Westmoreland on the twenty-fifth, after the end of 

the meetings with Wheeler and his group, sent an officer to Honolulu 

to brief CINCPAC on the proposal. On his way back to Washington, 

Wheeler discussed the plan at length with Sharp during a stopover in 

Honolulu.69

The troop request, as outlined in General Wheeler’s trip report, 

which he and General DePuy drafted en route to Honolulu, added 

up to 206,700 men over and above Program Five and the brigade and 

regimental landing team dispatched in February. These forces were to 

be deployed in three packages. The first, dubbed Immediate, Priority 

One, consisted of a brigade of the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized), 

the 5th Marine Division less one regimental landing team, an Army 

armored cavalry regiment,70 eight Air Force tactical fighter squadrons 

(three previously part of Program Five), and various support units, all 

to reach Vietnam before 1 May 1968. The second package, Immediate, 

Priority Two, to arrive in Vietnam by 1 September, was built around 

68 Quotations are from Ltr, Chaisson to Mrs Chaisson, 26 Feb 68, box 7, Chaisson Papers, Hoover 

Institution. See also Schandler, Unmaking of a President, pp. 109–11; Wheeler Interv, 7 May 70, 

pp. 3–6. Westmoreland retrospectively explains his thinking in “Additional Forces,” pp. 17–20, 22. 

“In the rack” phrase is taken from Interv, Charles B. MacDonald with Gen William Westmoreland, 

19 Feb 73, in MacDonald Notes, CMH. Westmoreland’s continued interest in operations in Laos 

and Cambodia is indicated in Msg, Westmoreland MAC 2962 to Wheeler info Sharp, 2 Mar 68, 

Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH. 69 Memo, Lt Cdr B. A. Robbins, III, for Commander, Naval Forces, Vietnam (COMNAVFORV), 

22 Feb 68 sub: Additional Force Requirements, Ltr Chronological File, Jan–Mar 68, box 471, 

COMNAVFORV Records, Naval Historical Center (NHC), Washington, D.C.; MACV History, 1968, 

vol. 1, pp. 225–26; Davidson Interv, 30 Mar and 30 Jun 82, sess. 1, pp. 65–68; quotation is from pp. 

67–68. Wheeler Interv, 7 May 70, pp. 6–7; Sharp Interv, 19 Feb 71, pp. 587–88; Msg, Westmoreland 

MAC 2658 to Sharp, 25 Feb 68, Westmoreland Message files, Feb 68, CMH. 70 Westmoreland, after consultation with General Abrams, decided to ask for an Army mechanized division instead of the 82d Airborne Division, because the mechanized unit would add mobility 

and firepower in northern I Corps without further straining MACV’s limited helicopter resources. 

Msg, Kerwin MAC 2629 to Abrams, 24 Feb 68, Abrams Papers, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

96

the remainder of the 5th Infantry Division and four fighter squadrons. 

It also would include the South Korean light division, if it could be 

obtained. The third package, dubbed Follow-on, consisted of a U.S. 

infantry division, three fighter squadrons, and more support units, to 

be in Vietnam by the end of 1968. Wheeler and Westmoreland understood that provision of these units would require a major activation of 

reserves. According to General Palmer, the USARV deputy commander, 

even with such a mobilization, the forces contemplated could not have 

deployed before 1969 or even 1970, because the Army would have 

encountered delays in procuring necessary equipment. Wheeler and 

Westmoreland agreed between themselves that only the first package 

definitely would go to Vietnam. The others were to deploy only if the 

situation worsened or the president expanded the war; otherwise, they 

would rebuild the strategic reserve in the United States.71

In retrospect, General Westmoreland declared that, from his point 

of view, this request was a “contingency plan,” not a demand per se for 

the deployment of additional forces.” He considered it a statement of 

“forces that would be required to accomplish approved military objectives”—those of the expanded strategy he and Wheeler had discussed. 

“In other words,” according to Westmoreland, “the requirements would 

actually materialize only if certain objectives keyed to a new strategy were 

approved.” For his part, Wheeler echoed Westmoreland’s characterization 

of the proposal as a “contingency plan.” He declared that “the only firm 

request that Westmoreland really made was for the first increment; the 

second and third increments would have been deployed only on the decision of the President, in the light of circumstances that prevailed at that 

time.” The administration, however, and eventually the American press 

and public came to perceive the proposal in quite a different light.72

General Wheeler cabled his report ahead of him to Washington on 

the twenty-seventh and the following day elaborated on it in person at a 

White House meeting with President Johnson and his senior advisers. The 

Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman’s report differed significantly in emphasis 

from his discussions with General Westmoreland. Wheeler made no mention of reconstitution of the national reserve or expanded operations in 

Southeast Asia. Instead, he gave the impression that the Military Assistance 

Command needed all 206,000 additional troops merely to defeat the 

enemy offensive and to restore the allies’ pre-Tet position. Wheeler pictured the enemy as damaged in the initial Tet attacks but recovering rap71

 Wheeler’s proposal is reproduced in United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.6.(c), pp. 12–

16 and summarized in Westmoreland, “Additional Forces,” p. 21. For its preparation, see Schandler, 

Unmaking of a President, pp. 109–11; MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, p. 226. General Palmer’s comments are in his USARV Exit Interview, reproduced in his 1975 Interv, p. 273. 72 Quotations are from Westmoreland, “Additional Forces,” pp. 21 and 23; and Wheeler Interv, 7 

May 70, p. 9. Contemporaneous expressions of this view are lacking in the sources, but Westmoreland’s 

8 February estimate of force requirements over and above Program Five has a similar contingent flavor; see Msg, Westmoreland MAC 01812, to Wheeler info Sharp, 8 Feb 68, Westmoreland Message 

files, Feb 68, CMH.
97

Tet and Its Aftermath

idly and likely to renew his nationwide assaults in great force. The South 

Vietnamese government and armed forces were holding on but shaken 

physically and psychologically, largely driven from the countryside, and 

of uncertain staying power. MACV, with its U.S. units stretched thin protecting the cities, defending northern I Corps, and trying to revive pacification, “does not have adequate forces at this time to resume the offensive . . . , nor does it have adequate reserves against the contingency of 

simultaneous large-scale enemy offensive action throughout the country.” 

Wheeler thus rested his case for the huge reinforcement, and the reserve 

mobilization it would require, entirely upon an alleged military crisis in 

South Vietnam rather than the new contingencies and opportunities that 

Westmoreland was contemplating. In fact, under the proposed schedule, 

none of the reinforcements could have reached Vietnam in time to help 

defeat a second enemy offensive if it followed soon upon the first. (The 

enemy’s second wave actually came in early May and was weaker than the 

Tet assault.)73

Wheeler’s report struck the president and his advisers like the 

proverbial bombshell. Some officials, notably Secretary of State Rusk, 

were skeptical of the Joint Chief of Staff chairman’s basic premise: the 

need for large reinforcements to cope with the Tet offensive. Most 

were dismayed by Wheeler’s gloomy assessment of the Vietnam situation, as well as by the size of the troop request and the economic and 

political implications of trying to fulfill it. Wheeler had confronted 

an administration already shaken in its confidence and resolve with a 

choice between military defeat and full-scale national mobilization in 

a presidential election year. He also had called into question Johnson’s 

earlier decision to level off the American commitment to Vietnam. 

In response, the president undertook a major review of his entire war 

policy. On 28 February, Johnson directed the incoming defense secretary, Clark Clifford, who was to take office at the beginning of March, 

to take a fresh look at the entire reinforcement and reserve question 

and recommend a course of action.74

The review took up a week of frenetic meetings and memorandumwriting. Although the State and Treasury Departments, the CIA, and 

the Joint Staff provided analyses and policy papers, a group of civilian 

Defense Department officials, former McNamara assistants, dominated 

the drafting of what became Clifford’s recommendation. These individuals, who included Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul H. Nitze and 

Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Paul 

C. Warnke, had helped to shape McNamara’s opposition to continued 

73 Quotations are from United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.6.(c), pp. 12–16. Schandler, 

Unmaking of a President, pp. 111–16, analyzes Wheeler’s shifting of emphasis. Westmoreland, 

Soldier Reports, pp. 356–57, and Interv, MacDonald with Westmoreland, 19 Feb 73, MacDonald 

Notes, CMH, interprets Wheeler’s motives. 74

 Unless otherwise noted, the following account of the administration’s policy review and the 

Clifford task force is drawn from United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.6.(c), pp. 16–51 and 

Schandler, Unmaking of a President, pp. 116–76, 182–84.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

98

escalation of the American effort in Southeast Asia. They set to work 

to convince Clifford of the same proposition. Supported by submissions from the State Department and the CIA as well as the Defense 

Department’s systems analysis office, they repeated the earlier argument that more U.S. troops would increase American casualties and 

war costs without producing victory. Proclaiming existing American 

military objectives in South Vietnam to be unattainable, the drafters 

recommended adoption of a more modest ground strategy oriented 

toward protecting population centers rather than destroying enemy 

forces—a strategy they believed MACV could implement with the 

troops it already had and one which would buy time for reform of the 

Saigon government and improvement of its armed forces.

The Defense Department “doves” found a receptive audience 

in Clifford. A Washington lawyer with wide business and political 

contacts and a long-time friend and adviser of Johnson, Clifford 

had begun to have doubts about the war even before assuming his 

Defense post. The Tet offensive, Wheeler’s troop request, and the 

arguments of his assistants confirmed the new defense secretary in 

the view that the war was probably unwinnable and that its costs 

to the United States—strategic, economic, political, and social—had 

become excessive in relation to the stakes involved. The only solution for the United States, Clifford concluded, was to “level off our 

involvement, and . . . work toward gradual disengagement” through 

negotiations. From this point on, he vigorously advocated de-escalation in administration councils, at some cost to his friendship with 

President Johnson.75

At General Wheeler’s request, General Westmoreland on 2 March 

attempted to influence the Clifford deliberations by specifying what 

dangers the proposed reinforcements would avert and what objectives they would advance. Constrained to conform to the approach of 

Wheeler’s report, Westmoreland could discuss the reinforcements only 

in terms of existing operations in South Vietnam, with no mention of 

the wider strategy for which the MACV commander had thought the 

additional troops were intended. Hence, he declared merely that the 

new forces would help to secure northern I Corps and strengthen allied 

positions elsewhere in South Vietnam while permitting MACV to free 

two divisions, probably the 1st Cavalry and 101st Airborne Divisions, 

to function as a “highly mobile exploitation force” throughout the 

country. His explanation thus served only to buttress the Defense civilians’ contention that the additional troops would have no really decisive effect on the war. Further weakening the force of Westmoreland’s 

arguments, Admiral Sharp on 3 March chimed in with the opinion that 

75 Evolution of Clifford’s views is recounted in Schandler, Unmaking of a President, pp. 213–17, 

241–55, 311–12; quotation is from p. 216. Msg, Wheeler CJCS 2721 to Westmoreland and Sharp, 8 

Mar 68, Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH, recounts Clifford’s concern with Tet’s effect on 

American public opinion. 
99

Tet and Its Aftermath

MACV could get along with a much smaller reinforcement provided 

Rolling Thunder were stepped up, a course Sharp as usual strongly 

advocated.76

Secretary Clifford’s recommendation, forwarded to the president 

on 4 March, went as far as its drafters believed expedient toward a call 

for de-escalation. Clifford proposed immediate deployment of part of 

the first reinforcement increment, about 22,000 men, which could be 

done from existing resources. Decision on the bulk of the reinforcement should be deferred, subject to week-by-week review of the situation in South Vietnam. However, the administration should mobilize 

enough reservists at once to meet the full troop request and restore 

the strategic reserve. At the insistence of the Joint Chiefs, who rejected 

any imposition of new objectives on the field commander, Clifford 

offered no fresh campaign guidance for the ground war but called for a 

“study in depth” of the subject in the context of overall U.S. Vietnam 

policy. He did, however, urge renewed efforts to strengthen the South 

Vietnamese government and armed forces. In summary, Clifford’s proposals constituted a restatement of the McNamara positions of 1966 

and 1967: send the modest reinforcements that are readily available 

and give higher priority to preparing the South Vietnamese to assume 

more of the burden of the fight.77

Clifford’s recommendation was also in line with President Johnson’s 

already well-established inclination to level off the American effort in 

Vietnam. Hence, the president accepted it. On 5 March, at Johnson’s 

direction, General Wheeler informed Westmoreland that he was unlikely 

to receive any reinforcements beyond the 22,000 Clifford proposed, 

and he added that there was “tremendous interest” in Washington in 

MACV’s plans for strengthening the South Vietnamese armed forces. 

On the ninth, the president increased the planned reinforcement to 

30,000 men upon learning the services could furnish that many. These 

were in addition to the Program Five units, still in the process of deployment, and the emergency regiment and brigade, considered to be on 

temporary loan to MACV. Johnson also deferred the Program Five civilianization program, in effect adding some 12,000 military spaces to 

Westmoreland’s forces. Subsequently, the administration increased the 

reinforcement by another 13,500 troops, which Westmoreland indicated that he needed for combat and logistical support of the units sent 

in February. To provide these forces, the administration planned to call 

nearly 100,000 reservists beginning in March.78

76 United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4C.6.(c), pp. 44–46. Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 02951

and MAC 02956 to Wheeler info Sharp, 2 Mar 68; Sharp to Wheeler info Westmoreland, 3 Mar 68. 

All in Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH. Sharp Interv, 19 Feb 71, pp. 590–92. 77 United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.6.(c), pp. 51–64. 78 Msgs, Wheeler JCS 2590, JCS 2766, JCS 2767, JCS 2847, and JCS 02896 to Westmoreland 

info Sharp, 5, 9, 12, 13 Mar 68; Westmoreland MAC 03092 to Sharp, 5 Mar 68; Westmoreland 

MAC 03230 and MAC 3385 to Wheeler info Sharp, 7 and 11 Mar 68. All in Westmoreland Message 

files, Mar 68, CMH. United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.6.(c), pp. 64–65, 71–73; Schandler, 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

100

On the basis of these decisions, the Military Assistance Command 

developed a troop list featuring an Army infantry brigade (to replace 

the 27th Marine Regimental Landing Team), an Army mechanized brigade, an armored cavalry squadron, a military police battalion, and 

four tactical fighter squadrons. At Secretary Clifford’s direction, Marine 

ground units were excluded from the package, because the Marine 

Corps at its existing strength simply could not sustain any additional 

forces in Vietnam. After the president, on 13 March, approved the 

reinforcement package, MACV, the Joint Chiefs, and the Department 

of the Army turned to refining troop lists and deployment schedules, 

aiming to have most of the units in Vietnam by late summer. General 

Westmoreland also furnished a deployment schedule for the “optimum” 206,000-man augmentation, apparently against the unlikely 

event of revival of the larger plan.79

All this activity turned out to be wasted motion. Political events 

during March—the New York Times revelation of the 206,000-man 

request, mounting congressional opposition to further troop commitments, steadily worsening public opinion polls, Senator Eugene 

McCarthy’s near-victory in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, 

and Robert F. Kennedy’s entry into the presidential race—led President 

Johnson further to scale down the reinforcement. On 22 March, he and 

his advisers decided to drop the 30,000-man increase and dispatch only 

the 13,500 troops needed to support the units sent in February, which 

Westmoreland would be allowed to retain. This augmentation would 

bring total American military strength in South Vietnam to 549,500 

men, 24,500 more than the Program Five ceiling. Johnson would back 

up this deployment with a minimum mobilization of 62,000 reservists. The president based his decision, he declared later, on reported 

improvements in the military situation in Vietnam and in the effectiveness of the South Vietnamese Army, on his government’s growing 

fiscal difficulties, and on the impossibility of overcoming domestic 

opposition to further enlargement of the U.S. commitment.80

Before announcing this decision, the president sent General Wheeler 

back across the Pacific to secure General Westmoreland’s assent to it. At 

a hurriedly arranged meeting on 24 March at Clark Air Force Base in the 

Philippines, Wheeler informed Westmoreland that political conditions 

Unmaking of a President, pp. 177–80, 229–31. 79 Msgs, Wheeler JCS 02925 to Westmoreland info Sharp, 14 Mar 68; Wheeler JCS 03024 to 

Westmoreland info Sharp and Gen Johnson, 16 Mar 68; Westmoreland MAC 03552 and MAC 03698 

to Wheeler info Sharp, 14, 17 Mar 68; Gen Johnson to Westmoreland, WDC 3874, 15 Mar 68; 

Westmoreland MAC 03651 to Gen Johnson info Wheeler and Palmer, 16 Mar 68; Abrams MAC 

3901 to Wheeler info Gen Johnson, Sharp, Westmoreland, 21 Mar 68; Abrams MAC 3902 to Gen 

Johnson info Wheeler and Westmoreland, 21 Mar 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, 

CMH. United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.6.(c), p. 76; MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, p. 226. 80 Political events are summarized in United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.6.(c), pp. 65–73; 

Hammond, Military and the Media, 1962–1968, pp. 375–82; and Schandler, Unmaking of a President, 

pp. 194–228, 231–32. The president recounts his reasons in Lyndon B. Johnson, The Vantage Point: 

Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969 (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1971), p. 415. 
101

Tet and Its Aftermath

in the United States ruled out any major reinforcement or expansion 

of ground operations. The MACV commander, whom Wheeler had 

kept up to date on the deteriorating U.S. domestic situation, replied 

on cue that under those circumstances he could carry out his mission 

provided he could keep the February reinforcements or replacements 

for them, and provided he received all his Program Five troops plus the 

13,500-man augmentation.81

While Wheeler, accompanied by General Abrams, Westmoreland’s 

designated successor as COMUSMACV, took this message back to 

Washington, Westmoreland on 27 March dispatched a formal request 

for two Army brigades, an armored cavalry squadron, two fighter squadrons, and the support units. Of the two brigades, one was the 3d of the 

82d Airborne Division, already in Vietnam; the other, a mechanized 

brigade, would replace the 27th Marine Regimental Landing Team, 

which was to be withdrawn by mid-July. Westmoreland intended to 

use both brigades in northern I Corps. He declared that, in the light of 

the enemy’s heavy Tet losses, the “exceptional recovery” of the South 

81

 Msgs, Wheeler JCS 2767 and JCS 2848, to Westmoreland info Sharp, 9, 12 Mar 68; JCS 3024 

to Westmoreland info Sharp and Gen Johnson, 16 Mar 68; JCS 3303 to Westmoreland and Abrams, 

23 Mar 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH; Johnson, Vantage Point, p. 415; 

Westmoreland History Notes, 1–31 Mar 68, tab 1, Westmoreland History file no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68), 

CMH; Wheeler Interv, 7 May 70, pp. 9–10; Schandler, Unmaking of a President, p. 236.

President Johnson meets with his “Wise Men.”
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

102

Vietnamese, and other indications of an improving military situation, 

this reinforcement would provide MACV “the means necessary to contain further enemy-initiated actions while continuing forward progress 

in most areas.” On the twenty-eighth, President Johnson approved 

this final Vietnam reinforcement package. In due time, it became the 

Defense Department’s Program Six, the last U.S. force augmentation 

for Vietnam.82

On 31 March, in a broadcast address to the American people, 

heard in Saigon at 1000 hours on 1 April local time, President Johnson 

announced the Program Six deployment. He announced also that as of 

1 April the United States would cease air attacks on all but the southern 

panhandle of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and that he had 

decided not to run for another term as president. The partial bombing 

halt was the product of an intra-administration debate that proceeded 

alongside the reinforcement deliberations but largely bypassed both 

General Westmoreland and Admiral Sharp. After considerable hesitation, President Johnson and his advisers finally decided to go ahead with 

the pause more to quiet domestic dissent than because they expected 

a positive response from Hanoi. General Wheeler emphasized the 

domestic political aspect in his message of 31 March, informing Sharp, 

Westmoreland, and other Pacific commanders of the partial bombing 

halt. This “unilateral initiative to seek peace” was necessary, Wheeler 

explained, “to reverse the growing dissent and opposition within our 

society to the war”; without it, public support might become “too frail 

to sustain the effort” in Southeast Asia.83

To the end, General Westmoreland remained a strong supporter of 

Rolling Thunder for its value in reducing the flow of North Vietnamese 

men and supplies into South Vietnam. On 2 March, he advocated heavier 

bombing of the Haiphong area, and as late as the twenty-seventh he 

declared that “relentless pressure” on the north was “complementary” 

to his reduced reinforcement package. Nevertheless, at Admiral Sharp’s 

direction, he passed on the pause order to his field force and component commanders along with General Wheeler’s explanation of its 

political purpose. Westmoreland noted in addition that “of course, our 

82 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 4192 to Wheeler and Sharp info Abrams, 27 Mar 68 (quotations 

are from this message); Westmoreland MAC 4242 to Wheeler and Sharp, 28 Mar 68; Wheeler 

JCS 3449 to Westmoreland, 28 Mar 68; Sharp to Wheeler info Westmoreland et al., 29 Mar 68. 

All in Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH. Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 9031 to JCS and 

CINCPAC, 31 Mar 68, tab 83, Westmoreland History file no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68), CMH; in same file, 

see Westmoreland History Notes, 1–31 Mar 68, tab 1. MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 226–27;

United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.6.(c), pp. 76–79, 90. 83 Quotation is from Msg, Wheeler JCS 3561 to Sharp, Westmoreland, et al., 31 Mar 68; see 

also Msg, Sharp to Westmoreland et al., 31 Mar 68. Both in Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, 

CMH. United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.6.(c), pp. 80–90, and sec. 4.C.7.(b), pp. 141–203; 

Schandler, Unmaking of a President, pp. 184–93, 237–40. Sharp complains of being bypassed on 

the decision in Sharp Interv, 19 Feb 71, pp. 601–04. Westmoreland History Notes, 1–30 Apr 68, tab 

1, Westmoreland History file no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68) describes how the Mission Council heard the 

speech. 
103

Tet and Its Aftermath

airpower will be concentrated south of the 20th parallel,” the administration’s unpublicized northern bombing limit. He instructed his 

commanders to inform their Vietnamese counterparts of the American 

decision and the Saigon government’s concurrence in it. They were to 

reassure the South Vietnamese that the reduction of Rolling Thunder

meant no diminution of offensive operations in the south. “Indeed,” 

Westmoreland concluded, “maximum pressure on the aggressor is 

required even more.”84

In retrospect, President Johnson’s decisions of 31 March, followed 

by North Vietnam’s announcement early in April of conditional willingness to open negotiations, marked the start of an irreversible process 

of American disengagement from Vietnam. At the time, this was not so 

certain. Johnson’s decisions of late March were incremental, intended 

more to facilitate continuation of the war rather than its termination. 

On the reinforcement issue in particular, the administration essentially 

reaffirmed its 1967 decision to top off American strength in Vietnam at 

a level just below that requiring mobilization and to devote more attention and resources to building up the South Vietnamese forces in hopes 

ultimately of reducing the U.S. role in the war. As yet, however, no firm 

plan existed for such a reduction, nor had the administration revised 

MACV’s mission or military objectives. Nevertheless, the March decisions, especially as interpreted and implemented by Secretary Clifford, 

constituted for practical purposes an American abandonment of any 

hope of genuine victory in South Vietnam. From then on, the objective 

became extrication on acceptable terms.85

A War Lost in the Mind

In 1912, a British military observer of the Balkan Wars wrote:

In large-scale modern battles there must often be a period when the confusion is so great 

that none of the actors really know which side is winning or which side has lost. . . . If that 

is so, then there must often be a period when the result hangs in the balance, when those 

who can be made to think that they are winning will win; and those that think that they are 

losing will be lost—whatever be the real state of affairs as a whole.86

84

 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 2962 to Wheeler info Sharp, 2 Mar 68; MAC 4192 to Wheeler and 

Sharp info Abrams, 27 Mar 68; MAC 4366 to Field Force and Component Cdrs, 31 Mar 68. All in 

Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH. See also Fact Sheet, sub: Seventeen Questions Posed 

by AP and Gen Westmoreland’s Answers, 24 Feb 68, tab 77, Westmoreland History file no. 29 (1–29 

Feb 68), CMH. 85 Movement toward negotiations is summarized in United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 

4.C.6.(c), pp. 90–91; and Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, pp. 186–88. Schandler, Unmaking of a 

President, pp. 301–03, 313–19, emphasizes the tentative nature of the March decisions and Clifford’s 

effort to interpret them into a real change of direction. 86 The observer’s remarks are quoted in Col. Theodore L. Gatchell, USMC, “Can a Battle be Lost 

in the Mind of the Commander?” Naval War College Review 23 (January–February 1985): 96. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

104

The British observer referred to the large-scale conventional battles 

of the pre-World War I era, but his words apply with even more force 

to the events of early 1968 in the unconventional conflict in Vietnam. 

Militarily, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong General Offensive–

General Uprising was a major defeat for their side, one that, as MACV 

early perceived, inflicted severe and possibly crippling damage on 

Communist forces. Nevertheless, the enemy in February 1968 won the 

battle where it counted most: in the American news media, among 

influential elements of the general public, and in the minds and emotions of key government officials, including the president of the United 

States. The Johnson administration, frustrated by years of unproductive effort, distressed by growing dissent and disunity at home, and 

shocked by the Tet offensive, in effect decided that its war in Vietnam 

had been a failure or at best had become too expensive to be worth 

pursuing and turned to a search for a way out.87

Without intending to, the American military leadership contributed to this perceptual defeat. The Military Assistance Command’s 

optimistic reporting—although encouraged, even demanded, by its 

civilian masters—recoiled upon it when the supposedly beaten enemy 

attacked. Then General Westmoreland, after attempting to reassure the 

American government and public that the enemy offensive had failed 

and that he had the situation well in hand, was drawn by General 

Wheeler into requesting a huge troop reinforcement, which the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff chairman presented to the president and his advisers as 

necessary to stave off disaster. The troop request all but nullified General 

Westmoreland’s claims of victory. More important, the military leaders 

by making the request confronted the administration with an apparent 

choice between further escalation at unacceptable domestic political 

and economic cost, with no guarantee of victory, and a major scaling 

down of objectives. In fact, there was, of course, a third alternative: 

continuation of the existing strategy, which it could be argued plausibly, was only coming into full effect when the Tet offensive broke; but 

the military leaders gave the impression that this alternative was no 

longer available.88

Thus, Generals Wheeler and Westmoreland, by trying to use the Tet 

crisis to secure enlarged forces and expanded military action, managed 

to push their civilian superiors in just the opposite direction. MACV 

would have to live with the results. Under a new commander and soon 

a new administration, MACV would soldier on, attempting to execute 

a new American war strategy as it gradually emerged.

87 For a typical view that the enemy won the psychological war at Tet, see Interv, Lt Col Bill 

Mullen and Lt Col Les Brownlee with William E. DePuy, Senior Officers Oral History Program, 

1979, pt. 5, p. 12, MHI. 88 The administration’s confrontation with the war’s economic and political costs as a result of 

the 206,000-man troop request is emphasized in United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.6.(c), pp. 

91–92.
4

General Abrams Takes Charge

On 31 March 1968, the United States entered a prolonged period of transition in its conduct of the Vietnam War. The Johnson 

administration devoted its last months to negotiating with the North 

Vietnamese and ultimately also with its South Vietnamese ally about 

the terms under which substantive peace talks could begin. At the 

same time, the administration avoided new decisions on the conduct 

of the war in South Vietnam. The Military Assistance Command, under 

General Creighton W. Abrams, Westmoreland’s successor, thus was left 

to reformulate its own operational concepts, guided only by the realization that no more American reinforcements were coming and that 

the administration wanted movement toward turning the war over to 

the South Vietnamese.

General Westmoreland Departs

At a press conference on 22 March, President Johnson made an 

important announcement concerning high-level military commands. 

He declared that General Wheeler, whose regular tenure as chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff was soon to end, would remain at his post for 

another year, an arrangement that would permit the next president to 

select his own chairman for a full term. At the same time, in accordance 

with plans made late in the previous year, Johnson announced that 

General Westmoreland would leave MACV in mid-summer to replace 

the retiring General Harold K. Johnson as chief of staff of the Army.1

General Wheeler informed Westmoreland of the decision by secure 

telephone call on 23 March (simultaneously with the announcement in 

Washington) while the MACV commander was at Clark Air Base in the 

Philippines for his annual physical examination and a brief visit with his 

family. In the same call, Wheeler set up his meeting with Westmoreland 

on the reinforcement question. Westmoreland at once flew back to 

Saigon, where he informed Ambassador Bunker, President Thieu, and 

General Vien of his impending departure, then returned the next day 

to Clark Air Base to talk with Wheeler. In a message to the president 



 Schandler, Unmaking of a President, p. 234.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

106

and in a brief press statement at Tan Son Nhut Airport, Westmoreland 

expressed appreciation of his new assignment along with “reluctance 

to leave the battlefield before the battle is over.” Privately, he confided 

to General Chaisson that he would have preferred to become CINCPAC 

(a possibility the administration had briefly considered) and stay “in 

the main stream of the war.”2

A succession of Washington visits preceded the naming of 

Westmoreland’s replacement. After Westmoreland returned to Saigon 

from his 24 March conference with Wheeler, General Abrams, viewed 

by all as his probable successor, flew to Clark Air Base and returned with 

the chairman to Washington for two days of briefings and conferences 

with President Johnson and his senior advisers. With Abrams back in 

Saigon, General Westmoreland made a trip of his own to Washington 

on 6 and 7 April. He made a final report to the president and coordinated plans for his confirmation hearings as Army chief of staff. During 

this visit, Westmoreland recommended Abrams to succeed him at 

MACV—something of a formality under the circumstances. President 

Johnson then, on 11 April, announced Abrams’ forthcoming elevation 

 First quotation is from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 04091 to President, 25 Mar 68. See also Msgs, 

Westmoreland MAC 03981 and MAC 03993 to Wheeler and Sharp, 23 Mar 68. All in Westmoreland 

Message files, Mar 68, CMH; Westmoreland History Notes, 1–31 Mar 68, tab 1, Westmoreland 

History files no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68), CMH. Second quotation is from Ltr, Chaisson to Mrs Chaisson, 

23 Mar 68; see also Ltr, 26 Mar 68. Both in box 7, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution. 

Korean troops parade at General Westmoreland’s farewell.
107

General Abrams Takes Charge

to COMUSMACV and named Lt. Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster, who was 

to receive a fourth star, as the new deputy MACV commander.3

General Westmoreland remained in command in Saigon through 

late May, with Abrams continuing as his deputy but asserting his own 

views more positively on many issues. The transition period was at 

times awkward. General Chaisson observed in mid-April: “Our little 

circle here is very interesting. Abe now is officially in. Westy isn’t about 

to let go. I am in the middle.” On 29 May, after a final commanders’ 

conference and a round of ceremonial and social farewells, General 

Westmoreland left for the United States to attend his Senate confirmation hearing. Carefully orchestrated by the administration, the hearing 

went smoothly. He returned to Saigon on 7 June for another round 

of farewells and departed for the United States with his family on the 

11th. For practical purposes, General Abrams assumed command when 

Westmoreland left Saigon on 29 May. He served as acting COMUSMACV 

until 3 July, when Westmoreland was sworn in as Army chief of staff.4

 Sorley, Thunderbolt, pp. 221–23; Schandler, Unmaking of a President, pp. 261–62. Msgs, Wheeler 

JCS 3487 to Westmoreland info Sharp, 28 Mar 68; Wheeler JCS 3691 to Westmoreland info Sharp et 

al., 3 Apr 68; Gen Johnson WDC 5311 to Major Cdrs, 11 Apr 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, 

Mar–Apr 68, CMH. Also Westmoreland History Notes, 1–30 Apr 68, tab 1, Westmoreland History 

files no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68), CMH; Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, p. 362. 

 Quotation is from Ltr, Chaisson to Mrs Chaisson, 13 Apr 68; see also Ltrs, 23, 30 Mar 68, 

and 28 May 68, box 7; Chaisson Diary, 21–23 Mar 68, box 9; Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution. 

Westmoreland History Notes, (1–31 May 68), tab 1, Westmoreland History files no. 32 (1–31 May 

68) and (1–30 Jun 68), tab 1, Westmoreland History files no. 33 (1–30 Jun 68), CMH; in latter file, 

General Goodpaster (left) with Lt. Gen. Richard G. Stilwell
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

108

General Westmoreland could claim some significant achievements 

during his four and one-half years in Vietnam. He built up a modern 

combat force and logistical base in an undeveloped country and managed MACV’s transition from an advisory and assistance headquarters 

to an operational command. He instituted a system of cooperation 

with South Vietnamese and allied forces that provided for at least 

minimal unity of action while respecting Asian political sensitivities. 

His combat operations prevented the enemy from finishing off the 

Saigon regime through large-unit warfare and heavily damaged the 

enemy’s forces and base areas. Westmoreland contributed substantially 

to the reestablishment of stable, constitutional government in South 

Vietnam and to the development of an effective American organization 

for supporting a revival of pacification. Although Westmoreland, like 

most American officials, failed to anticipate the nature and scale of the 

enemy’s Tet offensive, his countermoves before and during the attack 

were sufficient to deny the Communists major success and to preempt 

a possible overrunning of northern I Corps. By the time Westmoreland 

left MACV, the allied forces were in position for a broad-front attack on 

a weakened enemy.5

Unfortunately, Westmoreland’s accomplishments, impressive as 

they were, did not produce a military decision or break Hanoi’s will 

to continue the struggle. Westmoreland, along with the rest of the 

U.S. mission, could find no immediate remedy for Saigon’s endemic 

weak leadership, corruption, and inefficiency. His participation in 

President Johnson’s optimism campaign undermined the credibility 

of his reports and estimates; the Tet offensive thoroughly discredited 

the views of both the general and his command. Having made himself 

a symbol of the war in the eyes of the American people, Westmoreland 

inevitably came in for bitter criticism as Americans became disillusioned with the costly, prolonged, and inconclusive conflict. Thus, 

while it could be argued with some validity that Westmoreland by 

mid-1968 was winning the military war, it could be argued with equal 

force that he was losing, or had already lost, the psychological and 

political one.

It must be noted finally that in all that Westmoreland did, he faithfully carried out the wishes of his president and subordinated himself 

to the restraints placed on him by civilian authority. An inveterate 

team player, he tailored his actions to the desires of the administration 

he served. He retained to the end the confidence of President Johnson 

and Defense Secretaries McNamara and Clifford. Johnson declared after 

Tet: “Westy did everything he was expected to do, and more. I will not 

see also tabs 18 and 22. For preparations for the hearing, and other arrangements for Westmoreland’s 

return, see Westmoreland Message files, Apr–May 68, CMH; Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, p. 

188.

 Westmoreland gives his own version of his accomplishments in MFR, 21 Jun 68, sub: Remarks 

to Quarterly Review Meetings in the Four Corps, 23–26 Apr 68, tab 88, Westmoreland History files 

no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68), CMH, and in Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, pp. 292–94. 
109

General Abrams Takes Charge

have him made a scapegoat.” Although disillusioned with America’s 

prospects in the war, McNamara and Clifford attributed the lack of success to the inherently unwinnable character of the conflict rather than 

to the policies of their field commander. As a Washington Post editorial 

on the occasion of Westmoreland’s reassignment concluded, he had 

“been a good soldier in an almost impossible spot.”6

Continuing the Fight

President Johnson’s curtailment of Rolling Thunder had little 

effect on the Military Assistance Command’s air operations since the 

restriction did not apply to the southernmost route package in North 

Vietnam and to the infiltration trails in Laos. If anything, the bombing 

halt simplified air command relations by effectively terminating the 

CINCPAC-controlled part of the air war; and it freed more sorties for 

MACV’s use in the south, the Demilitarized Zone area, and along the 

Ho Chi Minh Trail. The command became involved in the diplomacy 

of the pause. At Secretary Clifford’s direction, General Westmoreland 

in April dissuaded General Ky from employing the Vietnamese Air 

Force’s new F–5 jet squadron in raids north of the Demilitarized Zone, 

an action the administration feared would upset its negotiations with 

North Vietnam. Late in May, General Westmoreland advocated bombing North Vietnamese cities in retaliation for the Communists’ urban 

attacks in South Vietnam; but the administration ignored this proposal, 

as it did Admiral Sharp’s repeated demands for a full resumption of 

Rolling Thunder.

7

In South Vietnam, there was no diminution of the allied effort. 

On 31 March, at a conference of senior U.S., South Vietnamese, and 

allied commanders, General Westmoreland called for an all-out offensive against Communist forces exposed and weakened by their Tet 

repulse. Westmoreland declared that the allies must use the “means at 

hand” to destroy the enemy “across the spectrum,” including political 

cadres, hamlet and village guerrillas, Viet Cong local and main forces, 

and North Vietnamese units. He emphasized as well mobilization and 

modernization of Saigon’s forces so that the South Vietnamese could 

demonstrate to the world that they were “fighting their own battles to 

 Quotation is from Schandler, Unmaking of a President, pp. 234–36. See also Msg, Lt Col 

Whitlach MAC 04052 to Westmoreland, 24 Mar 68, Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH. 

McNamara’s and Clifford’s views are cited in Samuel Zaffiri, Westmoreland: A Biography of General 

William C. Westmoreland (New York: William Morrow, 1994), pp. 314–15. See also The Washington 

Post, 24 Mar 68, p. B6, tab 79, Westmoreland History files no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68), CMH.

 The ramifications of the bombing halt can be followed in Westmoreland Message files, Apr–

May 68, CMH. Westmoreland, Sharp, and Sharp’s successor Admiral McCain advocate renewed 

bombing in Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 06891 to Sharp info Wheeler, 26 May 68; Sharp BNK 1383 

to Wheeler, 14, 16 Jun 68; Westmoreland Message files, May–Jun 68; and Msg, McCain to Wheeler 

info Abrams, 18 Aug 68, Abrams Papers. All in CMH. Also Westmoreland History Notes, 1–30 Apr 

68, tab 1; MFR, Bryan, 14 Apr 68, tab 35. Both in Westmoreland History files no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68), 

CMH. United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.7.(b), pp. 203–04. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

110

the extent they can.” Westmoreland directed new attention to military 

support of pacification. He declared that “all our efforts in RVN have a 

pacification victory as the ultimate objective.”8

After announcement of the bombing cutback, Westmoreland told 

U.S. commanders to reaffirm to their Vietnamese counterparts that 

the offensive in the south would continue and that the allies must 

prevent the enemy from gaining politically exploitable battlefield 

successes. President Thieu and his corps commanders echoed this 

theme in meetings with their own subordinates. The practical effect 

of these injunctions on the fighting is difficult to measure, given the 

regionally variegated nature of the war. Nevertheless, in these directives, the MACV commander confirmed his adherence to the new 

American policy that had been evolving gradually since late 1966 and 

culminated in the March 1968 reinforcement cutoff: MACV could 

and would fight with what it had; it would work to expand the South 

Vietnamese effort; and it would wage a balanced military and pacification campaign.9

While MACV, with full administration support, pressed the offensive in South Vietnam, it also, at administration urging, tried to 

describe these activities in less bellicose terms so as to deflect charges by 

American war opponents that the president was talking peace but escalating the fighting. Accordingly, in April General Westmoreland, with 

the approval of General Wheeler and Admiral Sharp, stopped using 

the term “search and destroy” to denote offensive operations against 

enemy units and base areas. Noting that the phrase was “over-used 

and often misunderstood particularly in lay circles,” Westmoreland 

instructed his commanders to substitute in their communications such 

standard military terms as “spoiling attack” and “reconnaissance in 

force.” At the same time, the MACV commander, at administration 

direction, attempted to keep at low key public affairs presentations of 

new large offensives, such as Operation Pegasus to relieve Khe Sanh 

and the 90-battalion Operation Toan Thang (“Total Victory”) aimed at 

clearing the environs of Saigon. He instructed General Cushman, for 

example, to describe Pegasus “as being merely the usual run of offensive operations . . . and nothing colossal.” In sum, the administration 

wanted to fight while talking but did not want its field commander to 

talk too loudly about fighting.10

 Quotations are from MFR, Chaisson, 5 Apr 68, sub: MACV Commanders’ Conference, 31 Mar 

68, tab 68, Westmoreland History files no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68), CMH. See also Ltr, Chaisson to Mrs 

Chaisson, 3 Apr 68, box 7, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution.

 The principal COMUSMACV directives on the offensive are reproduced in MACV History, 

1968, vol. 1, pp. 26–30. Also Msgs, Weyand HOA 0434 to Westmoreland, 1 Apr 68; Westmoreland 

MAC 4534 to Field and Component Cdrs, 4 Apr 68; Abrams MAC 04610 to Westmoreland, 6 Apr 

68; Westmoreland MAC 6966 to Goodpaster, 28 May 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Apr–

Jun 68, CMH. Other examples of directives are in tabs 29, 47, 48, and 51, Westmoreland History files 

no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68) and tab 28, Westmoreland History files no. 32 (1–31 May 68), CMH. 10

 Quotations are from Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 4241 to Wheeler, 28 Mar 68; and MAC 4362 
111

General Abrams Takes Charge

The Military Assistance Command pushed forward its own offensive partly to disrupt Communist preparations for another nationwide 

attack. General Westmoreland and his intelligence officers estimated 

that the enemy, if only to gain psychological and propaganda successes 

and to strengthen their negotiating position, would try to continue 

the offensive it had begun at Tet. While doubting that the enemy had 

the capability or the intention to launch assaults and take casualties 

on the scale of Tet, the command expected the North Vietnamese and 

Viet Cong to renew ground and artillery harassment of the cities, especially Saigon, and to maintain as much pressure as they could on the 

South Vietnamese and American forces in hopes of undermining the 

South Vietnamese government and stimulating antiwar sentiment in 

the United States. The command’s estimates were on the mark. On 24 

April, the Politburo in Hanoi, after reviewing results of the Tet “activity cycle,” called for continuous attack and encirclement of South 

Vietnam’s cities, liberation of the rural areas, and relentless offensives 

against the “puppet” army and administration and U.S. troops.11

The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong launched their second nationwide offensive on 5 May, just before the opening of peace talks in Paris. 

This offensive, less ambitious in objectives than its Tet predecessor, 

was aimed at inflicting casualties on American and South Vietnamese 

forces, disrupting urban life, and maintaining at least the appearance of 

the military initiative. In contrast to Tet, the allies expected the attack 

and had learned much of the enemy’s plan from defectors and other 

sources. American and South Vietnamese operations preempted entirely 

some Communist assaults; other enemy units were intercepted and 

broken up before they reached their objectives. Such was the fate of the 

enemy’s major effort, a multi-battalion drive on Saigon. Nevertheless, 

small North Vietnamese and Viet Cong elements got into parts of the 

capital, and the fight to eliminate them caused more destruction and 

created more refugees in Saigon than had the Tet offensive.12

to Cushman info Rosson, 31 Mar 68; see also Msgs, Wheeler JCS 3563 to Westmoreland info Sharp, 

31 Mar 68; Wheeler JCS 3564 to Westmoreland, 31 Mar 68; Westmoreland MAC 4363 to Wheeler, 

31 Mar 68; Wheeler JCS 3965 to Westmoreland, 11 Apr 68; Westmoreland MAC 4856 to Wheeler 

and Sharp, 12 Apr 68; Westmoreland MAC 4899 to Wheeler, 12 Apr 68; Sharp to Wheeler and 

Westmoreland, 18 Apr 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Mar–Apr 68, CMH. Westmoreland 

History Notes, 1–30 Apr 68, tab 1, Westmoreland History files no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68), CMH; MACV 

History, 1968, vol. 1, p. 371. 11 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 4192 to Wheeler and Sharp info Abrams, 27 Mar 68; Westmoreland 

MAC 5298 to III MAF and Field Force Cdrs, 21 Apr 68; Westmoreland Message files, Mar–Apr 68, 

CMH. Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 9322 to CINCPAC info JCS, 3 Apr 68, tab 15. All in Westmoreland 

History files no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68), CMH. Politburo directive is summarized in War Experiences 

Recapitulation Committee, Resistance War, pp. 106–07; see also Ford, “Tet 1968,” pp. 205–06. 12

 MACV was informed of the scope and approximate timing of the offensive by a high-ranking 

enemy defector; see Msg, Westmoreland MAC 5298 to III MAF and Field Force Cdrs, 21 Apr 68, 

Westmoreland Message files, Apr 68, CMH; and Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 11551 to AIG 7055, 

DIRNSA, and Commander, Naval Intelligence Command (COMNAVINTCOM), 24 Apr 68, tab 59, 

Westmoreland History files no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68), CMH. General Westmoreland’s reports and evaluations of the offensive are in his Msg files, May 68. Retrospective analyses are in MACV Hq, “ ‘One 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

112

In central I Corps, a North Vietnamese division attacked Kham Duc, 

a Special Forces camp southwest of Da Nang near the Laotian border. On 

the evening of 10 May, the enemy overran one of the camp’s outposts 

and brought the base under mortar and machine-gun fire. After consultation with Generals Abrams and Cushman, Westmoreland ordered 

evacuation of the camp rather than face another Khe Sanh–type siege. 

He explained to Admiral Sharp, “At this time forces and resources that 

would be required for defense of Kham Duc can be much more profitably utilized in other areas.” Aware of the public relations implications 

of this apparent retreat, Westmoreland and his chief of public affairs, 

General Sidle, carefully planned the presentation of the decision to 

the press, seeking to keep the story at “low key” while explaining the 

action to newsmen in background briefings. Under cover of round-theclock B–52 and tactical air strikes, the air extraction of the beleaguered 

garrison under fire was successful but cost the allies heavily in lost 

men, aircraft, and equipment.13

Overall, however, the Communists had little to show for the 30,000 

casualties MACV estimated they suffered in a month of heavy fighting. 

The May offensive diverted few South Vietnamese security forces from the 

villages to the towns and cities and thus had almost no effect on rural pacification. By late May, enemy main force units, under aggressive allied air 

and ground pursuit, were withdrawing to their base areas and cross-border 

sanctuaries to rest and refit. Nevertheless, small Communist units hung 

on around Saigon. Until late June, they kept up an intermittent rocket 

and mortar bombardment of the capital. Their indiscriminate strikes at 

military installations and civilian districts inflicted relatively minor casualties and damage but created the impression of a city still under siege.14

The Military Assistance Command and the South Vietnamese government redeployed forces and created a new headquarters to counter 

the enemy’s persistent pressure on Saigon. On 3 June, after prolonged 

American urging, President Thieu finally unified command of all 

his forces protecting the capital and its immediate environs under a 

military governor of Saigon and Gia Dinh Province. Simultaneously, 

General Westmoreland, in one of his last acts as COMUSMACV, established a Capital Military Assistance Command under Maj. Gen. John 

H. Hay, deputy commander of II Field Force, who exercised operational 

control over all U.S. units and advisory teams in Saigon–Gia Dinh and 

acted as senior adviser to the new military governor. To counter the 

rocket bombardment, General Abrams established surveillance zones 

War’: MACV Command Overview, 1968–1972,” ch. 3, pp. 9–10, and ch. 4, pp. 19–24, 27–28; and 

MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 38, 132–33. 13

 Westmoreland History Notes, 1–31 May 68, tab 1, Westmoreland History files no. 32 (1–31 

May 68); Quotation is from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 6210, to Sharp info Wheeler and Goodpaster, 

12 May 68; see also Westmoreland MAC 6222, MAC 6264, and MAC 6568 to same addressees, 12, 

13, 19 May 68; Westmoreland Message files, May 68, CMH. 14 Msgs, Abrams MAC 7605 and MAC 8128 to Sharp, 9 Jun 68 and 19 Jun 68, Abrams Papers, 

CMH.
113

General Abrams Takes Charge

surrounding Saigon, each with Army helicopter or Air Force fixed-wing 

gunships assigned for rapid response to firings. This system, combined 

with constant infantry sweeps around the city and the capture of many 

rocket caches, prevented the Communists from fulfilling their promise 

to hit Saigon with “100 rockets for 100 days.”15

With the enemy’s shift to attacking South Vietnam’s cities, their 

protection—especially that of Saigon, the nation’s political center—

inevitably became one of COMUSMACV’s top priorities, on a par with 

the continuing battle for northern I Corps. General Abrams declared 

in mid-June: “The enemy has made Saigon/Gia Dinh his number one 

effort at this time; I have made it mine.” By late June, twenty-seven 

U.S. and South Vietnamese maneuver battalions were concentrated in 

Gia Dinh Province. Counting additional troops interdicting infiltration 

routes and attacking enemy base areas farther from the capital, General 

Abrams estimated that “over 50 percent of allied maneuver battalion 

15 MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 219–21; MACV Hq, “One War,” ch. 4, pp. 25–27. Msgs, 

Abrams MAC 7708 and MAC 8887 to Wheeler and Sharp, 11 Jun 68 and 3 Jul 68, Abrams Papers, 

CMH. For background on the command reorganization of the South Vietnamese Army, see tab 10, 

Westmoreland History files no. 29 (1–29 Feb 68), and tabs 51, 53, and 86, Westmoreland History 

files no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68), CMH. The Saigon defense system at full development is described in 

Memo, Wheeler CM–3896–69 for Sec Def, 26 Jan 69, sub: Protection of Population Centers in South 

Vietnam, box 064, National Security Council (NSC) files, Richard M. Nixon Presidential Papers, 

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), College Park, Md.

A view of mud ramps with enemy rockets in position
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

114

assets are involved in the defense of Saigon/Cholon,” a deployment 

that “degrades our flexibility and our potential to accomplish other 

missions” but nevertheless was a political necessity.16 

The Military Assistance Command led the way in efforts to repair 

the damage caused by the May fighting in the capital, which left almost 

20,000 homes in ruins and over 130,000 people in need of emergency assistance and new shelter. Fortunately, the Central Recovery 

Committee set up after Tet remained in operation and quickly instituted emergency relief efforts. To speed the reconstruction of housing 

in the worst-hit districts, the Americans and South Vietnamese, under 

a plan developed by General Westmoreland and Ambassador Komer 

and approved by President Thieu, deployed military engineer units to 

clear rubble, lay concrete foundations for houses, and set up thousands 

of prefabricated dwellings manufactured in a U.S. Army factory. This 

operation, code-named Dong Tam (“United Hearts and Minds”), was 

intended both to accelerate the restoration of shelter and enhance the 

prestige of President Thieu’s government and its U.S. allies. By the end 

of June, the rebuilding projects were well under way.17

Besides assisting civilian war victims, MACV and the Joint General 

Staff (JGS) tried to ensure that future urban fighting would produce 

fewer of them. Generals Westmoreland and Abrams and Ambassadors 

Bunker and Komer all recognized that allied firepower had caused most 

of the devastation in Saigon in the course of rooting out small enemy 

units that had infiltrated commercial and residential areas. Accordingly, 

on 13 May, Westmoreland, after consultation with the Mission Council, 

instituted a combined MACV and JGS review of urban combat tactics, 

aimed at finding ways to eliminate the enemy while minimizing collateral damage. When he took acting command, General Abrams confined to only the most senior commanders the authority to use helicopter gunships, tactical air support, and indirect fire artillery in urban 

areas. On 2 June, a stray rocket from an American helicopter supporting 

South Vietnamese Rangers in street fighting in Cholon—on a mission 

authorized by the III Corps commander, General Khang—killed the 

chief of the Saigon Military Police and five other high-ranking South 

Vietnamese officers and wounded three. This incident further dramatized the problem. In response to it, and to embassy and news media 

16

 First quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 7766 to Weyand, 12 Jun 68; second is from Msg, 

Abrams MAC 8128 to Sharp, 19 Jun 68. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. Weyand, Debrief, 15 Jul 68, 

p. 11, reflects the increased U.S. emphasis on defense of Saigon and other principal South Vietnamese 

cities. See also Chaisson, Oral History, pp. 156–58. 17 MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 540, 542–43; Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, pp. 173, 235; 

MFR, Bryan, 14 May 68, sub: Evaluation of Saigon Situation, tab 22; MFR, Chaisson, 1 Jun 68, 

sub: MACV Commanders’ Conf, 19 May 68, tab 55; MFR, Brig Gen A. P. Rollins, Jr, sub: Saigon 

Emergency Housing, 17 May 68, tab 58. Last three in Westmoreland History files no. 32 (1–31 May 

68), CMH.
115

General Abrams Takes Charge

reports of the extensive destruction in Saigon, Secretary Clifford 

added his authority to the 

demand for a review of MACV’s 

urban tactics.18

The joint study, completed 

on 14 June, recommended 

maximum reliance on direct-fire 

weapons and riot gas in street 

fighting. It called for improved 

urban combat training of South 

Vietnamese units and the immediate issue to them of 90-mm. 

and 106-mm. recoilless rifles. 

It emphasized the need for unified planning and action by all 

South Vietnamese military and 

police organizations involved 

in city defense and called for 

creation of people’s civil defense 

groups to provide intelligence 

on enemy infiltration and help 

with post-battle disaster relief. 

The study urged that the authority to call for artillery, helicopter gunships, and tactical air in urban 

areas continue to be limited to corps and field force commanders. 

General Abrams promptly endorsed these recommendations and put 

them into effect insofar as they applied to his forces. In particular, 

he maintained tight control on airpower and artillery. On 22 June, 

Abrams rejected a request from General Weyand that authority for use 

of these weapons in designated built-up areas of Saigon be delegated 

to division commanders. He declared that “our military forces must 

find the way to save Saigon without destroying it.” Worthy though 

these sentiments were, the MACV-JGS study acknowledged, as did 

General Abrams, that if the enemy got into the cities in great enough 

force, massive destruction inevitably would result. Hence, the “key 

18

 Concern over damage inflicted in clearing the cities dated back to the Tet offensive; see 

Msg, Sharp to Westmoreland, 9 Mar 68, Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH, and Msg, 

Westmoreland MAC 6458 to Wheeler info Sharp, 17 May 68, ibid., May 68. Westmoreland History 

Notes, 1–31 May 68, tab 1; Westmoreland Schedule, 13–14 May 68, tab 2; MFR, 14 May 68, sub: 

Evaluation of Saigon Situation, tab 22; MFR, Westmoreland, 20 Jun 68, sub: Mission Council 

Meeting, 20 May 68, tab 55; Westmoreland History files no. 32 (1–31 May 68); Msg, MACV to 

JCS and CINCPAC, 8 Jun 68, tab 16, Westmoreland History files no. 33 (1–30 Jun 68), CMH. 

Clifford’s intervention is recounted in William M. Hammond, Public Affairs: The Military and 

the Media, 1968–1973, U.S. Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 1996) pp. 26–31.

U.S. soldier trains members

of Platoon 186 of the Popular

Forces on how to fire the M16 rifle.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

116

objective” in city defense continued to be “to intercept and engage 

the enemy prior to his reaching major urban areas.”19

The enemy’s third try at a nationwide offensive, which began on 17 

August, scarcely tested the allies’ new city fighting tactics. Forewarned, 

as in May, of the enemy’s plans, American and South Vietnamese forces 

completely preempted major Communist assaults on Saigon and Da 

Nang. The offensive quickly tailed off into ineffectual ground and fire 

attacks on lesser positions. As in May, the North Vietnamese and Viet 

Cong suffered heavy casualties for little gain.20

The three offensives of 1968, each weaker than the last, left 

Communist forces in South Vietnam depleted and in many cases 

demoralized. According to defector reports and captured documents, 

enemy field commanders complained openly that the general offensive had been planned on the basis of unrealistic information, clumsily 

executed, and barren of results commensurate with its cost in men and 

materiel. The commanders considered the May and August attacks, 

made without the advantage of surprise, to have been especially illadvised and disastrous. By drawing local force units in to keep up pressure on the cities, the continuing offensives attenuated revolutionary 

control in the villages and hamlets. A North Vietnamese official history 

later acknowledged:

Because the enemy’s situation and our situation had changed we had to fight continually 

and to concentrate on the cities. In the rural areas we were vulnerable and were strongly 

counterattacked by the enemy, so our forces were depleted and in some places the liberated 

area was reduced. The revolutionary movement in the Nam Bo lowlands encountered 

many difficulties and our offensive posture weakened. When the enemy launched a 

fierce counteroffensive our weaknesses and deficiencies caused the situation to undergo 

complicated changes.21

Between the May and August offensives, the Military Assistance 

Command carried out the tactically complex and politically delicate 

task of disengaging from Khe Sanh. Such disengagement was under consideration well before units of the 1st Cavalry and 3d Marine Divisions 

reestablished ground contact with the base early in April in Operation 

Pegasus. By that time, Generals Abrams, Cushman, and Momyer all 

19

 First quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 8249 to Weyand, 22 Jun 68; second is from Msg, 

Abrams MAC 8035 to Wheeler, 18 Jun 68. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. In same files, see Msg, 

Abrams MAC 7871 to Wheeler, 14 Jun 68. 20 MACV Hq, “One War,” ch. 4, pp. 32–37; MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 38, 133–36. Msgs, 

Abrams to Wheeler info Sharp, MAC 10181, 28 Jul 68; Abrams MAC 10260 to Wheeler, 30 Jul 68; 

Abrams MAC 11181 to Wheeler info McCain, 18 Aug 68; Abrams MAC 12145 to Field Force and 

Component Cdrs, 8 Sep 68. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 21

 Quotation is from War Experiences Recapitulation Committee, Resistance War, p. 110. Duiker, 

Road to Power, pp. 276–77; Ford, “Tet 1968,” pp. 196–200; CIA Intelligence Information Report, 

13 Aug 70, CMH. Despite the subject, this report, from an enemy defector, describes bitter criticism 

of the offensives by Communist field commanders and by observers from the People’s Republic of 

China.
117

General Abrams Takes Charge

had gone on record in favor of abandoning the fixed position at Khe 

Sanh at some point after the lifting of the siege. They advocated instead 

defending the northwestern corner of Quang Tri Province by airmobile 

operations from bases farther to the east and less vulnerable to North 

Vietnamese ground and artillery attack, a course of action made possible by the presence in northern I Corps of the 1st Cavalry and 101st 

Airborne Divisions and by the expansion of the logistical base in the 

region.22

General Westmoreland, however, remained reluctant to give up 

Khe Sanh if only because the enemy (and U.S. war critics) would proclaim such a withdrawal as an American defeat. At a senior I Corps 

commanders’ meeting at Provisional Corps headquarters on 14 April, 

Westmoreland angrily rejected a proposal by Generals Cushman and 

Rosson to dismantle Khe Sanh by the end of the month to regroup 

forces for a major assault on the enemy’s important A Shau Valley base 

area west of Hue and for other operations. Nevertheless, the MACV 

commander agreed in principle to a gradual reduction of the position 

in the context of continued search-and-destroy operations around it, 

with a view to closing Khe Sanh by early September. By that time, of 

course, General Abrams would be in command and make the final decision. The mid-May evacuation of Kham Duc, in which Westmoreland, 

Abrams, Cushman, and Momyer all concurred, clearly signaled MACV’s 

determination to avoid another siege in a remote place of limited 

value.23

When he took acting command of MACV in late May, General 

Abrams decided to move the Khe Sanh evacuation forward to counter 

threatening new maneuvers by enemy divisions in northern I Corps 

and to maintain strong American forces on the western approaches 

to Hue. Abrams realized, however, that he must avoid the appearance of a retreat forced by the enemy. After 3d Marine Division units 

had mauled a North Vietnamese division south of Khe Sanh, giving 

MACV a victory to cover the withdrawal, Abrams on 21 June, with 

Ambassador Bunker’s concurrence and administration approval, 

22 Msgs, Abrams PHB 181 and PHB 197 to Westmoreland, 28 Feb 68 and 1 Mar 68, Westmoreland 

Message files, Feb and Mar 68; Msg, Kerwin MAC 2929 to Abrams, 1 Mar 68. All in Abrams Papers, 

CMH. Shulimson et al., Marines in Vietnam, 1968, p. 312. Chaisson Diary, 9 Mar 68, box 9, Chaisson 

Papers, Hoover Institution. Interv, Col D. A. Doehle with Gen Walter T. Kerwin, Senior Officers 

Oral History Program, 1980, pp. 351–52, MHI, (hereafter cited as Kerwin Interv). Logistics progress is discussed in Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 09322 to CINCPAC info JCS, 3 Apr 8, tab 15, 

Westmoreland History files no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68), CMH. 23 The Provisional Corps meeting and its decisions are described in MFR, Chaisson, 17 Apr 68, 

sub: Report of Visit by COMUSMACV to Hq PCV, 14 Apr 68, tab 34, Westmoreland History files no. 

31 (1–30 Apr 68), CMH. This document contains handwritten amendments that make Westmoreland’s 

opposition to evacuating Khe Sanh appear less adamant than in the original text. For other accounts 

of the meeting, see Ltr, Chaisson to Mrs Chaisson, 17 Apr 68, box 7; and Chaisson Diary, 14 Apr 68, 

box 8, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution. Msg, Westmoreland MAC 02391 to Abrams, 1 Mar 68, 

Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH. Chaisson, in Ltr to Mrs Chaisson, 14 May 68, box 7, 

Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution, relates the Kham Duc evacuation to Khe Sanh.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

118

authorized Generals Cushman and Rosson to begin demolishing the 

base’s airstrip and defenses and removing men and equipment. The 

Saigon and Washington authorities carefully crafted the public presentation of the withdrawal, attempting to portray it as a redeployment 

of forces brought about by changing circumstances. They kept General 

Westmoreland informed about the operation and secured his public 

and private endorsement of it. This public relations effort fell short of 

success. Inevitably, the press, annoyed by Abrams’ attempt to delay the 

filing of stories on the pullout until it was well under way, interpreted 

the redeployment as a tacit admission that MACV had been wrong to 

defend Khe Sanh in the first place. On the ground, however, the operation went smoothly. By 5 July, allied forces had vacated the plateau, 

leaving behind only small reconnaissance elements.24

In November 1968, the Thieu administration, at the urging and 

with the assistance of MACV and the U.S. mission, undertook an ambitious new pacification campaign, to exploit what American officials 

believed was the vacuum in the countryside created by the enemy’s 

concentration on the cities. Circumstances late in the year favored 

the endeavor. Pacification had been making a slow but steady recovery since Tet. The government’s Regional and Popular Forces were 

increasing in size and improving in quality under MACV and CORDS 

programs instituted in late 1967, and the government’s post-Tet effort 

to create a mass People’s Self-Defense Force (PSDF) showed promise 

in both cities and countryside. Political considerations also came into 

play. MACV, the U.S. mission, and the Johnson administration all saw 

indications that the enemy, after the failure of its three offensives, was 

trying to establish political and military control over as much of the 

countryside as possible, in preparation for confronting the next U.S. 

president with a call for a cease-fire and a coalition government or territorial partition of South Vietnam. A successful pacification campaign 

would counter this ploy, and it also would demonstrate to the U.S. 

home front that the allies were making real progress and that the war 

was not stalemated.25 

24

 Msgs, Abrams MAC 7016 to Rosson, 28 May 68; Abrams MAC 8023 to Cushman info Rosson, 

17 Jun 68; Abrams MAC 8046, MAC 8206 and MAC 8719 to Wheeler and Sharp, 18, 21, 30 Jun 

68; Wheeler JCS 06844 to Abrams, 20 Jun 68; Wheeler JCS 06867 to Sharp and Abrams, 21 Jun 

68; Abrams MAC 8180 to Anderson, 21 Jun 68; Abrams MAC 8250 to Wheeler, 22 Jun 68; Abrams 

MAC 8394 to Westmoreland, 25 Jun 68; Westmoreland HWA 2153 and HWA 2165 to Abrams, 27 

Jun 68. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 34–38; 

Shulimson et al., Marines in Vietnam, 1968, ch. 16. 25 Pacification gains during 1968 are summarized in MACV Hq, “One War,” ch. 3, pp. 3–6, 11–14, 

17, and Ltr, Komer to William Leonhart, 17 Jul 68, Chronological file, Komer (1968), DepCORDS 

files, CMH. For political and diplomatic considerations, see Clarke, Final Years, pp. 304–05; Msg, 

Abrams MAC 12067 to Wheeler info McCain, 6 Sep 68, Abrams Papers; MFR, Chaisson, 5 Apr 68, 

sub: MACV Commanders’ Conference, 31 Mar 68, tab 68, Westmoreland History files no. 30 (1–30 

Apr 68), CMH. Also Memo, Komer for Abrams, 15 Sep 68, and Ltr, William P. Bundy, Asst Sec State 

for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, to Samuel D. Berger, Deputy Ambassador to South Vietnam, 7 Oct 

68, Accelerated Pacification Campaign Jan–Mar 69 file. Both in DepCORDS files, CMH.
119

General Abrams Takes Charge

Taking these factors into account, MACV and the U.S. mission 

during September and early October persuaded President Thieu to 

launch an Accelerated Pacification Campaign. Initially, Thieu favored a 

primary emphasis on consolidating Saigon’s control over already relatively secure areas. Komer, however, convinced Thieu and the American 

mission to concentrate instead on rapid if superficial expansion into 

contested parts of the countryside. The deputy for CORDS reasoned 

that the allies could “achieve greater results more quickly by seeking to 

expand a diluted form of government control while destroying enemy 

forces and infrastructure than by seeking a high degree of security and 

efficient administration” in regions currently dominated by Saigon. 

Komer argued that his approach would be more effective than Thieu’s 

as a counter to the enemy “if he plans any ceasefire/partition/coalition 

gambit.”26

As finally worked out, the campaign was to run from 1 November 

1968 through 31 January 1969, the end date coinciding conveniently 

with the Vietnamese Tet holiday and with the inauguration of the new 

U.S. president. It consisted of six subcampaigns, each, at Komer’s insistence, focused on simple, specific goals. The centerpiece was a drive to 

raise between 1,000 and 1,100 hamlets from contested or Viet Cong–

controlled status (D and E in the CORDS Hamlet Evaluation System) 

to partially government-controlled (C) status by occupying them with 

Regional and Popular Force units, setting up village and hamlet administrations, and organizing PSDF groups. An “intensive military spoiling 

campaign” was to keep enemy units away from the areas being pacified, and other campaigns were aimed at bringing in enemy defectors 

and killing or capturing political cadres. A vigorous new information 

program was to convince the people that the allies had the initiative 

and were moving rapidly to win the war. While Vietnamese civilian 

ministries and military forces were to carry out the campaign, the 

MACV and CORDS staffs drafted the plans and directives for it and 

closely monitored its progress.27

President Thieu and his administration pushed the campaign with 

what was, by Saigon government standards, great vigor. Thieu created a new Central Pacification and Development Council under his 

prime minister, Tran Van Huong, to give unified direction to this and 

subsequent pacification campaigns. The president visited each corps

to encourage activity and make sure that the regional authorities cor26 MACV Hq, “One War,” ch. 3, pp. 18–21. Memos, Komer for Abrams, 15 Sep 68, and 22 Sep 68, 

sub: The Counter-Offensive—How to Make It Work, Komer-Abrams file, 1968; Memo, Komer for 

Abrams, n.d., sub: Counteroffensive; Memo, n.d., sub: Feasibility Study for Accelerated Pacification 

Campaign, Accelerated Pacification Campaign Mar–Sep 68 file; DepCORDS files, CMH. 27 Memo, Col N. A. Parson, Jr, for Acting Chief Plans & Policy Div, n.d., sub: Counteroffensive 

Directives; Memo, MACV Office of AC/S CORDS for Distribution List, 23 Oct 68, sub: Planning 

Memorandum 807, Special Pacification Campaign; Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 32362 to SAs I, II, 

III, and IV Corps, 31 Oct 68, Accelerated Pacification Campaign Oct 68 file. All in DepCORDS files, 

CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

120

rectly understood the plan. At MACV’s direction, U.S. forces worked 

with the South Vietnamese Army and the Regional and Popular Forces

in cordon and search and other security operations.

Begun on schedule on 1 November, the Accelerated Pacification 

Campaign essentially had achieved its objectives by its 31 January 1969 

cutoff date. Overcoming light and scattered Viet Cong resistance, the 

government more than met its quota of 1,100 hamlets occupied. Its 

programs for increasing Viet Cong and North Vietnamese defections 

and uprooting the enemy’s clandestine administration respectively 

exceeded and came close to their numerical targets. Organization and 

training of new PSDF units went well, although arming of the militia 

lagged in most areas. American officials recognized that in the newly 

occupied hamlets pacification in the full social and political sense had 

hardly begun and that the campaign owed much of its success to the 

absence of systematic enemy opposition. Nevertheless, they believed 

that they had at least raised the government flag over much of the 

countryside and had significantly damaged the enemy’s rural apparatus. Perhaps most important, the South Vietnamese had gained from 

the campaign new confidence in their own capacities. The Accelerated 

Pacification Campaign thus laid the foundation for more thorough 

follow-up efforts during 1969.28

As the military and pacification campaigns went forward, MACV 

during the last half of 1968 carried out and partially modified reinforcement Program Six. One of the two Army brigades involved, the 3d of the 

82d Airborne Division, part of the February “emergency” reinforcement, 

was already in I Corps. The other, the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division 

(Mechanized), arrived in July, replacing the 27th Marine Regimental 

Landing Team, and began operations in northern Quang Tri. Two tactical fighter squadrons had deployed in May; and a stream of Army 

combat and combat service support units, including some reserve field 

artillery and engineer battalions, entered Vietnam during September and 

October. In September, at General Abrams’ recommendation, the Defense 

Department deleted from Program Six a reserve armored cavalry squadron and an evacuation hospital so that MACV could use the more than 

1,400 personnel spaces thus saved for purposes Abrams deemed more 

urgent, such as provision of more advisers and helicopter door gunners. 

The equipment of the deleted armored cavalry squadron went to outfit 

a new South Vietnamese squadron. Throughout the year, Abrams campaigned for reduction of the Program Five requirement to replace 12,545 

military personnel with locally hired civilian workers, contending that 

its implementation would reduce the efficiency and mobility of many 

28 MACV Hq, “One War,” ch. 3, pp. 21–24, 26–27, ch. 4, pp. 38–39. Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 

36703 to CINCPAC, 20 Nov 68, Accelerated Pacification Campaign Nov 68 file; Msg, Pacification 

and Development Council of CTZ 2 to Distribution List, 24 Dec 68; Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 

44492 to CINCPAC info JCS et al., 26 Dec 68; Paper, 28 Feb 69, sub: Summary of APC 1 Nov–31 

Jan, Accelerated Pacification Campaign Jan–Mar 69 file. All in DepCORDS files, CMH.
121

General Abrams Takes Charge

support units. The Defense Department, however, kept the program in 

effect, since it was needed to bring MACV’s total strength down to the 

Program Six ceiling of 549,500. By the end of 1968, all the services were 

well on the way to civilianizing the required billets.29

Building Up the RVNAF

General Abrams’ rejection of a U.S. armored cavalry squadron in 

Program Six in favor of equipment for a South Vietnamese one reflected 

MACV’s increased emphasis, dictated from Washington, on expanding 

and improving Saigon’s armed forces. The South Vietnamese government showed promising signs of strength after Tet. Its soldiers fought 

creditably during the offensive and in subsequent engagements. 

President Thieu took advantage of the Tet crisis to replace several of his 

weaker commanders and province chiefs, in the process strengthening 

his military faction at the expense of that of Vice President Ky. Thieu 

also seized the occasion to implement, and secure National Assembly 

assent to, a mobilization decree prepared earlier that extended the 

draft to 18- and 19-year-olds and recalled some 20,000 reservists to the 

colors. With volunteers and draftees flowing into its induction centers, 

the RVNAF rather rapidly replaced its Tet losses and seemed able to 

secure men for further expansion.30

In response to the Tet offensive, the Military Assistance Command 

accelerated its previously planned rearmament of the South Vietnamese 

with M16 rifles and secured as well additional M60 machine guns, 

mortars, and other weapons for the regular and territorial forces. The 

command made large new requests for trucks, helicopters, and armored 

personnel carriers. Encouraged by the comparative success of South 

Vietnam’s post-Tet manpower mobilization, MACV on 9 March completed a two-year plan for expanding Saigon’s armed forces to nearly 

780,000 men in 1969 and 801,000 by 1970—substantially higher goals 

than those of the command’s pre-Tet plans—and for adding combat 

and support units to make the South Vietnamese forces more nearly 

self-sufficient operationally and logistically. About half the strength 

increase would be in the Regional and Popular Forces, and the plan 

provided for formation of Regional Force battalions.31

29 MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 228–33. Msgs, Palmer ADV 1569 to Abrams, 9 Jun 68; 

Gen Johnson WDC 8527 to Palmer, 11 Jun 68; Abrams MAC 7755 to Beach and Palmer, 12 Jun 

68; Palmer ARV 1622 to Gen Johnson, 14 Jun 68; Abrams MAC 12189 to McCain info Wheeler et 

al., 9 Sep 68; Abrams MAC 12521 to Westmoreland info Wheeler et al., 16 Sep 68; Westmoreland 

WDC 13937 and WDC 14065 to Abrams info Wheeler, 12, 13 Sep 68; Westmoreland WDC 14398 

to Abrams, 20 Sep 68. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 30 Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, pp. 164–65, 170–71, sum up RVNAF post-Tet accomplishments. See also tab 68, Westmoreland History files no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68) and tabs 15 and 28, 

Westmoreland History files no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68), CMH; Clarke, Final Years, pp. 307–14. 31

 Sharp and Westmoreland, Report, pp. 215–16; Msg, Westmoreland MAC 02952 to Wheeler 

info Sharp, 2 Mar 68, Westmoreland Message files, Mar 68, CMH; Msgs, Abrams MAC 00273 to 

Gen Johnson, 7 Jan 68; Gen Johnson WDC 423 to Abrams, 9 Jan 68. Latter two in Abrams Papers, 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

122

Defense Secretary Clifford promptly approved MACV’s March plan 

but soon set more ambitious goals. Committed to the most rapid possible U.S. disengagement from the war, Clifford pressed strongly for 

transfer of the combat burden to the South Vietnamese. The bombing 

cutback of 31 March and the opening of negotiations, which raised the 

prospect of an early cease-fire and mutual U.S. and North Vietnamese 

troop withdrawals, increased the administration’s sense of urgency 

about preparing the South Vietnamese to stand alone, at least against 

a residual Viet Cong threat. Accordingly, on 16 April, Clifford directed 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff to prepare a “comprehensive, feasible action 

plan” with time-phased goals to make the RVNAF self-sufficient as soon 

as possible in logistics and air and artillery support. He declared: “We 

have embarked on a course of gradually shifting the burden of the war 

to GVN forces.” Hence, “There is an urgency to accomplishing these 

objectives.”32

The Military Assistance Command, to which the Joint Chiefs 

delegated the planning task, in May produced a detailed RVNAF 

Improvement and Modernization Plan. The planners assumed that 

after any mutual withdrawal of North Vietnamese and U.S. combat 

forces, five years would be needed to develop a RVNAF able to hold its 

own against the Viet Cong, who were expected to continue receiving 

North Vietnamese manpower and logistical support. In the interim, an 

American “residual force” would remain to assist the South Vietnamese. 

The plan called for a force buildup along the lines proposed in March, 

with the South Vietnamese reaching their peak combat strength in 

1970. Thereafter, gradual reductions in regular and territorial infantry 

would release manpower for new fixed-wing and helicopter air units 

and an enlarged seagoing and riverine navy. To support the plan, 

MACV prepared delivery schedules for large quantities of equipment 

ranging from M16s to M48 tanks. Assuming negotiated withdrawals 

began on 1 July 1968, the plan’s U.S. residual force would decline from 

61,500 men in June 1969 to 20,000 by June 1973 and remain at a level 

of about 16,600 indefinitely thereafter to perform tasks still beyond 

RVNAF capabilities. In late June, the Defense Department approved 

those parts of the May plan that covered re-equipping the existing 

CMH. Also Clarke, Final Years, pp. 286–87, 293–94. 32 Quotations from Clifford directive are in MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 252–53. Gen. 

William B. Rosson, USA (Ret), “Four Periods of American Involvement in Vietnam: Development 

and Implementation of Policy, Strategy and Programs, Described and Analyzed on the Basis of 

Service Experience at Progressively Senior Levels” (Ph.D. diss., New College, Oxford, England, 

1979), pp. 224–25 (hereafter cited as Rosson, “Involvement in Vietnam”), and Westmoreland, Soldier 

Reports, p. 382, comment on Secretary Clifford’s concern with disengagement from Vietnam. Msg, 

Westmoreland MAC 05010 to Wheeler and Sharp, 15 Apr 68, Westmoreland Message files, Apr 68, 

CMH. Clarke, Final Years, pp. 292, 294–95, emphasizes the relationship between the bombing cutback and the opening of peace talks on the one hand and the new impetus for RVNAF improvement 

on the other.
123

General Abrams Takes Charge

South Vietnamese forces and activating the additional combat units 

called for in 1969 and 1970.33

The administration then moved the goal posts again. As the Paris 

talks immediately deadlocked and the prospect faded of an early negotiated withdrawal, President Johnson, to defuse domestic antiwar sentiment, shifted his emphasis to securing a prompt, conspicuous increase 

in the South Vietnamese forces’ combat role. To facilitate this, Secretary 

Clifford, during a July visit to Saigon, instructed General Abrams to 

expand South Vietnamese ground combat elements at the expense 

of creating support units for self-sufficiency, on the assumption that 

U.S. participation in the war would continue for some time. MACV 

responded with a two-phase revised improvement and modernization 

plan. Phase I provided for maximum RVNAF combat forces based on an 

indefinite American presence at Program Six strength. Phase II incorporated the additions required for a force able to deal on its own with 

the Viet Cong. MACV and the administration rejected out of hand, as 

unrealistic and too expensive, the Joint General Staff’s independently 

prepared Plan Six, which envisioned a much more nearly self-sustaining establishment heavy in modern aircraft, armor, and artillery. Later 

in the year, as South Vietnam’s mobilization pushed RVNAF strength 

toward 800,000 well ahead of schedule, General Abrams proposed 

merging Phases I and II back together again into a single plan calling 

for a self-sufficient force of 877,000, to be achieved two years ahead of 

the previous target date. On 18 December, Clifford accepted this revision, which became known as the Accelerated Phase II Improvement 

and Modernization Plan.34

The improvement and modernization plans gave concrete form to 

ideas that had been in the air since late 1967, but they still left vital 

questions unanswered. For one, the exact relationship between RVNAF 

improvement and the pace of American withdrawal remained to be 

worked out. General Abrams and the Joint Chiefs realized that a toorapid U.S. departure could impose burdens that the South Vietnamese 

were not yet ready to assume. Then there was the question of what 

type self-sufficient force was being built. MACV’s plans simply added 

units and materiel to the existing RVNAF structure without much 

analysis of its suitability. Some officials, notably Deputy Secretary of 

Defense Nitze, claimed that the projected force was oriented too much 

toward conventional warfare rather than toward defeating the insurgency likely to remain after a U.S.–North Vietnamese withdrawal. On 

the other hand, the Joint General Staff, as indicated in their Plan Six, 

believed they needed if anything a more conventional force.35

33 Clarke, Final Years, pp. 295–96, 298. 34

 Ibid., pp. 298–301, recounts the evolution of the Accelerated Improvement and Modernization 

Plan. Msg, Abrams MAC 9713 to Wheeler, 18 Jul 68, Abrams Papers, CMH, reviews and rejects the 

JGS’s Plan Six. 35 These issues, and Nitze’s views, are recounted in Clarke, Final Years, pp. 301–04.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

124

Finally, could the RVNAF ever be expected to go it alone? In a 

December study, the CIA answered no, citing the familiar, endemic 

South Vietnamese failings: inadequate leadership, high desertion rates, 

rampant corruption, and overdependence on U.S. air and artillery 

support. Responding to the CIA study, General Abrams cited MACV’s 

continuing efforts to remedy RVNAF deficiencies. He also reiterated 

that the planned force was designed to “go it alone” only against the 

“internal threat.” It would not be able, he acknowledged, to defeat 

North Vietnamese divisions remaining in cross-border sanctuaries; and 

“it obviously could not cope, without external assistance, with an invasion by the forces of NVN.” MACV would continue to wrestle with 

these questions as it tried to prepare the South Vietnamese to fight 

their own war.36

The Paris Talks and the Bombing Halt

As the planning for RVNAF improvement and the launching of the 

Accelerated Pacification Campaign indicated, the Military Assistance 

Command conducted operations during the last half of 1968 with one 

eye always on the possibility of an agreement at the Paris talks. MACV 

also directly supported the American negotiating team with information, advice, and recommendations; and its commander took part in 

the deliberations that led up to the cessation of all American bombing 

of North Vietnam.

Information demands, from both Washington and Paris, were frequent and heavy. Even before the negotiations started, the administration required MACV to submit daily reports on military activity in 

northern I Corps, information that could be used to detect possible 

North Vietnamese escalation or de-escalation in that sensitive region. 

After the Paris meetings began on 10 May, the American negotiators 

regularly called on MACV for detailed reports, with frequent updates, 

on such subjects as allied offensive operations, North Vietnamese infiltration across the Demilitarized Zone and through Laos and Cambodia, 

North Vietnamese units in South Vietnam, and the attacks on Saigon. 

Along with the information demands came requests for MACV comments and recommendations on issues, including mutual troop withdrawal, re-demilitarization of the Demilitarized Zone, and how to 

respond if the Communists called for an immediate cease-fire.37

36 Quotations are from Msg, Abrams MAC 17134 to Wheeler info McCain, 15 Dec 68, Abrams 

Papers, CMH; see also in same collection Msg, Wheeler JCS 14581 to Abrams info McCain, 12 Dec 

68. Clarke, Final Years, pp. 335–36. 37 Msgs, Wheeler JCS 04785 to Sharp and Westmoreland, 3 May 68; Wheeler JCS 04014 to 

Westmoreland info Sharp, 12 Apr 68; Westmoreland Message files, Apr–May 68, CMH. Examples 

of information requests can be found throughout Westmoreland’s Message files for May 68 and in 

the Abrams Papers. For examples of requests for policy views, see Msgs, Wheeler JCS 04270 to 

Sharp and Westmoreland, 19 Apr 68; Westmoreland MAC 05388 to Sharp, 23 Apr 68; Lt Gen Berton 

E. Spivy, Jr, DJS/JCS 05639 to Sharp info Westmoreland, 23 May 68; Westmoreland MAC 6836 to 
125

General Abrams Takes Charge

The Military Assistance Command made its own organizational 

arrangements to support the talks. The command communicated with 

the American delegation through its senior military member—initially 

General Goodpaster, the new deputy COMUSMACV—who passed 

requests from Chief Delegates W. Averell Harriman and Cyrus R. Vance 

to Saigon either directly or through General Wheeler.38 In May, MACV 

dispatched the first of a series of liaison officers to Paris. Generally 

colonels from the J–2 section, these officers each spent two or three 

weeks with the delegation, briefing the diplomats on the current 

military situation and collecting information requests to take back to 

Saigon. Within MACV headquarters, General Westmoreland on 3 May 

established an International Affairs Division under the J–5 section. 

Composed of six officers chosen for extensive joint staff experience 

and knowledge of international relations, this division drafted MACV’s 

fact sheets and position papers on matters related to the negotiations. 

Much of the International Affairs Division’s output found its way into 

the series of messages, code-named Bamboo, through which General 

Abrams and Ambassador Bunker, beginning in October, jointly presented their views to the administration and the Paris delegation. 

These arrangements continued essentially unchanged when the Nixon 

administration took office early in 1969 and Henry Cabot Lodge 

replaced Ambassador Harriman as head of the U.S. negotiating team.39

As the negotiations developed, MACV, usually with the concurrence 

of the embassy, took a hard line on the issues. In April, both General 

Westmoreland and Ambassador Bunker, on trips to Washington, 

urged President Johnson to adopt a firm negotiating stance based 

on the premise that the allies were winning on the ground in South 

Vietnam. General Abrams declared that a cease-fire unaccompanied by 

a political agreement and North Vietnamese withdrawal from South 

Vietnam and the Laotian and Cambodian sanctuaries would be tantamount to allied defeat. If the enemy proposed one, it would be “as 

an attempt to circumvent the obstacle of our military force in order 

to further his political purposes”—an action Abrams and Ambassador 

Bunker both uneasily anticipated since they believed it would be in 

their adversaries’ best interests. Similarly, Abrams emphasized that 

any U.S.–North Vietnamese troop withdrawal agreement must include 

Sharp info Spivy, 25 May 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Apr–May 68, CMH. 38 President Johnson wanted General Goodpaster to be “in on the opening stages” of the talks before going on to Saigon. He was replaced in Paris after a few weeks by Maj. Gen. George M. Seignious 

from the JCS staff. In turn, General Weyand replaced Seignious in February 1969. Johnson, Vantage 

Point, p. 505; Msg, DCSPER DA WDC 2397 to Senior Cdrs, 11 Feb 69, Abrams Papers, CMH. 

39 Johnson, Vantage Point, p. 505, describes the initial composition of the Paris delegation. Also 

MACV History, 1968, vol. 2, pp. 788, 793; ibid., 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, p. 23; Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 

6521 to Goodpaster info Wheeler and Sharp, 18 May 68; Westmoreland MAC 6882 to Goodpaster, 

26 May 68; Goodpaster PAR 010 to Westmoreland, 28 May 68, Westmoreland Message files, May 

68, CMH. Msgs, Abrams MAC 7079 to Goodpaster, 29 May 68; Maj Gen George Seignious CROC 

040 to Abrams, 21 Jun 68 and 30 Nov 68; Abrams MAC 8319 to Seignious, 23 Jun 68; Wheeler JCS 

12997 to Abrams info McCain, 8 Nov 68. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

126

North Vietnamese forces in Laos and Cambodia and North Vietnamese 

“fillers” in Viet Cong units, as well as the North Vietnamese formations 

in the South, and must provide for reliable verification of compliance. 

However, he indicated that MACV could accept a more limited, perhaps tacit, withdrawal arrangement so long as it allowed the United 

States to retain enough forces in South Vietnam to balance the North 

Vietnamese remaining there.40

Throughout 1968, the negotiations, and MACV’s recommendations, centered on the question of a complete U.S. cessation of its 

bombing of North Vietnam. Generals Westmoreland and Abrams, 

along with Admiral Sharp during the remaining months of his tenure 

as CINCPAC, argued consistently against stopping air attacks on southern North Vietnam; instead, they suggested expansion of the bombing 

in retaliation for the enemy’s offensives. Typically, General Abrams in 

August warned that a bombing halt would allow the enemy to mass 

additional forces in and above the Demilitarized Zone, to the point 

where the allied positions in northern Quang Tri would become “untenable.” Nevertheless, the military leaders accepted the fact that political considerations might force a bombing halt. As early as April, they 

began planning for that eventuality. In September, Abrams directed 

the commanders of III Marine Amphibious Force and XXIV Corps (as 

Provisional Corps had been renamed on 15 August) to make recommendations for repositioning U.S. forces in northern I Corps when air 

attacks were stopped north of the Demilitarized Zone.41

During October, the negotiators at Paris moved toward agreement 

on a U.S. bombing halt in return for a North Vietnamese commitment to engage in prompt substantive talks that would include the 

Saigon government and the National Liberation Front. In addition, 

the Americans, partly on Soviet assurances, assumed that “understandings” existed under which the North Vietnamese, if the bombing were 

stopped, would cease violating the Demilitarized Zone, refrain from 

attacks on Saigon and other large South Vietnamese cities, and permit 

continued U.S. aerial reconnaissance over their territory. General 

Abrams, consulted on these terms in mid-October, declared them 

40

 Westmoreland’s and Bunker’s efforts are recounted in Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, p. 362, 

and Ltr, Berger to Westmoreland, 9 Apr 68, with attached paper by Amb Bunker, tab 27, Westmoreland 

History files no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68), CMH. Abrams quotation is from Msg, MAC 10907 to Wheeler 

and McCain, 22 Aug 69, Abrams Papers, CMH. In latter collection, see Msgs, Wheeler JCS 12997 

to Abrams info McCain, 8 Nov 68; Abrams MAC 12150 to Wheeler info McCain and Bunker, 8 Sep 

68; Abrams MAC 14480, MAC 14481, and MAC 17265 to Wheeler info McCain, 27 Oct 68, 19 Dec 

68; Abrams MAC 7494, MAC 11165, MAC 11166, and MAC 16244 to McCain and Wheeler, 12 Jun 

69, 27 Aug 69, 16 Dec 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 41 Johnson, Vantage Point, pp. 513–15, and Duiker, Road to Power, p. 276, conveniently summarize the negotiations. For military views, see Msg, Sharp to Wheeler info Westmoreland, 29 May 

68, Westmoreland Message files, 27 May–11 Jun 68, CMH. Msgs, Abrams MAC 10330 to Wheeler 

info Sharp, 31 Jul 68; Abrams MAC 11409 to W. W. Rostow, 23 Aug 68; Abrams MAC 12130 to 

Wheeler info McCain and Bunker, 8 Sep 68; Abrams MAC 12989 to Cushman info Stilwell, 25 Sep 

68. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 
127

General Abrams Takes Charge

acceptable provided that he retained authority to react promptly to 

enemy violations of the Demilitarized Zone and continue reconnaissance flights over the north. In answer to administration inquiries, 

he affirmed, as did Ambassador Bunker, that the allies could keep up 

the morale of their troops and the momentum of their operations in 

the south during a complete bombing halt. As the day of decision 

approached, Abrams, hurriedly flown to Washington, repeated these 

assurances in person to President Johnson at a predawn White House 

meeting on 29 October.42

Besides advising the administration on the bombing halt, MACV 

took part in bringing the South Vietnamese, who balked at the last 

minute, into the negotiations. At General Wheeler’s instructions, 

General Abrams informed President Thieu that he had sufficient 

authority to protect allied forces in the Demilitarized Zone area, that 

MACV would continue to carry the fight to the enemy in the south, 

and that the air forces which had ceased bombing North Vietnam 

would be shifted to “great effect” against the trails in Laos. Thieu, however, remained adamantly opposed to an agreement that accorded the 

Viet Cong equal status at the negotiating table with his government. 

After President Johnson unilaterally announced the bombing halt on 

31 October, MACV worked to maintain military cooperation with the 

South Vietnamese armed forces despite the diplomatic impasse. Abrams 

reported on 5 November that he and General Goodpaster were “on a 

program of getting around the country to as many people as we possibly can—US and Vietnamese—encouraging, pushing, pulling, listening and smelling.” Allied military cooperation in fact was unaffected 

by the intergovernmental disagreement. The Accelerated Pacification 

Campaign, for example, opened on schedule on 1 November. After the 

Thieu government finally joined the talks, MACV helped establish a 

secure communications link between Saigon and its Paris delegation. 

In February 1969, MACV and the Joint General Staff set up a combined 

working group to exchange views and information on the talks and 

coordinate advice to their respective military representatives at Paris.43

Except for the Demilitarized Zone, the 1 November bombing halt

had little inhibiting effect on MACV’s operations in South Vietnam. It 

soon became apparent that North Vietnamese troops were continuing 

42

 Duiker, Road to Power, p. 276; Henry Kissinger, The White House Years (Boston: Little, 

Brown, 1979), p. 237; Johnson, Vantage Point, pp. 515–21. Memo, Wheeler CM–4433–69 for Sec 

Def, 14 Jul 69, sub: The Role of the Soviet Union in the Paris Negotiations; Memo, Gen Goodpaster 

for Kissinger, 14 Apr 69 with attached chronology, box 098, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, 

McCain to Wheeler info Abrams, 21 Sep 68; Abrams MAC 14482 to Wheeler info McCain and 

Bunker, 27 Oct 68; Abrams to Goodpaster and Corcoran, 30 Oct 68. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 43

 Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 14904 to Wheeler and McCain, 5 Nov 68, Abrams 

Papers, CMH. In same collection, see Msgs, Wheeler JCS 12492 to Abrams info Goodpaster, 30 Oct 

68; Abrams MAC 14712 to Field Force and Component Cdrs, 1 Nov 68; Abrams MAC 14738 to Vice 

Adm Nels C. Johnson info McCain, 1 Nov 68; Wheeler JCS 12737 to Abrams info McCain, 5 Nov 

68; and Abrams MAC 14936 to Wheeler, 6 Nov 68. Also MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, p. 23.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

128

to harass allied forces from the southern half of the Demilitarized Zone. 

General Abrams, who already had the right to fire artillery into the 

area, promptly requested authority to conduct ground attacks into the 

zone to destroy these elements. The Johnson administration, unwilling to jeopardize its understandings with North Vietnam, refused that 

request; but it did permit MACV to send squad-size reconnaissance 

patrols into the southern half of the Demilitarized Zone and to use 

platoon-size forces, if necessary, to extract them if they came under 

attack. Abrams, citing escalating North Vietnamese violations of the 

Demilitarized Zone, continued to urge that he be allowed to operate 

in the southern half of the zone with forces “appropriate to the enemy 

threat involved.”44

Elsewhere in South Vietnam, the accent remained on the offensive. During General Abrams’ brief 29 October visit to Washington, 

President Johnson warned that if the allies reduced their military efforts 

the Communists never would negotiate seriously and directed his field 

commander to maintain maximum pressure on the enemy. According 

to Abrams, Johnson told him to “pour it on and keep pouring it on.” In 

a message announcing the bombing halt to his commanders, Abrams 

declared: “the order of the day is to intensify your offensive against 

infrastructure, guerrillas, and local force units, while maintaining unrelenting pressure on the VC/NVA main force units. We must carry the 

fight to the enemy and complete his destruction.” Nevertheless, while 

proclaiming the continuation of war as usual, General Abrams took the 

peace talks and their possible results into account as he formulated and 

promulgated his concept for defeating the enemy in South Vietnam.45

“One War”: The Abrams Approach

General Abrams’ concept for fighting the war in South Vietnam 

was based on his own experience and on the policies, forces, and situation he inherited. Abrams entered upon his command with a solid 

grounding in all the major aspects of the conflict. As Army vice chief of 

staff, Abrams had helped direct his service’s buildup and deployments 

for the war and had become familiar with the Army staff’s Program 

for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam 

(PROVN) study, which argued that winning the people’s allegiance 

to the Saigon government was the principal prerequisite for victory. 

During his year as deputy COMUSMACV, he had immersed himself in 

the problem of improving the South Vietnamese forces and also had 

44 Orders and rules of engagement for the bombing halt are in Msgs, JCS to AIG 7077, 1 Nov 68, 

box 105, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 2500 to McCain 

info Wheeler, 26 Feb 69, Abrams Papers, CMH. Demilitarized Zone authority can be traced in same 

collection, Nov–Dec 68. 45

 Johnson, Vantage Point, p. 523. First quote is from Msg, Abrams MAC 14904 to Wheeler and 

McCain, 5 Nov 68. Second is from Msg, Abrams MAC 14710 to All General Officers, 1 Nov 68. See 

also Msg, Abrams MAC 14936 to Wheeler, 6 Nov 68. All messages are in Abrams Papers, CMH.
129

General Abrams Takes Charge

overseen portions of the main force war at Dak To and in northern I 

Corps. Abrams inherited a MACV strategy that was evolving toward 

a broad-front, simultaneous attack on all elements of the enemy. He 

knew that no more American reinforcements were coming and that 

the administration wanted MACV to begin turning the war over to 

the South Vietnamese in preparation for eventual American disengagement from the conflict. He recognized that the Paris talks at any time 

might result in a speedup of that disengagement and in curtailment of 

MACV’s operations.46

Abrams’ immediate battlefield situation was favorable. He possessed 

a balanced American combat force and a completed logistical base, as 

well as a vastly expanded intelligence system. A unified American organization for promoting pacification was in place. The South Vietnamese 

government and armed forces had withstood the shock of Tet and 

seemed to be improving in stability and effectiveness. The enemy had 

come into the open in his repeated offensives and was suffering severe, 

possibly crippling, losses. Up to this point, COMUSMACV perforce had 

concentrated on the immediate problems of assembling his forces, stabilizing the Saigon government, and countering enemy offensives. As 

General Abrams took command, he seemed well positioned to advance 

beyond day-to-day improvisation toward systematic seizure of the initiative in all phases of the conflict.47

On most matters, the new MACV commander shared the views of 

his predecessor. General Abrams, while cautious in his public statements, assessed the war in generally optimistic terms. He believed that 

the South Vietnamese had fought well at Tet, that the enemy offensives 

were being defeated, and that allied forces were making progress in 

most aspects of the war. While aware of the importance of pacification, Abrams was a strong proponent of the use of American firepower, 

including the B–52s, which he regarded as his mobile reserve; and he 

believed, as he declared after Dak To, that “when the enemy comes 

forth from Cambodia or Laos with his principal formations looking 

for a fight we must go out and fight him.” Abrams was at best a reluctant supporter of the cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam. He 

regularly joined with Ambassador Bunker in urging both the Johnson 

and the Nixon administrations to retaliate against North Vietnam 

for continuing Communist attacks on South Vietnamese cities. Like 

General Westmoreland before him, Abrams campaigned continuously 

for authority to strike the enemy’s Cambodian and Laotian bases with 

46

 Abrams’ relationship to the Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South 

Vietnam (PROVN) is emphasized in MACV Hq, “One War,” ch. 2, pp. 9, 13. For his service as vice 

chief of staff, see Sorley, Thunderbolt, pp. 178–91. 47

 Abrams assesses the battlefield situation as favorable in Msg, MAC 14710 to All General 

Officers, 1 Nov 68, Abrams Papers, CMH. For South Vietnamese government improvement, see 

Clarke, Final Years, pp. 361, 507.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

130

artillery, airpower, and ground forces, citing the value of such attacks 

in preventing future Communist offensives.48

Abrams stood firm for the established MACV position in the continuing dispute with the CIA over enemy strength. After the deadlocked 

April 1968 conference, the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency 

(DIA) reached an agreement on an estimate of enemy main and local 

forces, administrative services, and guerrillas considerably higher than 

MACV’s. The two agencies also agreed to assign a number to the irregular self-defense forces but not to include them in the military strength 

total. MACV continued to oppose any quantification of the irregulars. 

Early in November, General Wheeler asked General Abrams to adopt 

the CIA-DIA estimate of North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam in 

preference to MACV’s, so that the government could speak with “one 

voice” on enemy strength in public statements and in the Paris talks. 

Abrams in reply declared that he would continue to rely on his J–2, in 

whose accuracy and objectivity he had full confidence, for the intelligence on which he fought the war and would take full responsibility 

for the military results of his doing so. Hence, he declined to change 

MACV’s official estimates for the sake of intergovernmental harmony. 

However, in all MACV public statements, Abrams would employ the 

compromise figures proposed by Wheeler. Abrams’ forthright stand 

avoided a repetition of the unseemly interagency horsetrading of the 

previous year, but it did nothing to resolve the fundamental conflict 

of estimates based on different methodologies and definitions. The 

incoming Nixon administration as a result was confronted with the disquieting fact that its civilian and military agencies still could not agree 

on the size of the enemy the United States was facing in Vietnam.49

While following established lines of MACV policy, Abrams lost no 

time in developing his own variations on many themes. The allied 

Combined Campaign Plan for 1969, issued on 30 September 1968, the 

first prepared under Abrams, restated the standard objectives of defeating enemy forces and extending government control and population 

security. However, the plan assumed no increase in American troops. It 

contained for the first time explicit provision for defense of cities and 

province capitals, and it emphasized pacification and the enlargement 

48

 This outline of Abrams’ views and policy positions is based on his message files for 1968 

and 1969 in the Abrams Papers, CMH. Unless otherwise noted, all messages cited below are from 

that source. The first quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 11239 to Wheeler info Sharp and 

Westmoreland, 22 Nov 67. A strong statement on the South Vietnamese Army is in MFR, Chaisson, 

5 Apr 68, sub: MACV Commanders’ Conference, 31 Mar 68, tab 68, Westmoreland History files 

no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68), CMH. Abrams’ recommendation for the Cambodia strike is in Msg, Abrams 

MAC 1782 to Wheeler and Nazarro, 9 Feb 69; see also Abrams MAC 2264 to Wheeler and McCain, 

20 Feb 69. 49

 CIA Memo, 7 Feb 69, CMH; Memo, Jeanne W. Davis, NSC Secretariat, for Offices of Vice 

President, Sec State, Sec Def, Director Emergency Preparedness, 22 Mar 69, sub: Revised Summary 

of Responses to NSSM 1: The Situation in Vietnam, NSSM 1 (29 Questions), 1969 file, DepCORDS 

files, CMH. Msgs, Wheeler JCS 12650 and JCS 12932 to McCain and Abrams, 1, 7 Nov 68; Abrams 

to Wheeler and McCain, MAC 14821, 3 Nov 68. All in Abrams Papers, CMH.
131

General Abrams Takes Charge

and improvement of South Vietnamese forces. In its most important 

departure from the past, the plan, in order to prepare the RVNAF “for 

the time when it must assume the entire responsibility,” eliminated 

the division of functions under which the Americans had fought the 

enemy’s big units while the South Vietnamese Army concentrated on 

pacification support. Henceforward, all allied units were to participate 

equally in the four primary military missions—attacking enemy main 

forces and base areas, guarding the borders and the Demilitarized Zone, 

defending the cities, and supporting pacification. Under the new dispensation, South Vietnamese infantry divisions were to be relieved 

from territorial security tasks by the Regional and Popular Forces as rapidly as the improvement of the territorial forces permitted. The South 

Vietnamese regulars were to direct their “primary efforts” to destruction of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong main forces, alongside the 

Americans and eventually replacing them.50

With the Program Six forces nearly all in hand, General Abrams in 

July 1968 established territorial priorities for the deployment of his U.S. 

divisions. He gave first priority to western III Corps and northern IV 

Corps, the region surrounding Saigon, which he labeled a “minimum 

risk” area. Second priority went to the whole of I Corps and third to the 

II Corps highlands, which were to be protected by minimum American 

forces backed by the South Vietnamese and the South Koreans along 

the coast. These priorities represented more a reaffirmation of existing policy than a radical change; hence, they resulted in few major 

relocations of troops. As noted previously, Abrams removed American 

forces from Khe Sanh in favor of a mobile posture in northwest Quang 

Tri. Late in October, with the North Vietnamese threat to northern I 

Corps diminishing as a result of allied operations and with an enemy 

buildup under way in Cambodia opposite Saigon, Abrams shifted 

the 1st Cavalry Division from I Corps to the border provinces of III 

Corps. There the division would operate against Communist bases and 

infiltration routes and preempt any new offensive against the capital. 

These rearrangements, in Abrams’ estimation, placed U.S. forces “in a 

position to counter likely enemy threats with a minimum of changes.” 

Like Westmoreland, Abrams kept no American units in reserve because 

their “superior tactical mobility . . . permits any ground forces out of 

contact to constitute the reserve.”51

50 Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces/Free World Military Assistance Force (RVNAF/FWMAF) 

Combined Campaign Plan, 1969, AB 144, 30 Sep 68, pp. 7–8; see also pp. 1–6 and 9–14; MACV 

History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, p. 5; Clarke, Final Years, p. 305, emphasizes how closely AB 144 resembled its predecessors. President Thieu had suggested to General Westmoreland back in April 

1968 that expansion of the territorial forces should release South Vietnamese units for “more military 

operations.” See MFR, Westmoreland, 20 Jun 68, sub: Meeting with Thieu on 10 Apr 68, tab 84, 

Westmoreland History files no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68), CMH. 51

 Quotations are from COMUSMACV Response to NSSM–1 Question 25, Jan 69, folder 20, 

Thayer Papers, CMH; MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, p. 18; MACV Hq, “One War,” ch. 4, pp. 

31, 37; Chaisson, Oral History, pp. 147–49; Msgs, Abrams MAC 14472 to McCain info Wheeler, 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

132

In northern I Corps, Abrams modified Westmoreland’s strongpoint 

obstacle system in the direction of a mobile, technology-based defense. 

He retained the bases and strongpoints already built in the eastern 

half of the barrier and arranged for troops of the South Vietnamese 

1st Division to garrison most of them. However, he discontinued construction of the remaining fortifications and barriers, which already 

had been suspended during the Tet offensive. In their place, Abrams 

established a network of electronic sensors across the entire southern 

edge of the Demilitarized Zone, tied in with the Air Force’s Igloo White

sensor system in Laos and monitored by a central surveillance facility. 

He planned to rely on the sensors, along with aerial reconnaissance and 

other means, to detect enemy forces moving out of the Demilitarized 

Zone and then strike the intruders with air, artillery, naval gunfire, and 

mobile ground forces. Abrams considered this revised system “more 

attuned to present requirements in that it provides for anti-infiltration hardware being utilized in complementary fashion to existing and 

anticipated tactical operations.”52 

During his first months as COMUSMACV, General Abrams urged 

his U.S. commanders to seek out and destroy the enemy units exposed 

by the Communist offensives. He strongly rejected administration suggestions, transmitted through Wheeler, that MACV cut back on offensive operations to reduce casualties. The best way to keep American 

losses down, he argued, was to “interpose a formidable array of combat 

power where the enemy is planning to fight.” Abrams stated at his first 

commanders’ conference that the “critical problem” was to “determine 

a practical way to inflict significant attrition on [the enemy], to grab 

hold of him and to destroy him. This is the payoff—to kill the enemy.” 

Anticipating the enemy’s August offensive, Abrams directed his commanders to preempt the Communists by launching attacks of their 

own. He declared:

I intend to accommodate the enemy in seeking battle and in fact to anticipate him wherever 

possible. . . . We must anticipate him, fix his major forces as far away as possible from 

our vital areas, and defeat him decisively. . . . We must concentrate every last element of 

available combat power on the enemy when he is located. . . . We must defeat his forces, 

then pursue them and destroy them.53

27 Oct 68; Abrams MAC 14496 to Cushman, 20 Oct 68. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. It should be 

noted that when Abrams ordered the movement of the 1st Cavalry Division, he already knew of the 

impending agreement on the bombing halt and de-escalation along the Demilitarized Zone. 52 Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC14168 to McCain info Wheeler, 21 Oct 68, Abrams 

Papers, CMH; MACV History, 1969, vol. 2, ch. 7, pp. 1–5. 53 First quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 8892 to Wheeler, 4 Jul 68; Abrams Papers, CMH. 

Second is from MACV Hq, “One War,” ch. 4, p. 30; see also ch. 4, pp. 31–32, 37. Third is from 

Msg, Abrams MAC 10181 to Wheeler info Sharp, 28 Jul 68; see also Msg, Abrams MAC 12535 to 

Wheeler and McCain, 17 Sep 68. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. MACV History, 1968, vol. 2, pp. 

30–32. See Abrams message files for Jun through Sep 68, Abrams Papers, for numerous other communications emphasizing the offensive.
133

General Abrams Takes Charge

After the defeat of the August offensive, and even more after the 

1 November bombing halt and the simultaneous launching of the 

Accelerated Pacification Campaign, General Abrams changed his 

emphasis. In his operational guidance to his commanders for the final 

quarter of 1968, Abrams directed them to cooperate with the South 

Vietnamese in “an intensive drive against the VC infrastructure and 

political apparatus aimed at eliminating it just as rapidly as possible; 

not suppress, but eliminate.” At his direction, American units supported the Accelerated Pacification Campaign both by conducting 

spoiling operations on the fringes of the pacification areas and by 

working directly with South Vietnamese regular and territorial forces in 

antiguerrilla and anti-infrastructure actions. After the Saigon government, capitalizing on the success of the accelerated campaign, issued a 

comprehensive annual pacification plan for 1969, Abrams ordered his 

commanders to give first priority to supporting it. Early in 1969, he 

told his commanders that the “most important objective, the one with 

the highest payoff” was to maintain the momentum of the pacification 

campaign. He declared later in the year that U.S. forces must consider 

“the protection of the populace” as their “primary role” and that “all 

of our actions, wherever they take place, are designed to accomplish 

this mission.”54

Abrams had several reasons for this change of operational emphasis. He believed, with the Army authors of PROVN, that restoration of 

Saigon’s control of the rural population, and of the rural population’s 

allegiance to Saigon, was central to the long-term survival of South 

Vietnam. As of late 1968, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong big units were 

disappearing from the battlefield into remote base areas or cross-border 

sanctuaries. The time thus was ripe and the troops available to go after 

the guerrillas and infrastructure, which now lacked their main force 

shield. Abrams recognized that enemy large-scale operations depended 

on prepositioned supplies and on intelligence and other support from 

the guerrillas and the clandestine Communist administration, known 

as the Viet Cong Infrastructure, so destruction of the Viet Cong’s rural 

network would help preempt future Communist offensives. Finally, 

Abrams took into account the political and diplomatic situation. He 

suspected, as did Ambassador Bunker and other American officials, that 

the enemy was trying to expand his control of territory in preparation 

for a call for a cease-fire, which would inhibit large-unit operations 

but not political subversion, terrorism, and guerrilla activity. Hence, 

the allies must intensify their own pacification and territorial control 

54

 First quotation is from Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 28710 to Cdr 7AF et al., 28 Sep 68 in 

MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, pp. 14–16. Second is from Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 3345 to 

Cdr 7AF et al., 17 Jan 69, ibid., pp. 18–19. Third is from Msg, CG III MAF to COMUSMACV info 

CG USARV, 29 Jul 69, Abrams Papers, CMH. MACV Hq, “One War,” ch. 3, pp. 24–30, ch. 4, pp. 

34–35, 38–41. MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, pp. 4–5; COMUSMACV Response to NSSM–1 

Question 25, Jan 69, folder 20, Thayer Papers, CMH. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

134

efforts so as not to “get ourselves into a position where we can lose the 

war strategically after having defeated the enemy on the battlefield.”55

The new pacification emphasis did not produce a drastic change 

in the activities of U.S. troops and was not intended to. American soldiers and marines, increasingly joined by South Vietnamese regulars, 

continued to devote most of their efforts to seeking out and destroying main force units and base areas. In November 1968, even as the 

Accelerated Pacification Campaign began, Abrams ordered III Marine 

Amphibious Force to prepare a large operation against the enemy’s 

Base Area 112 southwest of Da Nang, where two North Vietnamese 

divisions were believed to be lurking. Early in 1969, marines swept 

the remote Da Krong Valley in a major airmobile assault, and General 

Abrams endorsed a II Field Force plan for “opening up” War Zones 

C and D with “tank-heavy forces.” In response to a new Communist 

offensive early in 1969, Abrams again urged his commanders to pursue 

and annihilate the attackers. The task of uprooting the Viet Cong guerrillas and infrastructure and securing the population, Abrams emphasized, should be primarily the responsibility of the South Vietnamese 

territorial forces, police, and pacification cadre.56

Abrams viewed the continuing search-and-destroy operations—for 

public relations reasons, labeled “reconnaissances in force” or “spoiling 

attacks”—as contributing to pacification by keeping the Communist 

big units away from the populated areas. In mid-April 1969, he told a 

visiting Army historian that it was

essential to get out into the difficult western part of Vietnam in order to meet the enemy 

even as he begins his trek from sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos. This way we destroy 

his tediously-prepared logistical arrangements and thus in the end deny large-scale attacks 

on the populated areas. We have insufficient numbers to protect the population centers 

in a passive defense. Furthermore, when we have maintained the initiative—whether the 

enemy is technically on the offensive or not—our kill ratio is spectacular.57

55 Quotation is from Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 28710 to Cdr 7AF et al., 28 Sep 68, in MACV 

History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, pp. 14–16; see also pp. 16–17. Msg, Abrams MAC 14143 to Cushman 

et al., 20 Oct 68, Abrams Papers, CMH. Abrams assesses enemy post-bombing halt strategy in Msg, 

MAC 37666 to Field Force and Component Cdrs, 24 Nov 68, Accelerated Pacification Campaign, 

Nov 68 file, DepCORDS files, CMH. 56 Msgs, Abrams MAC 16032 to Cushman, 20 Nov 68; Abrams MAC 3806, MAC 4035 and 

MAC 16766 to Wheeler and McCain, 25, 30 Mar 69; 26 Dec 69; Abrams MAC 5970 to McConnell 

and McCain, 11 May 69; Abrams MAC 6112 to Lt Gen Julian J. Ewell, CG, II FFV, 14 May 69. 

All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Chaisson’s successor as MACV COC director notes the continuation 

of search-and-destroy operations under Abrams; see Interv, Marine Corps Historical Program with 

Lt Gen John N. McLaughlin, USMC, 1980, p. 18, MCHC (hereafter cited as McLaughlin Interv). 

The Da Krong Valley offensive, Operation Dewey Canyon, is described in detail in Charles R. 

Smith, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: High Mobility and Standdown, 1969 (Washington, D.C.: History 

and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1988), chs. 3 and 4. 57 Memo, Charles B. MacDonald for SJS MACV, 15 Apr 69, sub: Luncheon Meeting with 

COMUSMACV, MACV files, MHI.
135

General Abrams Takes Charge

Trying to give his command an understanding of how all types 

of operations fitted together, General Abrams promulgated his “one 

war” concept. He used the phrase as early as March 1968 and used it 

regularly after becoming COMUSMACV. Repeatedly, he reminded his 

commanders, his civil and military superiors, and his allies that the 

enemy knew “no such thing as a war of big battalions, a war of pacification, or a war of territorial security”; for the enemy it was all “just 

one, repeat one, war.” Since there was only one war, “friendly forces 

have got to . . . carry the battle to the enemy, simultaneously, in all the 

areas of the conflict,” bringing all types of power to “bear against the 

enemy in every area, in accordance with the way the enemy does his 

business.” Airpower, regular forces, territorial forces, and pacification 

cadre “all are to be part of the plan aimed at the VC/NVA and the VC 

infrastructure. All types of operations are to proceed simultaneously, 

aggressively, persistently, and intelligently. . . .” Abrams declared further: “The full spectrum of allied operations” was to be directed against 

“the full spectrum of Communist forces, organizations, activities, and 

facilities. The latter constitute, and are attacked, as a single coordinated 

system.”58

The “one war” concept bore a close family relationship to what 

General Westmoreland had called his “balanced” or “two-fisted” strategy, and indeed to every American strategic plan for Vietnam since 

1961, in that it envisioned simultaneous allied pressure on every echelon of the enemy’s system from main force units to hamlet party officials. Reflecting the new direction from Washington, Abrams added 

improvement and modernization of the South Vietnamese forces as a 

third leg of the policy. He also incorporated his proposals for attacks on 

the out-of-country sanctuaries. These he regarded as “a pool of options” 

with which to supplement his “foundation” programs—pacification 

and RVNAF improvement—“as the climate permits to increase the odds 

that the foundation programs . . . are enough to give this country and 

ours the . . . objective we seek.” Above all, Abrams emphasized that the 

“one war” concept involved operational and tactical flexibility:

The one war concept puts equal emphasis on military operations, improvement of RVNAF, 

and pacification—all of which are interrelated so that the better we do in one, the more our 

chance of progress in the others. The concept is a flexible one. As a practical matter, the 

relative priorities accorded these three efforts will vary with time and the requirements of 

any particular area.

Pressure is put on the enemy wherever and whenever he is found, using tactics best 

suited to the situation. . . . At the same time, we are working hard to improve RVNAF 

58 First quotation is from Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 30430 to Cdr 7AF et al., 13 Oct 68, in 

MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, pp. 16–17; see also p. 3. Second is from Msg, Abrams MAC 2127 

to CAS Paris for Weyand, 17 Feb 69, Abrams Papers, CMH; in same collection, see Msg, Abrams 

MAC 14329 to Wheeler info McCain, Bunker, 24 Oct 68. COMUSMACV Response to NSSM 1, 

Question 25, Jan 69, folder 20, Thayer Papers, CMH. MACV Hq, “One War,” ch. 4, pp. 20, 35–36. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

136

performance, often by means of combined military operations, and are supporting 

pacification wherever required.59

Besides promulgating the “one war” concept, General Abrams took 

steps to provide the Military Assistance Command with a long-range 

strategic plan based upon it. This plan was to constitute a framework 

for the annual campaign plans and guide MACV in its allocation 

of resources. To draft the plan, Abrams during the summer of 1968 

brought into the MACV J–5 section a group of field grade officers who 

had participated in the Army staff’s 1966 PROVN study. This Long 

Range Planning Task Group, headed by Lt. Col. Donald S. Marshall, 

was to “provide COMUSMACV with an overall plan to carry out and 

achieve his mission” and to make recommendations “that will influence the optimum allocation and utilization of [MACV’s] resources.” 

Working under Abrams’ close supervision, the group completed an 

initial concept for a MACV Strategic Objectives Plan late in November 

and finished a longer final draft early in 1969.60

The resulting MACV Strategic Objectives Plan included many 

familiar ideas and reflected the strong influence of General Abrams’ 

“one war” philosophy. For example, it incorporated in their entirety 

Abrams’ geographical priority areas and his call for a constant, coordinated attack on the entire enemy structure. It also reaffirmed the existing division of labor between regular and territorial forces. The plan’s 

originality lay in its analysis of the parameters within which MACV 

had to work and in its attempt to define attainable levels of success 

linked closely to a progressive reduction of U.S. forces in Vietnam.

The planners assumed that the level of American resources committed to South Vietnam had reached its peak and must be expected 

to decline under pressure of increasing home-front antiwar sentiment. 

That same sentiment likely would compel the incoming Nixon administration to move quickly toward disengagement, which meant that 

MACV had only limited time in which to achieve its goals. Under these 

circumstances, Marshall’s group asserted, MACV could not achieve 

the “ultimate” U.S. war objective, “A free, independent and viable . . . 

South Vietnam that is not hostile to the United States, functioning in a 

secure environment both internally and regionally,” the more so since 

59 First quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 3910 to Wheeler and McCain, 27 Mar 69, Abrams 

Papers, CMH; see also Msg, Abrams MAC 10629 to Palmer, 7 Aug 68. Second quotation is from 

Memo, Wheeler JCSM–443–69 for Sec Def, 18 Jul 69, an. E, box 76, NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA. Clarke, Final Years, p. 363, notes the parallel between the Westmoreland and Abrams 

approaches. 60 Quotation is from MACV CSAM 68–125, 31 Aug 68, in Long Range Planning Task Group 

(LRPTG), Briefing Given to COMUSMACV on 20 Nov 68 [and] for the MACV Staff on 26 Nov 

68; see also MFR, Lt Col Donald S. Marshall, 23 Nov 68, sub: Briefing for COMUSMACV on the 

MACV JSOP; both in MACV Strategic Objectives Planning file, CMH; MACV Hq, “One War,” ch. 

2, pp. 14–16; Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 613.
137

General Abrams Takes Charge

only the Saigon government could make the political, economic, and 

social changes required for national viability.

Hence, the planners defined more limited “immediate” and “intermediate” American objectives based on the gradual expansion of 

secure territory within which Saigon could conduct pacification and 

national development. The “immediate” goal—securing the most 

important population centers—should be achieved no later than July 

1970, at which time major American troop withdrawals could begin. 

The “intermediate” goal of extending security to most of the inhabited 

area of South Vietnam must be reached by July 1972, which would 

permit reduction of American forces to the level of an advisory group. 

Accomplishment of these objectives, the planners suggested, might 

convince the American public the war was not hopelessly stalemated 

and hence gain MACV more time to work toward its ultimate goal; but 

they warned that the presidential election year 1972 must be assumed 

to be the end point of the American effort.61

The keystone of the Marshall group’s proposed military strategy 

was an Area Security System that had as its objective “security up to the 

borders of South Vietnam, which is not dependent on the continued 

presence of US combat forces.” To keep up pressure on all elements 

of the enemy structure, the Area Security System would divide South 

Vietnam’s territory into four zones. In the Securing and Consolidation 

Zones, where government military and political influence predominated, territorial forces, police, and civil authorities would conduct 

pacification operations. In the outer Clearing and Border Surveillance 

Zones, American, allied, and South Vietnamese regulars would pursue 

enemy forces, sweep base areas, and drive back cross-border incursions. 

As enemy strength dwindled under this combined attack, the first two 

zones would expand to include most of South Vietnam’s people. If 

all worked as envisioned, Hanoi, with its main forces unable to operate safely in the South and its revolutionary organization there being 

uprooted, might weaken in its resolve to continue the war and agree 

to an acceptable settlement. Even if that did not occur, the United 

States could gradually transfer the Area Security System to the South 

Vietnamese, thereby achieving success “evidenced by a withdrawal of 

substantial numbers of US forces without a subsequent collapse of the 

GVN.”62

In May 1969, General Abrams proclaimed the MACV Strategic 

Objectives Plan and its Area Security System to be authoritative “overall guidance to the command.” MACV and the Joint General Staff 

subsequently published a combined version of the plan, for the most 

61

 LRPTG Briefing; LORAPL Marshall Committee, MACV Strategic Objectives Plan, ca. Mar 

69, pp. 7–10, 66, 102, 104–05, 196–97, 210–23, CMH. 62 First quotation is from LORAPL, MACV Strategic Objectives Plan, n.d., p. 133. Second quotation is from p. 11. The Area Security Concept is described in detail on pp. 125–45, 157–58, and 

193.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

138

part a Vietnamese translation of the original American document. The 

two headquarters incorporated the Area Security System into their 

annual combined campaign plans, beginning with that for 1970. Both 

the MACV and combined Strategic Objectives Plans underwent periodic revision. The later versions placed increasing emphasis on South 

Vietnamese self-reliance, for example by proposing military tactics less 

dependent on American firepower and logistic support. As so often 

happened with plans in Vietnam, the dates for achieving the immediate and intermediate objectives receded into the future with each new 

edition.63

When promulgated in the combined campaign plans, the Area 

Security System met criticism from American field commanders and 

from the CORDS staff. The critics objected that the system’s division of territory into Securing, Consolidation, Clearing, and Border 

Surveillance Zones did not take sufficient account of the fluid nature 

of control and security in many parts of South Vietnam. Lt. Gen. Julian 

J. Ewell, the II Field Force commander, for example, observed that “the 

enemy controls the actual security situation to some extent and as a 

result it tends to be fluid and dynamic rather than static.” In addition, the dissenters argued that the system threatened to undermine 

the “one war” concept by allowing the divorce of large-unit operations 

from territorial security. While he acknowledged the importance of 

these concerns and the need for local flexibility in implementing the 

concept, General Abrams nevertheless defended the overall scheme. He 

declared that it would “fix primary responsibility for security” in each 

zone and thereby make it “more difficult to evade this responsibility 

than has been the case in the past.” The field commanders dutifully 

incorporated the concept into their planning and to some degree at 

least into their operations.64

An additional deficiency in the long-range plan would become 

apparent only in retrospect: the Marshall group’s assumption that 

enemy strategy would not change. Marshall and his planners projected 

that the most “realistic” option for the North Vietnamese and Viet 

Cong to counter the Area Security Strategy would be to continue their 

existing combination of main force, guerrilla, and terrorist activity, possibly punctuated by “a sudden dramatic stroke” against Saigon, Hue, Da 

63 Abrams declares the plan authoritative in Memo for Distribution List, sub: Promulgation of 

MACV Strategic Objectives Plan, in LORAPL, MACV Strategic Objectives Plan. MACV Revised 

Strategic Objectives Plan, May 70, CMH; JGS/MACV Joint Objectives Plan, 7 Nov 71, CMH. For 

incorporation of Area Security into the combined campaign plan, see RVNAF/FWMAF Combined 

Campaign Plan, 1970, AB 145, 31 Oct 69, an. B, CMH. 64

 Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 613–14, describes American commanders’ coolness toward the 

plan. See also Memo, AC/S CORDS for MACV J5, 22 Apr 69, sub: The MACV Objectives Plan, 

MACV Strategic Objectives Plan file, CMH. Quotation is from Ewell HOA 3454 to Abrams, 19 Nov 

69; see also Msg, Maj Gen Roderick Wetherill, Senior Adviser, IV Corps, CTO 1822 to Abrams, 28 

Sep 69; Abrams quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 12996 to Wetherill, 5 Oct 69. All in Abrams 

Papers, CMH. 
139

General Abrams Takes Charge

Nang, or a province capital. The enemy’s immediate objective would 

be to undermine Saigon’s pacification effort and promote antiwar sentiment in the United States. Marshall’s group believed that major military escalation would expose the enemy’s forces to “great losses” and 

run the risk of provoking the United States to resume bombing North 

Vietnam. Given these considerations, the Communists were most likely 

to keep up a steady but relatively low level of military activity in support of a political “fight-talk-fight” strategy. The Marshall group failed 

to address the possibility that the North Vietnamese, as the American 

military presence in Southeast Asia diminished, might decide to wage 

a different kind of war. During the years following Abrams’ adoption of 

the Strategic Objectives Plan, the command, and also the administration in Washington, would develop and execute policy on the basis of 

the Marshall group’s assumptions.65

Taken as a whole, General Abrams’ approach to the war was an evolutionary expansion upon that of his predecessors. His achievement 

was one of synthesis. He drew together conceptually, with clarity and 

force, the basic strands of policy that had emerged during the previous 

six years. His “one war” concept and the Area Security System could 

trace their ancestry back to the “two-fisted” strategy and the “spreadingoil-spot” theory of pacification. Responding to Washington’s demands 

for movement toward turning the war over to the South Vietnamese, 

Abrams emphasized RVNAF improvement and modernization and 

looked ahead to American troop withdrawals with or without a cessation of hostilities. Stronger allied forces, a relatively stable Saigon government, and a weakened enemy permitted Abrams, for the first time 

in the war, to mount the balanced military and pacification offensive 

which Americans had envisioned since the early 1960s. In the end, 

however, the conflict was not to be resolved on the South Vietnam 

battlefield alone. Decisions in Washington and Hanoi, and diplomacy 

in Paris, ultimately would do more to shape the outcome than the “one 

war” concept. 

65 LORAPL Marshall Committee, MACV Strategic Objectives Plan, n.d., ca. Mar 69, pp. 76–77, 

CMH.

5

Redeployment and Vietnamization

When he inherited the Vietnam War from his Democratic predecessor, President Richard M. Nixon inherited also a general 

course of action and limited room for maneuver. President Johnson 

had stopped the bombing of North Vietnam, committed the United 

States to the Paris negotiations, topped off the American force in South 

Vietnam, and set the goal of reducing American involvement and turning the fighting of the war back to the South Vietnamese. The state of 

American public opinion made any reversal of this course unthinkable. In addition, the new administration faced a Congress controlled 

by Democrats, who were free as they had not been under Johnson to 

take radical antiwar positions. Hard-line anti-Communist though he 

had been throughout his political career, Nixon understood from the 

start that he had to disengage the United States from Vietnam or see 

his administration destroyed. Nevertheless, he and his advisers were 

determined to extricate the United States on terms that would give the 

Saigon regime at least a chance to survive and that would demonstrate 

to allies and enemies alike America’s will and ability to maintain its 

international commitments.1

Nixon Sets His Course

Nixon and his foreign policy team—National Security Adviser 

Henry A. Kissinger, Secretary of State William P. Rogers, and Secretary 

of Defense Melvin R. Laird—lost no time in reviewing the Vietnam situation and the available policy choices. Immediately after the inauguration on 20 January 1969, the administration issued National Security 

Study Memorandum (NSSM) 1. Addressed to the State and Defense 

Departments and the Central Intelligence Agency, NSSM 1 posed a set 

of detailed questions on six aspects of the war: negotiations, the enemy 

situation, the condition of the South Vietnamese armed forces, the 

status of pacification, South Vietnamese politics, and American objec-



 The administration’s overall approach is summarized in Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 

227–28, 298. Early administration reviews of options are described in Msg, Goodpaster JCS 01029 

to Abrams, 24 Jan 69, Abrams Papers, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

142

tives. Both General Abrams and Ambassador Bunker responded to this 

questionnaire through respectively the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and 

the State Department, and their evaluations were incorporated in those 

agencies’ replies.2

The agency answers, presented to the senior policymakers in midMarch, reflected consensus on some points but also many disagreements in fact and interpretation. The general agreement was that the 

allied position in Vietnam “has been strengthened recently in many 

respects” and that the enemy had suffered military and pacification 

reverses. Nevertheless, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong had the 

capacity to continue the war for a long while yet and had gone to Paris 

not out of weakness but in hopes of winning in the political arena 

the victory the United States was denying them on the battlefield. On 

many issues, the now-familiar lineup of optimists (the JCS, MACV, 

CINCPAC, and the U.S. Embassy in Saigon) and pessimists (Pentagon 

civilians, the CIA, and the State Department, Bureau of Intelligence and 

Research) appeared. The former group believed the government’s recent 

pacification gains were substantial and likely to be lasting; the latter 

considered the gains inflated and fragile. Similar differences existed 

 Kissinger, White House Years, p. 238; Clarke, Final Years, pp. 341–42. Msgs, Gen George 

S. Brown, USAF, to Abrams, 21 Jan 69; McConnell JCS 01649 to Gen Joseph J. Nazzaro, CINC, 

Pacific Air Forces, and Abrams, 7 Feb 69. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH.

Nixon and Kissinger
143

Redeployment and Vietnamization

over how much the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces was progressing under the Improvement and Modernization program. MACV and 

the CIA rehearsed once more their arguments over the enemy order of 

battle and the importance of the Sihanoukville supply route. In sum, 

the responses to NSSM 1 indicated that the allies were in no danger 

of defeat but also were far from anything resembling decisive victory, 

and that Saigon’s present and future capabilities still were very much 

in question.3

During its first year in office, the Nixon administration gradually 

developed a two-track policy of negotiation and what came to be called 

“Vietnamization”—that is, unilateral withdrawal of American combat 

troops combined with a major effort to strengthen Saigon’s armed 

forces. Nixon and his advisers hoped that this course of action would 

simultaneously increase chances of an acceptable settlement at Paris, 

maintain the allies’ relatively favorable battlefield situation in South 

Vietnam at less cost to the United States, and weaken or neutralize 

the domestic antiwar movement. At maximum, this policy would give 

a non-Communist South Vietnam a chance to survive, the preferred 

result from Nixon’s point of view. At minimum, the administration 

could disengage on acceptable terms without betraying an allied 

government that was still trying to carry on the fight, ensuring what 

Kissinger later called a “healthy interval” between America’s departure 

and Saigon’s ultimate fate.4

On the negotiation track, Nixon and Kissinger early initiated secret 

discussions with Hanoi and continued the open sessions at Paris. They 

also attempted, unsuccessfully, to obtain Soviet help in bringing Hanoi 

to terms. Nixon soon was compelled by domestic pressures to offer major 

political concessions. In a May 1969 Vietnam policy speech, the president publicly disavowed any intention to seek military victory (Lyndon 

Johnson had not sought such a victory either, but had not openly 

announced the fact.) and reduced the U.S. overall objective from securing a non-Communist South Vietnam to ensuring “self-determination” 

for the South Vietnamese people. He called for mutual withdrawals of 

U.S. and North Vietnamese troops under international supervision, to 

 Memo, Jeanne W. Davis, NSC Secretariat, for Offices of Vice President, Sec State, Sec Def, 

and Director of Emergency Preparedness, 22 Mar 69, sub: Revised Summary of Responses to NSSM 

1: The Situation in Vietnam, NSSM 1 (29 Questions) 1969 file, DepCORDS files, CMH; Historical 

Division, Joint Secretariat, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, “The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The 

Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” CMH, pp. 9–13 (hereafter referred to as 

“Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970”); Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 238–

39. Clarke, Final Years, pp. 342–46, notes MACV’s optimistic assessments of RVNAF progress. 

 Nixon laid out his basic strategy in National Security Decision Memorandum (NSDM) 9, 

sub: Vietnam, 1 Apr 69, box 1008, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. In same records, see Memo, 

Kissinger for the President, [Mar 69] sub: Vietnam Situation and Options, box 142; Memo, Kissinger 

for the President, 11 Sep 69, sub: Vietnam Options, box 091. Kissinger used the “healthy interval” 

phrase in a Draft Memo for the President, [Sep 71], sub: Vietnam, box 1013. Nixon’s first complete 

public statement of his policy came in a televised speech on 3 Nov 69. This speech is reviewed in 

Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 304–07; see also pp. 311 and 1480–82. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

144

be followed by a cease-fire and free internationally monitored elections 

with National Liberation Front participation. President Thieu, under 

American pressure, echoed the latter offer. Nixon pledged to accept 

any government in South Vietnam, including a Communist one, if 

it were installed by a free vote of the people. The North Vietnamese 

were unimpressed by these concessions. They persisted in their longstanding demands that the United States unilaterally remove its troops 

from South Vietnam and accept replacement of the Saigon regime by a 

coalition including the National Liberation Front, and in fact weighted 

in favor of the Communists, before the holding of elections. The latter 

demand, which Nixon, his advisers, and President Thieu considered 

tantamount to forcing Saigon’s surrender to the Communists, kept the 

Paris negotiations stalemated for the next two years.5

Both complement and alternative to negotiation was the second 

policy track—Vietnamization, a term coined by Defense Secretary 

Laird. The concept was hardly new. It traced its ancestry all the way 

back to the Comprehensive Plan for South Vietnam of 1963 and had 

been revived as a goal by the Johnson administration during 1967 and 

1968, although without implementing plans. In turning the concept 

into active policy, Nixon and his advisers hoped to achieve several 

objectives. By gradually removing U.S. troops and turning the fighting over to the improved South Vietnamese armed forces, they would 

increase pressure on North Vietnam to negotiate flexibly before it lost 

the leverage of American battle casualties and war costs. At the same 

time, Saigon would have stronger incentive to improve its combat and 

pacification performance and seek political accommodation with the 

Viet Cong. Finally and perhaps most importantly, troop withdrawals, 

by reassuring the American people that their country was on its way 

out of Vietnam, would undermine the antiwar movement and secure 

more time for the administration to build up Saigon’s position and 

pursue its negotiating strategy at Paris. Secretary Laird summarized for 

the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

By strengthening the capability of the South Vietnamese to defend themselves rather than 

depending on American troops, we provide an additional incentive to Hanoi to negotiate. 

If, on the other hand, Paris continues stalemated, Vietnamization provides the means for 

the orderly disinvolvement of American troops from combat without having to sacrifice 

our . . . objective—the right of self-determination for the people of Vietnam.6

 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 258–71, 277–83, 303; MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, 

pp. 38, 40–42, 44–45, and ch. 3, pp. 69–70; MACV Hq, “One War,” ch. 8, pp. 3–5, 7–8; MACV J–3, 

Force Planning Synopsis for Gen Abrams, 2:33–35, 213–14.

 Quotation is from Statement of Sec Def Melvin R. Laird before the Senate Foreign Relations 

Committee on 19 November 1969, p. 2, copy in CMH. Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 271–

72, credits Laird with inventing the term “Vietnamization” at a 28 Mar 69 NSC meeting. Memo, 

Kissinger for the President, 8 Jul 69, sub: SEQUOIA NSC Meeting on Vietnam, box 091, NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA.
145

Redeployment and Vietnamization

While the Nixon administration implemented negotiation and 

Vietnamization, it held open a third possibility: escalation of the war 

by massive air strikes on North Vietnam or large-scale air and ground 

attacks on the Cambodian and Laotian sanctuaries. More political 

than military in purpose, these campaigns could be used to retaliate 

for Communist violations of the 1968 bombing halt understandings or 

to shock and batter Hanoi toward a diplomatic settlement. The sanctuary attacks also would assist Vietnamization by disrupting enemy 

offensive preparations. Early in 1969, after the Communists launched 

a nationwide offensive that included renewed bombardment of Saigon 

and other South Vietnamese cities, the administration put the JCS, 

CINCPAC, and COMUSMACV to work on contingency plans for bombing North Vietnam and mining its ports. In response to this offensive, 

and as a signal of resolve to the Communist powers, President Nixon 

in mid-March began a publicly unacknowledged bombing of the 

Cambodian base areas. Aside from the Cambodian bombing, however, 

during the administration’s first year, escalation remained an option 

only, although one which ultimately would shape the final act of the 

war.7

Redeployment Planning Begins: NSSM 36

Vietnamization, in both its troop withdrawal and RVNAF improvement aspects, came to dominate the Military Assistance Command’s 

planning and operations. Troop withdrawal was not a new concept for 

MACV. Since July 1968, the headquarters, in coordination with Pacific 

Command, had been developing so-called T-Day (for termination of 

hostilities day) plans for withdrawing American forces in the context 

of a cease-fire and a parallel North Vietnamese pullback. These plans 

called for removing troops in increments over periods of six or twelve 

months and for leaving behind a “residual force” of more than 100,000 

men to continue supporting the South Vietnamese. Troop withdrawals during hostilities also had been under consideration. General 

Westmoreland had raised the possibility in public in November 1967. 

Late in March 1968, he directed the MACV J–3 section to determine 

when a successful South Vietnamese mobilization might permit a 

“token phase down (B[riga]de size) of U.S. forces without weakening 

overall posture.” General Abrams’ long-range strategic plan also envisioned American disengagement.8

 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 239–47, 249, 284–85. Memos, Rosson for Asst to the President 

for National Security Affairs, 20 Feb 69, sub: Vietnam Package, box 164; Laird to Kissinger, 21 Feb 

69, box 1007; Kissinger to the President, sub: Vietnam Options, 11 Sep 69, box 091. All in NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA. These plans and operations are discussed in more detail below in ch. 9, pp. 

280–83.

 Clarke, Final Years, pp. 302–04; Msg, Abrams MAC 14387 to McCain info Wheeler, 25 Oct 68, 

Abrams Papers, CMH. Westmoreland quotation is from MFR, Bryan, 31 Mar 68, sub: CIIB Meeting, 

30 Mar 68, tab 63, Westmoreland History file no. 30 (1–31 Mar 68), CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

146

The South Vietnamese, whether anticipating American action 

or expressing post-Tet self-confidence, themselves raised the issue. 

Beginning in spring of 1968 and continuing into early 1969, President 

Thieu, Vice President Ky, and Premier Huong periodically suggested 

that their armed forces had become strong enough to start replacing 

Americans on the battlefield; hence, withdrawal of at least one U.S. 

division might be feasible during 1969. The Vietnamese began pressing 

MACV to join them in preliminary planning for such an eventuality.9

General Abrams and his Washington superiors responded conservatively to these South Vietnamese overtures. President Nixon during 

January 1969 instructed Abrams to forbid any public discussion within 

MACV of unilateral withdrawals so as to avoid undermining the 

administration’s negotiating stance at Paris. Abrams complied, and he 

and Ambassador Bunker also vainly attempted to dissuade Thieu and 

his associates from pursuing the subject. In private conference, Abrams 

informed President Thieu and General Vien that the time was not yet 

right for major U.S. withdrawals and that significant improvement of 

Saigon’s forces was a prerequisite for them. Abrams did initiate tentative discussions with the Joint General Staff of conditions that would 

permit removal of American troops. At his direction, the MACV staff 

during February developed a “matrix” of “indicators,” built around the 

enemy threat, pacification progress, and the rate of RVNAF improvement, to guide withdrawal decisions.10

Even as he tried to rein in South Vietnamese speculation about 

American troop redeployments, General Abrams, in conjunction with 

Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., Sharp’s successor as CINCPAC, began 

planning for them. Believing that some form of American disengagement from Vietnam was inevitable, Abrams at the beginning of 1969 

established a small redeployment planning group, numbering at the 

outset less than five men, within the MACV J–3 section. Working in 

utmost secrecy, the details of its activities known only to Abrams and 

a few other key MACV staff officers, the group, headed initially by 

Col. Donn A. Starry, established the redeployment criteria that Abrams 

discussed with Thieu and Vien. They also outlined tentative plans for a 

one-division, later enlarged to a two-division, withdrawal during 1969. 

Pacific Command headquarters, meanwhile, adapted the automated 

 Vietnamese statements are summarized in MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 2–4, 6–7. 

Thieu broached this subject to Westmoreland as early April 1968; see Msg, Berger Saigon 24425 to 

Sec State, 10 Apr 68, tab 29, Westmoreland History file no. 31 (1–30 Apr 68), CMH; Clarke, Final 

Years, pp. 346–47. 10

 Msgs, Abrams MAC 766 to Wheeler and Nazzaro info Bunker et al., 17 Jan 69; Abrams MAC 

1751 to Wheeler and Nazzaro, 8 Feb 69; Nazzaro to Abrams, 19 Jan 69; Brown to Abrams, 21 Jan 

69; Abrams MAC 967 to Nazzaro, 21 Jan 69; Wheeler JCS 00867 to Abrams info Bunker et al., 22 

Jan 69; Wheeler JCS 01080 to Nazzaro and Abrams, 25 Jan 69; Wheeler JCS 01184 to Abrams info 

Nazzaro, 28 Jan 69; Abrams MAC 1360 to Field Force and Component Cdrs, 31 Jan 69; Abrams 

MAC 3388 to Wheeler, 16 Mar 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, 

pp. 4–5, 9. 
147

Redeployment and Vietnamization

troop and equipment database it had been using for T-Day planning to 

work out the logistics of incremental unilateral withdrawals.11

While he planned for redeployments, Abrams argued against their 

early implementation. MACV and the embassy jointly considered that 

U.S. troops were the “mainstay of our investment” in South Vietnam 

and “the primary, if not the only major negotiable element in our position”; hence, their presence “must be used to maximum advantage if 

there is to be a viable settlement.” Abrams, in his response to NSSM 1, 

stated firmly: “Under present conditions in South Vietnam, any significant reduction in current [U.S.] force levels will result in a significant 

decrease in combat capability.” He and his staff told Secretary Laird the 

same thing during Laird’s first visit to Vietnam in early March.12

The new secretary of defense rejected that conclusion. Laird, a politically astute former congressman, appreciated the depth of American 

popular disillusionment with the war. He entered office convinced that 

the administration, in order to maintain public support for engagement in Southeast Asia and secure resources to rebuild American military strength throughout the world, had to reduce Vietnam’s cost to 

the United States in men and money. During his March visit to Saigon, 

Laird told Ambassador Bunker, General Abrams, and President Thieu 

that for most Americans a satisfactory outcome of the war meant “the 

eventual disengagement of American men from combat” and that the 

“key factor” in sustaining American domestic support for the effort 

was to “find the means by which the burden of combat may promptly, 

and methodically, be shifted to the South Vietnamese.” He suggested 

that MACV and the mission “start doing some planning ourselves on 

numbers” for an early American troop reduction.13

On 13 March, in his trip report to the president, Laird declared that 

“it is essential that we decide now to initiate the removal from Southeast 

Asia of some U.S. military personnel.” He considered this course to be 

required by “our national interests, in the light of our military commitments worldwide” and indispensable to Saigon’s achievement of 

11 Interv, Abrams Project with Amb Samuel Berger, 17 May 77, pp. 3, 7, MHI (hereafter cited as 

Berger Interv); Interv, Abrams Project with Gen Donn A. Starry, 14 Dec 76, MHI, pp. 32–34 (hereafter cited as Starry Interv). Msgs, McCain to Gen Ralph E. Haines, CG, USARPAC et al., 10 Nov 68; 

Nazzaro to Abrams, 19 Jan 69; Abrams MAC 3388 to Wheeler, 16 Mar 69; McCain to Wheeler info 

Abrams, 28 Mar 69; Abrams Papers, CMH; MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, pp. 22–23. 12

 First quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 17265 to Wheeler, 19 Dec 68, Abrams Papers, 

CMH. Second is from COMUSMACV Response to NSSM 1 Question 26, Jan 69, folder 20, Thayer 

Papers, CMH. Memo, Laird for the President, 13 Mar 69, sub: Trip to Vietnam and CINCPAC, March 

5–12, 1969, box 142, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 13

 Laird’s political views and concerns are summarized in Kissinger, White House Years, p. 262; 

Douglas Kinnard, The Secretary of Defense (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1980), pp. 

125, 127–28, 149–51; and Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 56–57. Quotations 

are from Memo, Laird for the President, sub: Trip to Vietnam and CINCPAC, March 5–12, 1969, 13 

Mar 69, box 142, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA; and MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 10–12. 

Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 14–15, describes 

Laird’s trip to Southeast Asia.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

148

“true pacification and . . . control over its own population.” As the 

South Vietnamese forces improved, the United States should be able 

to reduce its share of the total military effort while still containing the 

enemy and putting pressure on him. Noting that the South Vietnamese 

leaders had expressed readiness for a sizeable American withdrawal, 

Laird declared that the Saigon forces’ improvement, “although perhaps 

less than desired,” was sufficient to justify the removal of 50,000 to 

70,000 troops from Southeast Asia during 1969. Laird urged the administration to make such a withdrawal and also recommended the development of long-range plans for methodical replacement of American 

with Vietnamese forces.14

General Abrams, alerted by General Wheeler to Laird’s recommendations, informed Wheeler on 16 March that he was aware of “no valid 

evidence” to justify an American troop reduction during 1969 of the 

size proposed by Laird. Nevertheless, in the wake of Laird’s visit and 

in anticipation of what now seemed inevitable, Abrams accelerated 

the MACV withdrawal planning effort and enlarged the staff group to 

include representatives of the component commands. He was urged 

on by General Wheeler, who informed him that the subject of troop 

reductions was “an exceedingly hot one” in Washington.15

By early April, Abrams’ staff group, in conjunction with Admiral 

McCain’s representatives, had completed plans for removing two divisions during 1969, one in the third quarter and the other in the fourth. 

They nominated the 3d Marine Division as the first to go. The division 

was a major combat unit, removal of which would demonstrate the reality of redeployment. The strong South Vietnamese 1st Division could 

fill in for the marines in northern I Corps; and the Marine division, if 

returned to its former base on Okinawa, could re-enter Vietnam quickly 

if necessary. Second to leave would be the Army’s 9th Infantry Division, 

then operating in the northern Mekong Delta, a region in which it 

long had been MACV and mission policy to minimize American troop 

presence. General Abrams urged that these and any subsequent withdrawals be carried out gradually, with the effect of each redeployment 

on the conditions MACV earlier had identified—pacification progress, 

RVNAF improvement, and the enemy threat—carefully assessed before 

beginning the next. He also suggested that expanded air and ground 

attacks on the Laotian and Cambodian sanctuaries would reduce enemy 

capabilities and thus open the way for more rapid removal of American 

troops.16

14 Memo, Laird for the President, 13 Mar 69, sub: Trip to Vietnam and CINCPAC, March 5–12, 

1969, box 142, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 15

 First quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 3308 to Wheeler, 16 Mar 69; second is from Msg, 

Wheeler JCS 03787 to Abrams info McCain, 27 Mar 69. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. See also 

Msgs, Wheeler JCS 03596 to Abrams, 24 Mar 69; and Abrams MAC 3910 to Wheeler and McCain, 

27 Mar 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 16

 Msg, Abrams to Goodpaster (transmitted to San Clemente from White House Situation Room), 

23 Mar 69, box 065, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, Abrams MAC 3693 to McCain, 22 Mar 
149

Redeployment and Vietnamization

These preliminary steps were soon overtaken by a more ambitious administration initiative. On 28 March, after a National Security 

Council review of Laird’s trip report, President Nixon decided to begin 

comprehensive redeployment planning. Implementing this decision, 

Dr. Kissinger on 10 April issued NSSM 36, which directed the secretary 

of defense, in coordination with the secretary of state and the director 

of the CIA, to prepare “a specific timetable for Vietnamizing the war.” 

Kissinger called for preparation of four alternative timetables, ranging from 18 to 42 months, for transferring all combat to the South 

Vietnamese and reducing the American role to support and advice. 

The planners were to assume that redeployments would start on 1 July 

1969, that enemy strength in South Vietnam would remain at its existing level, that there would be no diminution of allied military efforts 

except as it resulted from U.S. withdrawals not fully compensated for 

by the South Vietnamese, and that equipping and training the RVNAF 

would receive the “highest national priorities.” The president, Kissinger 

declared, wanted a preliminary plan, with specific troop withdrawal 

alternatives for the rest of 1969, by 1 June and a final overall plan by 

1 September.17

At the direction of the Joint Chiefs, the Military Assistance 

Command, in consultation with the Saigon Embassy and Pacific 

Command, prepared what became the core of the Joint Chiefs’ 

response to NSSM 36. In a preliminary version in May and a final version briefed to CINCPAC on 22 July, MACV’s NSSM 36 plan called for 

gradual withdrawal of about half the U.S. force from South Vietnam in 

conjunction with the transfer of combat to the South Vietnamese military while hostilities continued. The American troops were to leave in 

six increments on alternative schedules of 18, 24, 30, and 42 months. 

The MACV planners tentatively identified the divisions that would 

compose each increment. As provided in MACV’s earlier planning, the 

3d Marine Division and the 9th Infantry Division would be the first to 

withdraw. The duration of each increment could vary depending on 

which overall redeployment schedule was adopted. At the end of the 

withdrawals, a residual American force of nearly 270,000 men would 

remain. That force was to consist of air and ground units furnishing 

combat, logistical, and advisory support to the South Vietnamese, as 

well as two and two-thirds infantry divisions to protect U.S. bases and 

reinforce the RVNAF in emergencies.18

69; Abrams MAC 3878 to Wheeler, 27 Mar 69; Wheeler JCS 03837 to McCain info Abrams, 28 Mar 

69; McCain to Wheeler info Abrams, 30 Mar 69; Abrams MAC 4231 to McCain, 4 Apr 69; McCain 

to Abrams, 12 Apr 69; Abrams MAC 5238 to Wheeler and McCain, 24 Apr 69. All in Abrams Papers, 

CMH. MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 12–15; MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 4, p. 11; 

Rosson, “Involvement in Vietnam,” pp. 233–35. 17

 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 271–72; Clarke, Final Years, pp. 341, 348–49; NSSM 36, 

Kissinger to Secs State and Def and DCI, [10 Apr 69], sub: Vietnamizing the War, box 1009, NSC 

files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 18

 Rosson, “Involvement in Vietnam,” pp. 233, 240–41; MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

150

The Military Assistance Command was cautious in assessing the risks 

and feasibility of withdrawal. It emphasized that all the key variables—

pacification progress, enemy opposition, and RVNAF improvement—

were difficult to forecast and subject to rapid change. Tentatively, MACV 

concluded that the military risks of a 50,000-man withdrawal during 

the last half of 1969 were acceptable, but warned against any larger 

pullout during that period. As to the overall schedule, the command 

declared that the 18- and 24-month options posed severe dangers to 

both pacification and military security. Whatever the timetable, MACV 

emphasized the need to draw the South Vietnamese into the planning 

as soon as possible so as to give them time to reposition their forces 

and adjust politically and psychologically to the Americans’ departure. 

The command cautioned that if the other Free World allies reduced 

their forces as the Americans redeployed, the Americans would have 

to revise their plans for the residual force; and it urged that American 

forces in Thailand be kept at their existing level. Above all, MACV and 

the U.S. Embassy emphasized that American redeployments should be 

“based on a cut and try approach, and on a thorough evaluation of 

the effects of preceding redeployments and of the feasibility of further 

reductions.”19

The Joint Chiefs submitted their final response to NSSM 36 on 29 

August, after incorporating submissions from the CIA and the State 

Department as well as MACV and the Saigon mission. Their proposed 

withdrawal schedules and size and composition of what now was 

called the transitional support force substantially followed the Military 

Assistance Command’s plan. As MACV had recommended, the Joint 

Chiefs urged that withdrawal schedules remain flexible, with the decision on each succeeding increment based on evaluation of the effects 

of the previous one in relation to MACV’s three criteria. Secretary Laird 

endorsed the Joint Chiefs’ plan on 4 September. He and the Joint Chiefs 

recommended that the administration adopt the 24-month timetable 

for planning purposes, notwithstanding MACV’s assessment that 

such a short schedule posed severe risks of military and pacification 

setbacks. President Nixon made no definitive decision on the overall 

timetable, but he accepted in principle the Joint Chiefs’ “cut-and-try,” 

one-increment-at-a-time approach. The NSSM 36 concept formed the 

basis of the administration’s subsequent redeployment planning and 

62, 76.1, 83, 83.1; Memo, Brig Gen A. J. Bowley, USAF, Chief Strategic Plans and Policy Division, 

J–5, JCS, for Distribution List, 12 May 69, sub: Working Draft for Initial Report NSSM 36, folder 

35, Thayer Papers, CMH; USARV Fact Sheet, AVHGC-P, 17 Jul 69, sub: Update on NSSM 36—

Vietnamization; USARV Talking Paper, AVHGC-P, sub: NSSM 36—Vietnamization, 17 Jul 69, 

CMH; MACV, NSSM 36 Briefing of Final Report, CINCPAC 22 Jul 69, in MAC J303 Briefing Book 

No. 1, MACV Collection, MHI.

19

 Quotation is from MACV NSSM 36 Briefing, 22 Jul 69. MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, 

pp. 86–87; USARV Fact Sheet, AVHGC-P, 17 Jul 69, sub: Update on NSSM 36—Vietnamization, 

CMH.
151

Redeployment and Vietnamization

decisions, and Secretary Laird incorporated its 24-month schedule into 

his Defense budget projections.20

During their NSSM 36 planning, the JCS, CINCPAC, and MACV 

developed specific withdrawal proposals for the last half of 1969, 

encompassing what would become the first two of the overall timetable’s six increments. Late in April, representatives of MACV and 

CINCPAC briefed Secretary Laird on the finished version of General 

Abrams’ plan for withdrawing the 3d Marine Division during the third 

quarter followed by the 9th Infantry Division during the fourth. With 

support elements, each increment would include about 25,000 men. 

Both Abrams and McCain continued to emphasize the need for caution 

and for thorough evaluation between the two increments. Not fully 

satisfied with this plan, Laird early in May, to give President Nixon “a 

broader range of alternatives,” directed the military to prepare troop 

lists for a possible 100,000-man withdrawal during 1969 as well as 

those for their 50,000 proposal. MACV, while warning that such a large 

redeployment would have catastrophic results, developed the required 

list by adding a third increment built around the 4th Infantry Division 

from II Corps.21

In mid-May, President Nixon summoned General Abrams to 

Washington for consultations on withdrawal planning. Evidently cultivating Abrams as a source of information and advice independent 

of Laird, Nixon and Kissinger told the MACV commander that they 

wanted him to proceed with redeployment and Vietnamization in a 

“systematic and orderly fashion” and did not expect him to accept 

“undue risks” to the security of American forces. They enjoined Abrams 

not to succumb to “the pressures which will develop for premature U.S. 

disengagement” but instead to base his recommendations on his own 

analysis of the situation in South Vietnam. Abrams in response reiterated that a two-division withdrawal during the last half of 1969 “could” 

be feasible, but he urged that a decision and public announcement be 

delayed until July or August to give time for an up-to-date estimate of 

enemy activity. He again explained MACV’s three criteria for determining the feasibility of withdrawals and also declared that tactical air and 

B–52 operations must be maintained at their current rates during any 

ground force drawdown.22

20 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 106–07, 

120–23. Memo, Laird for the President, 2 Jun 69, sub: Vietnamizing the War (NSSM 36), box 089; 

Memo, Wheeler CM 4536–69 for Sec Def, 29 Aug 69, sub: Vietnamizing the War, box 091; Memo, 

Wheeler JCSM–522–1–69 for Sec Def, 29 Aug 69, sub: Vietnamizing the War, box 091; Memo, 

Laird for the President, sub: Vietnamizing the War (NSSM 36), 4 Sep 69, box 091. All in NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA. 21

 Kissinger, White House Years, p. 275. Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in 

Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 107–13. Msgs, Abrams MAC 4808 to McCain, 16 Apr 69; Abrams MAC 

4967 to Wheeler, 19 Apr 69; McConnell JCS 05630 to Abrams info McCain, 7 May 69; Abrams 

MAC 5970 to McConnell and McCain, 11 May 69; McCain to Wheeler info Abrams, 13 May 69. All 

in Abrams Papers, CMH. MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 22. 22 Quotations are from Memo, Kissinger for the President, sub: Talking Points for Use in Private 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

152

Despite Abrams’ advocacy of delay, Nixon and Laird, under intense 

political pressure, went ahead with plans for an early withdrawal. On 

2 June, after further exchanges with the Joint Chiefs, Abrams, and 

McCain, Laird recommended to the president that planning for 1969 

be based on a maximum of 50,000 troops with an immediate decision 

only on the first installment of 25,000, removal of which would begin 

in July. General Abrams meanwhile, in response to the Joint Chiefs’ 

concern about the threat to northern I Corps, revised the first increment to include only one regiment of the 3d Marine Division and the 

headquarters and two brigades of the 9th Infantry Division.23

With military planning for the initial withdrawal on the way to 

completion, President Nixon moved to secure the Saigon government’s 

Discussion with Gen Abrams, 9 May 69, box 137, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. MACV, Force 

Planning Synopsis, pp. 29–32. 23 Msgs, Abrams MAC 6542 to McCain info Wheeler, 22 May 69; Abrams MAC 6987 to Wheeler 

and McCain, 1 Jun 69; Abrams MAC 7021 to Wheeler and McCain, 2 Jun 69; Abrams MAC 7206 

to McCain, 6 Jun 69; Wheeler JCS 07142 to McCain and Abrams, 9 Jun 69; Abrams Papers, CMH. 

Memo, Laird for the President, 2 Jun 69, sub: Vietnamizing the War (NSSM 36), box 089, NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA; MACV Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 36–43, 47–49. Westmoreland, Soldier 

Reports, p. 381, claims that his protests to the Joint Chiefs and Henry Kissinger initiated the change 

in divisions in the first increment.

(Left to right) General Wheeler, General Abrams,

and Secretary of Defense Laird
153

Redeployment and Vietnamization

endorsement, and also that of his field commanders, before making a 

public announcement. He arranged to meet with President Thieu on 8 

June at the U.S. Pacific outpost of Midway, a site chosen because it had 

not been used for similar conferences by President Johnson and because 

it lacked inhabitants who might demonstrate against Nixon, Thieu, 

and the war. En route to Midway, Nixon met on 7 June in Honolulu 

with his principal civilian and military advisers, and with Ambassador 

Bunker, General Abrams, and Admiral McCain. Preparatory to this 

meeting, Wheeler repeatedly urged Abrams and McCain to emphasize 

for the president “the threat to U.S. forces and the risk involved in force 

reductions.” The chairman’s efforts to mobilize his field commanders 

against redeployment were in vain. At the preliminary gathering, the 

military commanders, pressed by the civilians who insisted redeployments were a political necessity, agreed to go forward with the first 

25,000-man withdrawal. According to Kissinger, they did so with obvious reluctance, since they knew they were committing themselves to a 

process that likely would be irreversible and deprive them of any real 

hope of victory.24

With the military leaders on board, the rest was anticlimax. At 

Midway on 8 June, President Thieu agreed without hesitation to the 

commencement of American withdrawals. Two days later, President 

Nixon announced that the United States would remove 25,000 troops 

from South Vietnam by the end of August. As planned, a regiment 

of the 3d Marine Division and the headquarters and two brigades of 

the 9th Infantry Division were the principal combat units to depart. 

Nixon pledged that after completion of the first withdrawal, he periodically would consider additional redeployments in the light of 

progress in the Paris talks, the pace of RVNAF improvement, and the 

level of enemy action. The following month, during a trip to Asia, 

the president expanded Vietnamization into his “Nixon Doctrine,” 

under which he pledged that the United States would protect its Asian 

allies against nuclear threats but declared that “in cases involving 

other types of aggression” America would furnish military and economic assistance but would “look to the nation directly threatened 

to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for 

its defense.”25

Once begun, American withdrawals took on a momentum of their 

own, each increment following the previous one in steady succession. 

Domestic political pressures, far more than MACV’s evaluation criteria, 

dictated the pace, as Nixon and the Democrats tried to outbid each 

24

 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 35, 272. Quotation is from Msg, Wheeler JCS 06337 to Abrams 

info McCain, 24 May 69, Abrams Papers, CMH. Conference preparations are covered in Msgs, Abrams 

MAC 6527 to Wheeler and McCain, 22 May 69; Wheeler JCS 06798 to McCain and Abrams, 2 Jun 69; 

Abrams MAC 7088 to Wheeler and McCain, 4 Jun 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 25 Quotations are from Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 222–25; see also pp. 273–74. Historical 

Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 109–10; MACV History, 

1969, vol. 1, ch. 4, pp. 10–11.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

154

other on withdrawal size and 

timing. In June, for example, 

former Defense Secretary Clark 

Clifford, writing in the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs, 

urged that the United States pull 

100,000 troops out of Vietnam 

by the end of 1969 and remove 

all combat personnel by the end 

of 1970. Nixon, at a 19 June 

news conference replied: “We 

have started to withdraw forces. 

. . . We will withdraw more,” 

and he expressed “hope that we 

could beat Mr. Clifford’s timetable.” During the Asian trip on 

which he promulgated the Nixon 

Doctrine, the president, in a brief 

stop in Saigon on 30 July, made 

it clear to President Thieu that 

continued withdrawals would be 

necessary to maintain American 

public support for the administration and the war.26

Even as the troops of the first increment, Phase I, boarded ships and 

planes, planning for the second redeployment increment, known as 

Phase II, got under way. Under administration pressure, this increment 

gradually expanded from 25,000 troops to 40,500. Abrams and McCain 

protested that such enlargement was unwarranted by the situation. In 

their final NSSM 36 report, the Joint Chiefs declared that removal of 

more than 50,000 men during 1969 “would be clearly without justification on military grounds and beyond the threshold of prudent risk.” 

Nevertheless, on 16 September, President Nixon directed the 40,500-

man pullout, built around the rest of the 3d Marine Division and the 

3d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, to be completed by 15 December.27

26 Quotation is from MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 65–66; see also pp. 85–86. Kissinger, 

White House Years, pp. 274–77, 282–83. Memo, Kissinger for the President, 8 Jul 69, sub: SEQUOIA 

NSC Meeting on Vietnam; and Memo, Sec State Rogers for Sec Def, sub: Your Memorandum 

Transmitting NSSM 36 Final Report . . . , 3 Sep 69, both in box 091, NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA, illustrate pressures within the administration for continued and larger withdrawals. 27 Kissinger, White House Years, p. 283; MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 69, 88, 93–94, 

96.1, 98–99, 104, 106, 108, 111–12, 115–19, 122.1, 136–37; Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of 

Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 113–24; MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 4, pp. 12–

13. For Abrams’ and McCain’s views, see Msgs, Abrams MAC 9967 to McCain, 2 Aug 69; McCain 

to Wheeler info Abrams, 13 Aug 69 and 23 Aug 69. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. Quotation is 

from Memo, Wheeler JCSM–522–1–69 for Sec Def, 29 Aug 69, box 091, NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA. 

President Thieu and President Nixon 

meet at Midway Island.
155

Redeployment and Vietnamization

Well before that date, planning started for Phase III, a 50,000-man 

withdrawal during the first three months of 1970. In November, after 

reporting an increased rate of enemy infiltration into South Vietnam 

and declaring that indications were mounting that the Communists 

might try another countrywide offensive around the time of Tet, General 

Abrams warned that “the situation is such that it would not repeat not 

be militarily sound to recommend further U.S. troop redeployments at 

this time.” Nixon nevertheless announced this third withdrawal on 15 

December. In a partial concession to the field commanders’ concerns, 

he set 15 April 1970 as the completion date for Phase III, thereby allowing Abrams to delay removal of the major combat units involved—the 

1st Infantry Division, a brigade of the 4th Division, and a Marine 

regimental landing team—until after the dangerous Tet period. By the 

end of 1969, the administration had withdrawn, or was committed to 

withdraw, 115,500 troops from Vietnam. While this pace was in line 

with the NSSM 36 two-year schedule, the steady sequence of announcements indicated definitely that “cut-and-try” was to be honored more 

in the breach than in the observance.28

28 Decision-making on Phase III can be traced in Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and 

the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 127–29; Abrams Message files, Oct–Dec 69, Abrams Papers, 

CMH; MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 150, 153–54, 161–66, 178–80, 184–88, 192–201, 206, 

212–15; and MACV History, 1970, vol. 1, ch. 4, p. 10. Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 15171 

to McCain and Wheeler, 23 Nov 69, Abrams Papers, CMH; in same collection, see Msgs, Abrams 

MAC 13589 to McCain and Wheeler, 19 Oct 69; McCain to Wheeler info Abrams, 23 Nov 69; and 

Abrams MAC 15267 to Wheeler, 25 Nov 69. 

First U.S. Marines leave Vietnam under President Nixon’s withdrawal program.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

156

Raising the Stakes in Vietnamization

Even as the administration put into effect the U.S. withdrawal part 

of Vietnamization, it set more ambitious goals for the improvement and 

modernization of the South Vietnamese armed forces. The Accelerated 

Phase II Improvement and Modernization Plan that President Nixon 

and Secretary Laird inherited from the Johnson administration was 

aimed at preparing the RVNAF to cope only with the Viet Cong after 

U.S. and North Vietnamese troops had left South Vietnam. During 

the first months of the new administration, the Joint Chiefs, Admiral 

McCain, and General Abrams continued to see this as the only achievable objective. Their planning under NSSM 36 assumed that a large 

residual American force would remain in South Vietnam as long as 

hostilities continued. Secretary Laird considered this prospect unsatisfactory. He declared in his March trip report:

I do not believe we can accept the proposition that U.S. forces must remain in substantial 

numbers indefinitely to contain the North Vietnamese threat, if political settlement proves 

unobtainable. The heavy expense of RVNAF modernization cannot be justified as a measure 

merely to permit the GVN to cope with local insurgency.29

President Thieu took the initiative in planning for a South 

Vietnamese force able to hold against both the Viet Cong and the 

North Vietnamese. At Midway, he presented to President Nixon a JGS 

proposal, based on their earlier Program Six, for enlarging the RVNAF 

to more than one million men and adding armor, heavy artillery, air 

defense, commando, and coastal and riverine units. The expansion 

would include the Regional and Popular Forces, which were to receive 

their own artillery, to free the South Vietnamese Army for mobile operations. Thieu also asked for American assistance in improving the living 

standards of his servicemen. General Abrams, as he had with Program 

Six, rejected most of Thieu’s proposal as too expensive and beyond the 

ability of the South Vietnamese to implement. He did recommend an 

increase of the RVNAF to more than 992,000 over the next three years, 

but favored only limited addition of heavy equipment and advised that 

the U.S. support new units only as Saigon demonstrated that it could 

organize and maintain them at no cost to the readiness of its existing 

forces. Abrams thus wanted to keep the RVNAF, an essentially light 

force, dependent on the U.S. residual contingent for its air support and 

heavy sophisticated weaponry.30

29 Quotation is from Memo, Laird for the President, 13 Mar 69, sub: Trip to Vietnam and 

CINCPAC, March 5–12, 1969, box 142, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, Abrams MAC 

5970 to McConnell and McCain, 11 May 69; and McCain to Wheeler info Abrams et al., 4 Jul 69, 

all in Abrams Papers, CMH, reiterate the established military view. Memo, W. H. Sullivan for Sec 

State, 19 Sep 69, sub: Vietnamizing the War, copy in CMH, argues that NSSM 36 all along implied 

a self-sufficient RVNAF. 30 Clarke, Final Years, pp. 351–53.
157

Redeployment and Vietnamization

After Midway, the American military leaders persisted in their assertion that the South Vietnamese could not stand alone. Late in July, 

General Wheeler, in a review for Secretary Laird of NSSM 36 planning, 

declared that “the resulting structure is not designed to provide the 

South Vietnamese armed forces the capability to deal with both the full 

enemy guerrilla force in country and cope with the North Vietnamese 

armed forces.” Unless the North Vietnamese could be induced to withdraw from South Vietnam and their Laotian and Cambodian bases, a 

U.S. residual force would have to remain “for some years to come.” 

Wheeler concluded: “RVNAF alone cannot in the near future maintain 

the integrity of South Vietnam.”31

In mid-August, Secretary Laird approved Abrams’ post-Midway 

proposals for expanding Saigon’s armed forces, with the proviso that 

the services would have to fund the increases out of their own budgets 

and furnish the equipment from their own stocks or from redeploying 

American units. At the same time, Laird directed the Joint Chiefs and the 

services to review the entire improvement and modernization program 

“with the goal of developing an RVNAF with the capability to cope successfully with the combined Viet Cong–North Vietnamese Army threat.” 

The review should consider, besides force increases, such qualitative 

issues as leadership improvement, desertion reduction, strengthening of 

intelligence and logistics, and “most important, development of strategy 

31

 Msg, Wheeler JCS 09112 to Abrams, 23 Jul 69, Abrams Papers, CMH.

South Vietnamese President Thieu meets with his troops.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

158

and tactics best matched with RVNAF capabilities.” Early in September, 

General Abrams and Admiral McCain replied, in effect, that RVNAF selfsufficiency was unattainable. No feasible qualitative and quantitative 

improvements, they argued, could enable the South Vietnamese to cope 

with the entire enemy threat; they would continue to need substantial 

American forces to assist them.32

Secretary Laird rejected this conclusion and further increased the 

stakes. On 10 November 1969, he instructed the Joint Chiefs to develop 

a Phase III Improvement and Modernization Plan designed to “raise 

RVNAF effectiveness to the point where the government of Vietnam 

. . . can maintain at least current levels of security” while U.S. forces 

were reduced first to a support force of 190,000–260,000 by 1 July 1971 

and then, “by continuing steps,” to the level of a Military Assistance 

Advisory Group by 1 July 1973. Laird called for development of RVNAF 

air, artillery, transportation, and supply units to replace the American 

residual force previously assumed; and he repeated his demand for programs for improvement in South Vietnamese training, leadership, and 

morale. The Defense Secretary thus wiped out any long-term American 

supplementation of South Vietnamese strength even as he demanded 

that Saigon shoulder the entire burden. With considerable understatement, General Wheeler observed that this instruction represented “a 

substantial departure from the [Vietnamization] concept as we have 

known it up to now.”33

Under Laird’s prodding, MACV and the Joint Chiefs in December 

developed a Phase III Improvement and Modernization Plan for a 

more nearly self-sufficient RVNAF. Assuming that the existing expansion programs, due to be completed in July 1970, would succeed and 

that continuing advances in pacification and territorial security would 

weaken the Viet Cong and make more manpower available to Saigon, 

they decided that the South Vietnamese forces could be enlarged sufficiently to meet the entire threat if they received continuing American 

materiel and financial support. Under the Phase III Improvement and 

Modernization Plan, the RVNAF would grow to more than one million 

men by mid-1973; and it was to receive new support units, including 

field artillery battalions, truck companies, and helicopter squadrons, 

to replace the departing American forces. After a visit to Saigon by 

Laird in February 1970, the Joint Chiefs of Staff amended the plan 

to incorporate Vietnamese requests for more heavy artillery for the 

South Vietnamese Army, a separate field artillery force for the Regional 

and Popular Forces, and subsidies for soldier food and housing—all 

elements of Thieu’s Midway proposal. The revised plan, completed in 

32 Quotations are from Memo, Laird for Secs Army, Navy, and Air Force and the Chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, 12 Aug 69, sub: Government of Vietnam Proposals Presented at the Midway 

Conference . . . , CMH. Clarke, Final Years, pp. 353–54; MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, p. 107. 33 First quotation is from MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 178–80. Second is from p. 181; 

see also pp. 182–83. Clarke, Final Years, p. 355.
159

Redeployment and Vietnamization

April, became known as the Consolidated RVNAF Improvement and 

Modernization Plan (CRIMP).34

Throughout this discussion, and indeed throughout the planning 

that followed, the exact nature of the North Vietnamese threat that 

Saigon should be prepared to ward off by its own efforts was not specified. As with MACV’s long-range plan for South Vietnam, the participants in both Washington and Saigon appear to have had in mind 

the existing North Vietnamese reinforcement of the Viet Cong with 

light infantry divisions and fillers for depleted southern units, not a 

full-scale conventional invasion. Secretary Laird, for example, repeatedly emphasized the desirability of preparing the South Vietnamese to 

operate without the lavish firepower used by U.S. forces—an approach 

that made sense only in the context of the mixed conventional and 

guerrilla conflict then in progress. Despite these uncertainties, the 

implementation of the CRIMP, in the context of continuing U.S. force 

reductions, was to be the Military Assistance Command’s main task for 

the next three years.35

Redeployment Accelerates

In his November directive setting the goal of military self-sufficiency for Saigon, Laird did more than enlarge the objectives of 

American military assistance to the South Vietnamese. He also established a firm timetable for removing American troops from the war. 

By setting 1 July 1971 as the date for reaching the 260,000-man transitional support force level, Laird for practical purposes adopted the 

NSSM 36 two-year option; and he allowed only two more years for 

reducing the transitional force to an advisory and assistance group. 

A master of Washington bureaucratic warfare, Laird kept up the pressure within the administration for withdrawing troops as rapidly as 

could be done without causing Saigon’s immediate collapse. To give 

personal direction to the Vietnamization program, he set up a special 

Vietnam Task Force within the Defense Department, including officials who previously had advised the de-escalation-minded McNamara 

and Clifford. Every six months or so, Laird visited Vietnam and 

returned with reports of progress in military operations, pacification, 

and RVNAF improvement, which he then cited to justify continuing 

U.S. troop withdrawals.36

34

 Clarke, Final Years, pp. 355–59. Abrams elaborates on the pacification rationale in Msg, 

Abrams MAC 1232 to McCain info Wheeler, 27 Jan 70, Abrams Papers, CMH. 35 For an example of Laird’s view, see MFR, Phil A. Odeen, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with 

Secretary Laird, 1 Nov 71, folder 78, Thayer Papers, CMH. 36 Kinnard, Secretary of Defense, pp. 128–29, 230. Minutes of Laird’s task force are in folders 

75–78, Thayer Papers, CMH. Typical of Laird trip reports is Memo, Laird for the President, 17 Feb 

70, sub: Trip to Vietnam and CINCPAC, Feb 10–14, 1970, box 144, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 

The U.S. intention to withdraw combat forces at a rate somewhere between minimum military risk 

and a threat to Saigon’s survival is stated in MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 261–63.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

160

Laird’s approach, with which Secretary of State Rogers concurred, differed from that of President Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger. Nixon and Kissinger, while committed 

to Vietnamization, preferred a more gradual American withdrawal 

as a means of maintaining the U.S. negotiating posture in Paris and 

ensuring the position of the South Vietnamese on the ground. Both 

men distrusted the Defense and State bureaucracies as disloyal nests 

of Johnson administration holdovers. Kissinger repeatedly warned the 

president that Laird’s plans rested on questionable assumptions about 

the rate of South Vietnamese progress and took little account of possible increases in enemy forces or activity. As withdrawal planning 

developed, Kissinger, usually with Nixon’s support, attempted to insert 

more time and greater flexibility into Laird’s program.37

Laird frustrated most of these efforts through his management of the 

Defense budget. From the time Nixon took office, his administration 

faced a strong bipartisan congressional drive to reduce military spending and shift funds to domestic programs. In this climate, the administration had to allocate steadily diminishing defense resources among 

the war, other military missions, and the increasingly urgent need of 

the services for new equipment. Early in 1970, making a virtue of this 

necessity, Laird directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to base their budget 

projections for fiscal year 197138 and beyond on a steady drawdown of 

troops and decline of military activity in Vietnam. He instructed them 

to assume a force level of no more than 260,000 (and possibly less) by 

30 June 1971 and an advisory group of no more than 43,000 by 30 

June 1973. Regularly, he warned the Joint Chiefs, Admiral McCain, and 

General Abrams that, given the budget stringency, any redeployment 

slowdown would have to be compensated for by reductions elsewhere 

in the military establishment.39

Kissinger succinctly summarized the effects of Laird’s action. 

“Currently,” he told the president early in 1970, “budget ceilings are 

being used to determine the pace of Vietnamization.” Vietnamization 

programs were “competing with all other priorities—NATO programs, 

37 Kinnard, Secretary of Defense, p. 134. Memo, Kissinger for the President, 9 Mar 70, sub: 

The Risks of Vietnamization, box 091; Memo, Laurence E. Lynn, Jr, for Kissinger, 26 Mar 70, 

sub: Secretary Laird’s Trip Report, box 144; Memo, Kissinger for the President, 16 Apr 70, sub: 

Problems on Vietnamization, box 145; Memo, Kissinger for the President, [June 70], [sub:] Review 

of Vietnamization, box 091; Memo, Haig for Kissinger, 4 Apr 70, sub: Vietnam, box 1009. All in 

NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 38 In this period, the government’s fiscal year ran from 1 July to 30 June, so that fiscal year 1971 

encompassed the period 1 July 1970 through 30 June 1971. 39 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 212–15; Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the 

War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 62–63, 133–39, 381, 386–88; MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, 

pp. 282–85, 322–24. Memo, Laird for the President, 17 Feb 70, sub: Trip to Vietnam and CINCPAC, 

February 10–14, 1970, box 144; Memo, Laird for the President, 27 Feb 70, sub: FY 1970–71 Budget 

Situation for Vietnam, box 091; Memo, Laird for the President, 4 Apr 70, sub: Vietnam, box 145; 

Memo, Sec Army Stanley R. Resor for Sec Def, 12 Aug 70, sub: . . .Vietnam Trip, box 245, NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA. Msg, Wheeler JCS 03939 to McCain and Abrams, 1 Apr 69, Abrams Papers. 
161

Redeployment and Vietnamization

new weapons systems, etc.,” with the Joint Chiefs and the services being 

“asked to adjudicate among the priorities” and possibly to “forego programs to which they have long-standing operational or political commitments.” The services, to save other forces and programs, increasingly allied themselves with Laird in favor of rapid withdrawal. While 

Kissinger understood Laird’s strategy, given the budget stringency, he 

had no way to counter it. The Defense budget set the parameters of 

redeployment planning during the next two years.40

Discussion of the next redeployment (Phase IV) began even as the 

units designated for Phase III were standing down from operations 

and preparing for departure. During February 1970, General Abrams 

informed General Wheeler that he considered the 260,000 level by 

mid-1971 to be a “realistic planning objective.” On the basis of MACV 

staff studies, he told his component and field force commanders at the 

same time that if the military and political situations remained stable, 

“by carefully assessing the situation as we go along, it might well be 

possible to redeploy 150,000 U.S. troops from Vietnam in 1970.” MACV 

planners had ready a detailed outline of how such a redeployment, and 

its accompanying repositioning of the South Vietnamese Army, could 

be carried out.41

Nevertheless, during February and March, Abrams, with the support 

of Admiral McCain and the Joint Chiefs, argued for a delay in starting 

Phase IV. He cited increased supply movement in Laos, a shift of five 

regiments from III to IV Corps, and the discovery of substantial caches 

near Saigon as indications of a possible major enemy offensive during 

the spring and early summer. He declared in addition that American 

withdrawals thus far had stretched to the limit the South Vietnamese 

ability to take over new areas of responsibility while still maintaining 

adequate corps- and national-level reserves. Hence, the Vietnamese 

needed a “breathing spell” after Phase III. Declaring that another large 

withdrawal on the heels of Phase III would upset the “military and psychological balance” in South Vietnam, Abrams recommended against 

additional U.S. redeployments during the spring and early summer of 

1970. The MACV commander protested as well the growing dominance 

of the budget in redeployment considerations. He expressed concern 

that the United States was abandoning its cut-and-try withdrawal criteria and violating understandings with the South Vietnamese about the 

level of support they could expect to receive. “In summary,” he cabled 

40

 Quotations are from Memo, Kissinger for the President, 19 Mar 70, sub: The Risks of 

Vietnamization, box 091, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. In same collection, see Memo, Lynn for 

Kissinger, 13 Mar 70, sub: The Risks for Vietnamization, and Memo, Lynn for Kissinger, 1 Jul 70, 

sub: Vietnamization, box 092; and Memo, Kissinger for the President, 3 Aug 71, sub: Air Activities 

in Southeast Asia, FY 1972 and FY 1973, box 156. The latter document reflects Abrams’ realization 

that the services “want out of the Vietnam war.” Kinnard, Secretary of Defense, p. 133. 41 Quotations are from Msg, Abrams MAC 1517 to Component and Field Force Cdrs, 1 Feb 70, 

Abrams Papers, CMH. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

162

Wheeler on 8 March, “I must report that this is not the direction nor 

the program I had believed we were on.”42

During March and April, Laird, the Joint Chiefs, McCain, and 

Abrams exchanged views on a range of Phase IV troop packages and 

time schedules. Nixon and Kissinger, however, set the course. The 

president and his national security adviser sympathized with General 

Abrams’ desire to retain as much combat power as possible through the 

summer, especially in the light of a new Communist offensive in Laos 

and the upheaval in Cambodia following the overthrow of President 

Norodom Sihanouk in March by an anti-Communist faction. They also 

wanted to slow the momentum of withdrawal and gain flexibility in 

managing it. Nixon accordingly adopted a plan, advanced by Kissinger, 

to announce in April a withdrawal of 150,000 men, to be completed 

by 30 April 1971. This redeployment, which would reduce American 

strength in Vietnam to about 284,000, in fact would maintain the 

NSSM 36 two-year schedule; but removal of most of the troops would 

occur late in the period, on a timetable based on Abrams’ assessments. 

No more than 60,000 men would leave Vietnam during the rest of 

1970.43

Outflanking Laird and the rest of the Cabinet, Kissinger on 6 April, 

using CIA communications, secretly sought the views of Abrams and 

Bunker on the proposal. Abrams already knew of the plan through military backchannel exchanges with Admiral McCain and the Joint Chiefs. 

At a hastily called midnight meeting, Abrams and a few key staff officers discussed the plan. They all were reluctant to commit themselves 

to such a large redeployment over such a long period, thereby finally 

abandoning MACV’s cherished principle of “cut-and-try” gradualism. 

Abrams nevertheless recognized that the president was under intense 

political pressure on the issue and that the plan offered MACV some 

room for maneuver. He finally telephoned his assent to Bunker, who 

informed the White House through the CIA channel. Nixon then had 

Bunker secure President Thieu’s agreement, again while keeping both 

Laird and Rogers ignorant of the plan and allowing them to transmit 

different proposals through their departments’ channels. Only late 

in the afternoon of 20 April, the day set for the announcement, did 

Kissinger tell Laird and Rogers what was afoot. That evening, Nixon in 

a televised address to the nation announced that “we have now reached 

a point where we can confidently move from a period of ‘cut and try’ 

42

 First quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 2009 to McCain, 12 Feb 70; the second is from 

Msg, Abrams MAC 3081 to McCain info Wheeler, 8 Mar 70. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. In 

same collection, see Msgs, Abrams MAC 3303 to McCain and Wheeler, 13 Mar 70, and McCain to 

Wheeler info Abrams et al., 16 Mar 70. Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in 

Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 383–85. 43

 Msg, Abrams MAC 4527 to McCain info Wheeler et al., 6 Apr 70, Abrams Papers, CMH, is 

an example of the various plans. See also MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 271–73, 279–80, 

296–97. Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 475–83, describes the development of the 150,000-man 

withdrawal plan.
163

Redeployment and Vietnamization

to a longer-range program for the replacement of Americans by South 

Vietnamese troops” and that 150,000 American soldiers would leave 

Vietnam over the next year.44

Planning for the 150,000 redeployment took place against the background of the American–South Vietnamese incursions into Cambodia 

and the resulting revival of antiwar agitation in Congress and the 

streets. General Abrams suggested the slowest possible implementation—20,000 troops by 1 September, another 30,000 by the end of 

the year, and the remaining 100,000 during the first half of 1971. On 

24 April, Secretary Laird directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to prepare a 

plan for removing 50,000 troops by 15 October but declared that total 

withdrawals during 1970 need not exceed 60,000. The Joint Chiefs late 

in May proposed two plans. Alternative A, which reflected Abrams’ 

preference, would remove 60,000 troops during 1970, with 50,000 out 

by 15 October, and the remaining 90,000 during the first four months 

of 1971. Alternative B called for two redeployments, of 60,000 and 

40,000, during 1970, followed early in 1971 by one of 50,000. The Joint 

Chiefs declared that both alternatives involved “substantial risks which 

are beyond prudent levels” but favored Alternative A as the lesser evil 

even though it would cost one billion dollars more than currently budgeted for Vietnam. General Abrams and Admiral McCain also endorsed 

Alternative A. Abrams declared it would “facilitate accomplishment of 

tasks essential to Vietnamization” during the last half of 1970, including the continuation of South Vietnamese cross-border operations to 

assist the beleaguered anti-Communist government of Cambodia.45

On 3 June, the president publicly announced that 50,000 troops 

would redeploy by 15 October; but budget constraints soon forced the 

administration to abandon the rest of Alternative A. Late in July, the 

secretary of the Army informed Secretary Laird that, due to budget 

limitations and reduced draft calls (previously ordered by Laird), the 

Army could meet the Vietnam troop requirements of Alternative A 

only through deep cuts in its worldwide forces, including those committed to NATO. It also would have difficulty supporting the Joint 

Chiefs’ Alternative B. In response, Laird on 30 July, after again ruling 

out any attempt to increase the fiscal year 1971 budget, directed the 

44 The messages between the White House and Bunker are in box 410, NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA. Msgs, Abrams MAC 4582 to Moorer and McCain, 8 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 4619 to Moorer 

and McCain, 8 Apr 70; and McCain to Moorer info Abrams, 8 Apr 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 

MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 301–03. Abrams’ chief of staff describes Abrams’ decision in 

Interv, Abrams Project with Lt Gen Donald H. Cowles, 20 Dec 75, pp. 29–30, MHI (hereafter cited 

as Cowles Interv). Nixon quotation is from Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. 

Richard Nixon, 1970 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), p. 374. 45

 Msg, Abrams MAC 5495 to Wheeler, 25 Apr 70, Abrams Papers, CMH; MACV History, 1970, 

Supp., p. 9; Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 

385–86, 390–92. Quotations are from MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 315–17; see also pp. 

303–06, 318.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

164

Joint Chiefs to develop a new plan “to continue the momentum of the 

redeployments beyond October 15th to the end of the year.”46

After mulling over various alternatives, late in August the Joint 

Chiefs accepted a proposal from General Abrams to withdraw 50,000 

men by 15 October, another 40,000 by 31 December, and 60,000 by 30 

April 1971. Abrams and Admiral McCain considered that this schedule, 

labeled Alternative C, entailed severe risks of military and pacification 

setbacks in I and II Corps, would cause difficult logistical problems, 

and would reduce South Vietnamese ability to continue operations in 

Cambodia. Both men preferred Alternative A as “militarily the only 

prudent redeployment program,” but they accepted Alternative C as the 

best available compromise “designed to accommodate imposed manpower and budgetary constraints.” When consulted, President Thieu 

acquiesced in the new scheme, although he pointed out that it would 

force withdrawal of a South Vietnamese task force from Cambodia. On 

20 August, Secretary Laird recommended Alternative C to the White 

House. Nixon and Kissinger, recognizing that the plan represented a 

reversal of their original intent, sought but failed to find an alternative 

to it. On 12 October, as the 50,000-man redeployment was nearing 

completion, President Nixon announced that another withdrawal, of 

40,000 men, would be completed before the end of the year. Meanwhile, 

the Joint Chiefs, Admiral McCain, and General Abrams prepared plans 

for the final 60,000-man increment.47

At the end of April 1971, with completion of the last increment of 

the 150,000-man withdrawal, U.S. military strength in Vietnam was 

approaching the NSSM 36 transitional support force level. In Vietnam, 

the decline of American troop strength to this point had caused no 

apparent military or pacification setbacks. In the United States, the 

Nixon administration was working under intensifying congressional 

pressure to set a final withdrawal date, continuing budgetary and manpower limitations, and an awareness of approaching South Vietnamese 

and American presidential elections. Given these pressures, and the 

favorable battlefield situation, redeployments could only accelerate.48

Defense Department fiscal planning assumed a steady force drawdown in Vietnam. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, expecting further funding 

reductions and declining draft calls, in mid-December 1970 reduced 

46

 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 392–98; 

Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 984–85. Quotation is from MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, p. 

334; see also pp. 319–21, 333, 335. 47

 Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 12215 to McCain info Moorer, 9 Sep 70, Abrams Papers. 

In same collection, see Msgs, McCain to Moorer info Abrams et al., 9 and 10 Sep 70. MACV, Force 

Planning Synopsis, pp. 336–39, 341, 343–44, 346–47, 351–52, 359; Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs 

of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 398–400; Memo, 20 Oct 70, [sub:] Conversation 

between Kissinger, Bunker, and William R. Smyser, 3:00 p.m., Oct 19, 1970, box 149, NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA. 48

 Memo, Haig for Kissinger, 15 Jan 71, sub: Your Meeting with Secretary Laird . . . , box 083, 

NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA, illustrates the continuing influence of budget pressures.
165

Redeployment and Vietnamization

their projected U.S. force in Vietnam at the end of fiscal year 1971 

(mid-1971) from 260,000 to 255,000, and they proposed a strength 

of 200,000 for mid-1972. General Westmoreland, the Army chief of 

staff, declared that, under current budget and draft call projections, 

his service could maintain the contemplated force levels in Vietnam 

only through “serious degradation” of Army units elsewhere. The 

Joint Chiefs, while acknowledging the Army’s difficulties, nevertheless 

held to the 200,000 level for mid-1972, arguing that it would provide 

enough American troops to prevent major military setbacks, respond 

to contingencies, and permit continued South Vietnamese operations 

in Cambodia. General Abrams and Admiral McCain also endorsed that 

strength goal. During February 1971, however, Secretary Laird, in his 

budget guidance for fiscal years 1973 through 1977, directed the Joint 

Chiefs to plan on the basis of a mid-1972 strength in Vietnam of no 

more than 153,600.49

Even before issuing this directive, Laird instructed General Abrams 

to begin planning for a still more drastic force reduction. In early 

January 1971, Laird made another of his periodic journeys to Vietnam. 

He returned with his usual optimistic assessment of progress and recommended continuation and acceleration of American withdrawals. 

While in Saigon, Laird told American and South Vietnamese officials 

that the United States was “working against time in that a de facto 

withdrawal timetable has been established,” under which “by 1972 we 

must have all but a military assistance group redeployed from South 

Vietnam.” Pursuant to this goal, Laird directed Abrams to prepare, on 

a close-hold basis, a contingency plan for reducing the American force 

in South Vietnam to 60,000 men by 1 September 1972.50

General Abrams’ staff completed the required plan, labeled 

Contingency Plan 208, on 8 March; and a MACV team briefed Secretary 

Laird on it on the sixteenth and seventeenth. The plan was based on 

the assumptions that American tactical air and B–52 operations would 

continue at a high level at least until mid-1973; that cross-border operations into Cambodia and Laos would reduce enemy offensive capability; and that there would be no major political upheavals in South 

Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. It included a four-phase schedule for 

removing 224,000 troops between 1 May 1971 and 31 August 1972 and 

49

 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 401–02; 

Historical Division, Joint Secretariat, Joint Chiefs of Staff, “The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in 

Vietnam, 1971–1973,” Sep 1979, CMH, pp. 114–22, 136–39 (hereafter referred to as “Joint Chiefs of 

Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973”; MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 363, 368, 373–74, 

377–78. Memo, Westmoreland for CJCS, 4 Jan 71, sub: RVN Force Levels, End FY 71 and FY 72, 

box 1001; Memo, Adm Robinson for Kissinger, 8 Jan 71, sub: Size of Residual MAAG Force in 

South Vietnam, box 152. Both in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 50 Quotation is from Memo, Laird for the President, 16 Jan 71, sub: Trip to Paris, Bangkok, 

South Vietnam, and CINCPAC, January 5–15, 1971, box 083, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA; 

italics in original. Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” 

pp. 141–42.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

166

prescribed the composition of a minimum U.S. force able to protect 

and support itself, conduct the air war, manage the removal of supplies and equipment, and provide intelligence, combat, and logistical 

assistance to the South Vietnamese.51

Abrams, who earlier had declared the Joint Chiefs’ 200,000-man 

force “appropriate” for the end of 1972, informed Kissinger’s assistant, 

Brig. Gen. Alexander M. Haig, that he considered the 60,000-man force 

an “acceptable risk.” He pointed out that after the end of 1971, when 

most American combat units would be gone, there was “little point in 

quibbling” about the size of the residual force since it no longer would 

have any impact on the ground war. From that point on, American 

strength should be based on what was needed to advise and assist the 

South Vietnamese and remove U.S. equipment and supplies. Observing 

that the “U.S. national environment” probably would force the reductions at any event, Abrams recommended to the Joint Chiefs that they 

adopt Contingency Plan 208 for planning purposes as soon as possible 

to give MACV the necessary lead time for the complicated logistical 

preparations the drawdown would require.52

While Laird, the Joint Chiefs, and the Pacific commanders examined 

various withdrawal timetables for 1971, including MACV Contingency 

Plan 208, Nixon and Kissinger again seized the initiative. As part of 

a new military and diplomatic effort to end the war, they decided to 

announce another large, long-term withdrawal—100,000 men between 

May and December. Such an announcement would stop what Kissinger 

called “the endless maneuvering over withdrawal rates,” and it would 

allow the administration to fulfill President Thieu’s request to keep at 

least 200,000 American soldiers in South Vietnam through that country’s presidential election in September. Although the number nearly 

coincided with Laird’s proposed withdrawal total of 105,000 for the 

year, Nixon and Kissinger again kept their figure secret from all but 

Secretary of State Rogers while clearing it with Ambassador Bunker and 

President Thieu. Possibly because of displeasure with General Abrams 

over Operation lam son 719, the abortive South Vietnamese drive into 

Laos, the president this time kept the MACV commander ignorant of 

the plan until he publicly announced it. On 7 April, Nixon told the 

nation of the new 100,000-man pullout. He declared as well that “the 

American involvement in Vietnam is coming to an end,” “the day the 

South Vietnamese can take over their own defense is in sight,” and 

51

 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pp. 141–42. 

Msgs, Haig SGN 566 to Kissinger, 16 Mar 71, box 084; Haig SGN 593 to Kissinger, 18 Mar 71, box 

1013, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, p. 394. OPLAN 208A 

Briefing Presented to Sec Army, 10 Jan 72 in CIIB, MACV Collection, MHI. 52 First quotation is from MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 377–78. Second is from Memo, 

Kissinger for the President [Mar 71] sub: Troop Withdrawals, box 1013, NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA. Third is from Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–

1973,” pp. 142–43. MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, p. 394.
167

Redeployment and Vietnamization

that the administration’s goal was “total American withdrawal from 

Vietnam,” to be reached “through our program of Vietnamization.”53

The rest of 1971 was devoted to carrying out the 100,000-man 

withdrawal and refining the Military Assistance Command’s plan for 

reaching a force of 60,000 during 1972. Redeployments took place in 

three increments on a schedule recommended by Abrams on the basis 

of Contingency Plan 208. More than half the departing troops left 

Vietnam after 1 September so as to keep American strength at around 

200,000 through the South Vietnamese election.54

Meanwhile, General Abrams and his staff, in coordination with the 

component commanders, revised Contingency Plan 208. To ensure 

adequate air mobility for the South Vietnamese Army, President Nixon 

in August, at Dr. Kissinger’s suggestion, directed the inclusion of more 

helicopter companies in the residual force. At the same time, Secretary 

Laird called for a plan to reach the 60,000 level by 30 June, the end 

of fiscal year 1972, instead of the previous deadline of 1 September. 

In response, MACV during September and October prepared two new 

contingency plans, J208 and J208A. Both provided for a drawdown 

to a 60,000-man force that could conduct air operations, support the 

RVNAF, protect the remaining U.S. installations, and ship out large 

quantities of equipment and supplies. As the president had directed, 

the plans provided for enlarged helicopter contingents. They differed 

only in that J208A compressed the withdrawal schedule to meet Laird’s 

30 June 1972 deadline.55

The administration lost no time in implementing this plan. As 

part of their overall strategy, Nixon and Kissinger intended to follow 

up the 100,000-man withdrawal with smaller increments, conducted 

over shorter periods of time, until they reached the 60,000 level. 

Accordingly, on 12 November, the president announced another withdrawal of 45,000 troops, to be completed by the end of January 1972, 

which would leave only 139,000 American soldiers in South Vietnam. 

This redeployment put into execution MACV’s plan J208A. During 

December, General Abrams set the new pullout in motion and also 

53 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 985–86. Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and 

the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pp. 143–47; MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 397–98. Msg, 

Kissinger to Bunker, 27 Mar 71, box 085; Msg, Bunker SGN 0938 to White House, 2 Apr 71, box 

412; Memo, Laird for the President, 3 Apr 71, sub: Redeployment of U.S. Forces from Southeast 

Asia, box 084; Msg, Kissinger SCWH 90161 to Bunker, 3 Apr 71, box 084. All in NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA. Quotations are from MACV History, 1971, vol. 2, an. F, p. F–7. 54

 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pp. 147–48, 

151; MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 400–01, 404. 55 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pp. 153–58; 

MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 417–19, 422–26, 432. Memo, Kissinger for the President, 

[June 71], sub: Mid-1972 Force in Vietnam, box 155; Memo, R. L. Sansom for Kissinger . . . , 14 

Jul 71, sub: U.S. Helicopter Support, box 156; Memo, Kissinger for Sec Def, 2 Aug 71, sub: U.S. 

Helicopters for Vietnam, box 156; Memo, Laird for Kissinger, 26 Aug 71, sub: U.S. Helicopters for 

Vietnam, box 157. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msg, Abrams MAC 10696 to Laird, 10 

Nov 71, Abrams Papers, CMH. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

168

prepared troop lists for two more increments in early 1972 that would 

complete the drawdown to 60,000.56 

Throughout the planning and execution of the redeployments, 

General Abrams paid close attention to two related issues: the maintenance of a high level of air support for his forces and the question of 

American troop withdrawals from Thailand. In common with Admiral 

McCain and the Joint Chiefs, Abrams considered continued American 

air support “vital if Vietnamization is to succeed” and repeatedly made 

it a condition for his endorsement of rapid troop withdrawals.57

Abrams, McCain, and the Joint Chiefs faced steady pressure to 

reduce sortie rates. Redeployments removed air squadrons and budget 

cuts diminished the supply of munitions. The services, notably the Air 

Force, themselves tried to reduce their Southeast Asia costs by cutting 

back on combat activity. Secretary Laird and his staff considered that 

much of the interdiction effort in Laos was not cost-effective and that 

MACV could get by with less fighter-bomber support by using improved 

fixed-wing and helicopter gunships. They also suspected that many 

tactical air missions were being flown more to keep usage rates up, and 

hence justify higher sortie levels, than in response to combat necessities. Air operations, in Laird’s view, thus could be reduced, significantly 

cutting the costs of the war, without deleterious battlefield effects.58

The Defense Secretary made substantial reductions in tactical air and 

B–52 activity. During 1969, Laird cut tactical air sorties from an average 

of 24,000 a month to 20,000 and B–52 sorties from 1,800 a month to 

1,400. The following year, over protests from Dr. Kissinger, the Joint 

Chiefs, Admiral McCain, and General Abrams, Defense Secretary Laird 

cut sortie rates to 10,000 per month (with an emergency ceiling of 

14,000) for tactical aircraft and 1,000 for B–52s. In 1971, Laird’s office, 

with Air Force support, proposed to reduce tactical air and B–52 sortie 

rates respectively to 7,500 and 800 per month during fiscal years 1972 

and 1973. On this occasion, however, President Nixon, determined to 

56 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pp. 158–60. 

Memo, Laird for the President, 8 Nov 71, sub: Trip to Vietnam, November 2–8, 1971, box 158; Msg, 

Kissinger WHS 1132 to Bunker, 10 Nov 71, box 412; Memo, Kissinger WHS 1133 for Bunker, 

11 Nov 71, box 412; Memo, Laird for CJCS, 15 Nov 71, sub: U.S. Redeployments from South 

Vietnam, box 158. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 

433–36, 440–41, 443–44; OPLAN 208A Briefing Presented to Sec Army, 10 Jan 72 in CIIB, MACV 

Collection, MHI. 57 Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 1946 to McCain info Moorer, 10 Feb 70, Abrams Papers, 

CMH. 58 An example of Office of Secretary of Defense thinking is Memo, Dep Sec Def David Packard 

for the President, 18 Jun 70, sub: Air Operations in Southeast Asia, box 147, NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA. In same collection, see also Memo, Laird for Kissinger, 23 Jul 70, sub: Vietnam Special 

Study Group Study on U.S. Air Activity in Southeast Asia, box 148; Memo, Lynn for Kissinger, 

29 Apr 70, sub: Laird’s Views on Air Support for Vietnam, box 145; and Memo, Kissinger for the 

President, 3 Aug 71, sub: Air Activities in Southeast Asia, FY 1972 and FY 1973, box 156. MFR, 

Phil Odeen, 17 Jun 71, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, folder 77, Thayer Papers, 

CMH. Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 63–66; 

MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 281, 288–89.
169

Redeployment and Vietnamization

keep sufficient airpower in Southeast Asia for possible renewed attacks 

on North Vietnam as well as operations in South Vietnam, overruled 

Laird. After a direct appeal from General Abrams to Kissinger, Nixon 

in August 1971 directed that sortie rates be maintained, and budgeted 

for, at rates recommended by Abrams and the Joint Chiefs: 10,000 per 

month for tactical aircraft and 1,000 for B–52s during fiscal year 1972 

and 8,000 and 1,000 respectively during 1973. Laird nevertheless had 

the last word. In budget guidance to the Joint Chiefs in December, he 

instructed them to program funds for only 6,000 tactical air sorties a 

month in fiscal year 1973 while retaining sufficient forces in Southeast 

Asia to support 7,100.59

Most of the American air strikes against the Ho Chi Minh Trail and 

in aid of the Royal Laotian government in its war against the Pathet 

Lao and North Vietnamese were flown by aircraft based in Thailand. 

As of early 1969, these squadrons constituted about one-third of the 

U.S. Air Force’s tactical air strength in Southeast Asia. For this reason, 

Admiral McCain and General Abrams, from the beginning of NSSM 

36 planning, took the position that there should be no reduction of 

the 48,000-man American contingent in Thailand until late in the 

Vietnamization process. Evoking what they called the “one air war” 

principle, Abrams and McCain insisted that the squadrons in Thailand 

were a critical element of the military balance in Southeast Asia, essential to interdict enemy infiltration into South Vietnam, sustain the 

Laotian government, maintain the threat of retaliation against North 

Vietnam, and in emergencies intervene in the war in the south. Any 

reduction of these forces, they concluded, would endanger the success of Vietnamization. The American ambassadors in Bangkok and 

Vientiane endorsed this military judgment.60

Secretary Laird nevertheless insisted on withdrawals as part of his 

effort to reduce American military costs in Southeast Asia. The Air Force, 

under its own budget pressures, supported his initiatives. At Laird’s 

direction, Admiral McCain in consultation with General Abrams and 

Maj. Gen. Louis T. Seith, USAF, Commander, U.S. Military Assistance 

Command, Thailand, planned and carried out a 6,000-man withdrawal 

in late 1969 and another of 10,000 during 1970 and 1971. The three 

commanders did their best to retain as much airpower as possible 

59 MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 256–57, 260–61, 322–24, 337–40, 409–10, 413, 415; 

MACV History, 1970, Supp., p. 24. Memo, Kissinger for the President, 16 Apr 70, sub: Problems 

on Vietnamization, box 145; Memo, Kissinger for the President, 3 Aug 71, sub: Air Activities in 

Southeast Asia, FY 1972 and FY 1973, box 156; Memo, Kissinger for Sec Def, 6 Aug 71, sub: Air 

Activities over Southeast Asia, FY 1972 and FY 1973, box 156. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 

Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pp. 185–207. 60 MACV, NSSM 36 Briefing, 22 Jul 69, MHI. Msgs, Abrams MAC 4686 to McCain info Nazzaro 

et al., 13 Apr 69; McCain to Vice Adm Johnson info Abrams, 27 May 69; Abrams MAC 10803 to 

McCain info Nazzaro et al., 20 Aug 69; McCain to Abrams info Nazzaro et al., 20 Aug 69; Abrams 

MAC 11803 to McCain info Maj Gen Louis T. Seith, USAF, et al., 10 Sep 69; McCain to Wheeler 

info Abrams et al., 24 Sep 69; Abrams MAC 3243 to McCain info PACOM Cdrs, 12 Mar 70; Seith 

BNK 0575 to McCain info Abrams et al., 16 Mar 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

170

during these reductions but still had to accept a steady diminution 

of Thailand-based aircraft. Early in 1971, Laird called for withdrawals 

that would bring American strength in Thailand to 27,900 men, more 

than 21,000 of them Air Force, by mid-1972. This strength, according 

to Admiral McCain, would not be sufficient to supplement dwindling 

American air resources in South Vietnam. In Thailand as in Vietnam, 

redeployment had assumed a momentum of its own, impelled by the 

budget and American politics.61

Implementing the Withdrawals

Each presidential redeployment announcement set in motion a 

complicated sequence of events. Before an announcement, General 

Abrams and Admiral McCain had to provide the Joint Chiefs and 

Secretary Laird, usually on short notice, with troop packages for redeployments of differing sizes and durations. After the announcement, 

General Abrams set small planning groups to work at MACV and the 

component and field force headquarters on detailed lists of units to be 

removed or inactivated, with proposed dates for their standdowns from 

operations as well as schedules for shipping out men and equipment. 

Admiral McCain and his service component commanders reviewed 

the MACV list and recommended destinations for units to remain in 

Pacific Command. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the service departments 

then established personnel policies, inactivation schedules, destinations for units leaving Pacific Command, instructions for equipment 

disposition, and public relations plans. With this information in hand, 

MACV developed a tentative program for moving men and materiel. 

Finally, Admiral McCain convened a conference of representatives of 

all concerned commands and agencies to complete a detailed program. 

Throughout the process, large volumes of data, much of it in punchcard form, passed between the various headquarters. Until the very last 

stages, the planning took place under tight security restrictions, with 

knowledge limited to a small number of hard-worked officers on each 

staff.62

From the beginning of redeployment discussions in the spring of 

1969, the MACV staff developed and kept up-to-date long-range plans 

61

 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” p. 380. Msgs, 

McCain to Abrams et al., 19 Aug 69; McCain to Wheeler info Abrams et al., 24 Sep 69; McCain 

MAC 2573 to PACOM Cdrs, 26 Feb 70; McCain to PACOM Cdrs, 7 Mar 70; Abrams MAC 4430 

to McCain, 4 Apr 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 268, 280, 

322–24, 378–79. 62 For examples of the planning process, see MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 319–20; and 

Msgs, Abrams MAC 11844 to McCain info Wheeler, 10 Sep 69; Abrams MAC 01726 to Field and 

Component Cdrs, 17 Feb 71, both in Abrams Papers, CMH. Donald A. Seibert, “The Regulars,” p. 

1039, Donald A. Seibert Papers, MHI, gives a view from the I Field Force G–3 section. The planning 

process generally can be followed in MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, and the Abrams Message 

files, Abrams Papers, CMH.
171

Redeployment and Vietnamization

for the drawdown and the residual forces. Seeking to anticipate presidential decisions, the headquarters assembled a variety of troop packages and time schedules, all based on the NSSM 36 plan. In late 1969, 

at General Abrams’ direction, the J–3 staff drew up two overall force 

reduction plans: Operations Plan (OPLAN) 183–69, a general outline of 

the standdown and shipping-out process that could be adapted to each 

successive increment; and OPLAN 186–69, which established the size 

and composition of the 260,000-man transitional support force. As the 

transitional force level was reached and passed in early 1971, MACV 

added the 208 series of plans for the drawdown to a residual force of 

60,000. Parallel to this planning, MACV and Pacific Command kept 

current their T-Day plans for withdrawal in the event of a cessation of 

hostilities. All the plans, in General Abrams’ words, were “dynamic” 

documents that changed frequently in response to the military situation, new staff studies and war games, advice from component and 

field force commanders, and intervention by higher authority. At many 

points, the staff planners had to work without full information as to 

the administration’s ultimate intentions.63

General Abrams early sought to include the South Vietnamese 

in this long-range planning. The American redeployment decisions, 

like those which had dispatched troops to Vietnam in the first place, 

were reached unilaterally; although President Nixon made a practice 

of clearing major announcements in advance with President Thieu. 

Nevertheless, from the beginning of work on NSSM 36, Abrams realized that, to ensure an orderly American turnover of bases and tactical 

areas of responsibility to the South Vietnamese Army, as well as to give 

Vietnamization as a whole a fair chance to succeed, combined advance 

planning was imperative. For the Americans, the problem—given 

Saigon’s notoriously lax security—was how to provide their allies the 

information they needed for realistic planning without risking premature leaks of U.S. intentions to the enemy and the news media.64

In mid-July 1969, General Abrams secured permission from General 

Wheeler and Secretary Laird to reveal to the RVNAF Joint General Staff 

the substance of NSSM 36 but not the existence or high-level origins 

of that plan. Abrams then described the plan to General Vien, Defense 

Minister Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van Vy, and a handful of other senior Joint 

General Staff officers as a hypothetical one originated by his and Admiral 

McCain’s headquarters. Whether the Vietnamese believed this subterfuge is not known. Detailed discussions began late in July between Maj. 

63 MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, p. 26. Msgs, Abrams MAC 6685 to McCain and Vice Adm 

Johnson, 25 May 69; Abrams MAC 14468 to Wheeler info McCain, 8 Nov 69; Lt Gen William J. 

McCaffrey, Dep CG, USARV, 2972 to Abrams, 10 Sep 71; Abrams MAC 09652 to Component and 

Regional Assistance Grp Cdrs, 7 Oct 71; Abrams MAC 10029 to Component and Regional Assistance 

Grp Cdrs, 19 Oct 71; Abrams MAC 10403 to McCaffrey, 1 Nov 71. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 

MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 99–100, 121–22, 140, 160, 176–77, 349, 369–71, 375, 379–81. 64

 Msgs, Abrams MAC 4966 to Wheeler and McCain, 19 Apr 69; Abrams MAC 9420 to McCain 

info Wheeler, 21 Jul 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

172

Gen. Edward Bautz, Jr., the MACV J–3, and Bautz’s Joint General Staff 

counterpart, Maj. Gen. Ngo Dinh Dzu, with the content known on the 

Vietnamese side only to Dzu, Vy, Vien, and presumably President Thieu. 

The Vietnamese then incorporated this information into instructions to 

their own planners without indicating its source. By September, through 

this channel, the Military Assistance Command and the Joint General 

Staff had reached agreement on American redeployment packages and 

the composition and stationing of the residual force; and the Vietnamese 

were developing plans, ostensibly on their own initiative, for repositioning their forces as the Americans left.65

The Vietnamese raised few objections to the American withdrawals, 

apparently appreciating their inevitability. Abrams declared himself 

“very gratified” at the manner in which the Vietnamese conducted 

their side of the planning. He told Wheeler and McCain late in 1969 

that Generals Vien and Dzu

have made meaningful suggestions, many of which have been incorporated into our 

planning. They have done considerable thinking about their own problems. . . . They 

have been operating under extremely close-hold conditions; they are doing the planning 

personally, and have even gone so far as to produce no written material that would identify 

the US side of the planning.66

From then on, Abrams kept Joint General Staff redeployment planning in step with his own while carefully avoiding full disclosure of the 

U.S. timetable for disengagement. Early in 1970, for example, he and 

Ambassador Bunker, without mentioning Laird’s 1973 deadline, urged 

the Vietnamese to base their planning on an American drawdown to 

an advisory group within a few years. During each redeployment increment, Abrams, once U.S. withdrawal schedules were set, revealed the 

details to General Vien and authorized his field commanders to do the 

same for their Vietnamese and third-country counterparts.67

After setting the size and time period of each withdrawal, the Nixon 

administration ordinarily deferred to the views of General Abrams and 

Admiral McCain on the composition of redeployment increments 

and the scheduling of unit departures. Typically, General Wheeler, at 

White House suggestion, in April 1970 assured Abrams that in plan65 Msgs, Abrams MAC 5238 to Wheeler and McCain, 24 Apr 69; Abrams MAC 9548 to McCain 

info Wheeler, 24 Jul 69; Wheeler JCS 09232 to McCain info Abrams, 25 Jul 69; Abrams MAC 09642 

to Wheeler and McCain, 26 Jul 69; Abrams MAC 11579 to Wheeler and McCain, 5 Sep 69; Abrams 

MAC 13888 to Wheeler and McCain, 26 Oct 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 66 Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 11579 to Wheeler and McCain, 5 Sep 69, Abrams 

Papers, CMH. 67 Msgs, Abrams MAC 0555 to McCain and Wheeler info Weyand, 13 Jan 70; McCain to Abrams 

info Wheeler, 16 Jan 70; Abrams MAC 0808 to McCain and Wheeler, 19 Jan 70; Wheeler JCS 01317 

to McCain info Abrams, 28 Jan 70; Abrams MAC 7175 to Wheeler and McCain, 26 May 70; Abrams 

MAC 12721 to McCain info Bunker, 22 Sep 70; Abrams MAC 07010 to Vann info McCaffrey, 21 Jul 

71. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 81–82, 351, 353.
173

Redeployment and Vietnamization

ning the 150,000-man drawdown “you are under no constraints from 

Washington concerning the composition of the respective increments. 

. . . I am certain that your judgment in this regard will continue to be 

fully supported at all levels back here.” The president, however, occasionally violated this principle, as in his August 1971 intervention to 

add more helicopters to MACV’s 60,000 residual force.68

In composing the successive withdrawal increments, General 

Abrams took account of a number of considerations. Starting from the 

principle that “What goes out is not important . . . what stays is,” Abrams 

and his subordinate commanders planned backward from the desired 

composition of the transitional support force. For this reason, Abrams 

early rejected Defense Department suggestions that he redeploy “balanced” slices of combat and service units. Instead, he deliberately 

weighted the initial increments toward combat forces so as to retain 

combat support and combat service support units needed to sustain the 

South Vietnamese until completion of their modernization program. 

At the same time, Abrams redeployed American maneuver battalions 

as late as possible in each increment so that they would be available to 

back up the South Vietnamese both physically and psychologically as 

they assumed wider battlefield responsibilities. He reduced American 

combat forces first in areas, such as northern I Corps, where strong 

South Vietnamese units could replace them and where the allies were 

making progress in pacification and military operations. For the sake of 

morale and unit integrity, Abrams whenever possible redeployed entire 

divisions at one time rather than reducing them piecemeal over several 

increments.69

Service interests and budgetary considerations influenced the composition of the redeployments, notably in the case of the marines. From 

the start of redeployment in mid-1969, General Abrams wanted to clear 

the 81,000 marines out of Vietnam as rapidly as possible. Redeployment 

of all the marines would simplify command and control in I Corps, and 

it would allow Abrams to substitute Marine aviation units for Army 

infantry battalions in the critical early phases of the American withdrawal. Accordingly, the 3d Marine Division left northern I Corps in 

the first two redeployment increments in 1969; and Abrams planned 

to send out the rest of III Marine Amphibious Force—the 1st Marine 

68 Msg, Wheeler JCS 05242 to McCain and Abrams, 16 Apr 70, Abrams Papers, CMH. The 

White House role is illustrated in Memo, Haig for Kissinger, 16 Apr 70, box 410, NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA. See also Msgs, Moorer JCS 06688 to McCain info Abrams, 29 May 69; and Wheeler 

JCS 16470 to McCain and Abrams, 31 Dec 69. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. 69 Quotation is from USARV Talking Paper, AVHGC-P, 17 Jul 69, sub: NSSM 36—Vietnamization, 

CMH; italics in original. MACV History, 1971, vol. 2, an. F, p. F–3. Msgs, Abrams MAC 6685 to 

McCain and Vice Adm Johnson, 25 May 69; Abrams MAC 6746 to McCain, 27 May 69; Abrams 

MAC 7021 to Wheeler and McCain, 2 Jun 69; Abrams MAC 7181 to McCain info Wheeler, 6 Jun 

69; Abrams MAC 16766 to McCain and Wheeler, 26 Dec 69; Abrams MAC 1232 to McCain info 

Wheeler, 27 Jan 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 232–33.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

174

Division and the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing—in Increment Three during 

the first half of 1970.70

This plan met opposition from the Army, the Marine Corps, and 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Army complained that, under projected 

funding and draft calls, it could not sustain the units Abrams wanted 

to keep instead of the marines. Headquarters Marine Corps argued that 

too-rapid redeployments would create insurmountable logistical and 

personnel management problems for the Corps. Less openly stated, 

the Marine commandant and his staff feared that being the first service out of combat in Vietnam would leave the marines at a disadvantage in political battles over the budget and roles and missions. 

The Joint Chiefs, respecting the marines’ concerns, ruled at the end 

of 1969 that it was “desirable to retain appropriate combat representation from all services” in Vietnam until redeployments reached the 

transitional support force level. In response, Abrams included only one 

Marine regiment in Increment Three and agreed to keep a 13,800-man 

Marine Amphibious Brigade in Vietnam until late in the withdrawals. Nevertheless, during the spring of 1970, his plans for the 150,000-

man redeployment included removal of all marines but the Marine 

Amphibious Brigade by the end of the year.71

In August, the same Army budgetary and manpower deficiencies 

that forced acceleration of the 150,000-man withdrawal also required 

Abrams to retain more marines longer so as to keep up his ground combat 

strength. Under hastily revised MACV schedules, only one Marine 

regiment with air and support units redeployed during the remaining months of 1970. The rest of III Marine Amphibious Force departed 

between 1 January and 30 April 1971 in the final increment of the 

150,000-man pullout, leaving behind the Marine Amphibious Brigade. 

Even as these redeployments went forward, General Westmoreland 

proposed keeping the Marine brigade in Vietnam through mid-1972 to 

ease the strain on Army resources. General Abrams was amenable to the 

proposal, but Admiral McCain and the Marine commandant objected 

that it would disrupt the reconstitution of Pacific Command’s strategic 

reserve. In Vietnam, the XXIV Corps commander argued that keeping 

the Marine Amphibious Brigade would complicate command relationships in his area. Agreeing with the objectors, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

with Westmoreland dissenting, rejected the Army proposal. The Marine 

70 Graham A. Cosmas and Lt. Col. Terrence P. Murray, USMC, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: 

Vietnamization and Redeployment, 1970–1971 (Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division, 

Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1986), pp. 12–13; Msg, Abrams MAC 16766 to McCain and 

Wheeler, 26 Dec 69, Abrams Papers, CMH. 71

 Cosmas and Murray, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1970–1971, pp. 13, 58–59. Quotation is from 

Msg, Wheeler JCS 16146 to McCain and Abrams, 22 Dec 69, Abrams Papers, CMH. In same collection, Msgs, Abrams MAC 16561 to McCain and Wheeler, 23 Dec 69; CG III MAF to COMUSMACV, 

7 Feb 70; McCain to Abrams info PACOM Cdrs, 16 Mar 70; Abrams MAC 3665 to McCain info 

PACOM Cdrs, 20 Mar 70. MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 265–67, 275–77, 286–87, 292, 

300–01.
175

Redeployment and Vietnamization

Amphibious Brigade redeployed during May and June 1971, leaving in 

Vietnam only 542 marines—members of an air and naval gunfire liaison company, advisers to the Vietnamese Marine Corps, guards at the 

Saigon Embassy, and officers of the MACV staff.72

Between 1 July 1969 and 31 January 1972, the Military Assistance 

Command carried out ten redeployment increments, which reduced 

American strength in Vietnam by 410,500 troops, including 102 infantry 

and other maneuver battalions, 66 artillery battalions, and 33 attack and 

fighter squadrons as well as support units of all services. General Abrams 

arranged the sequence of force departures so as to leave ground combat 

units longest in I Corps, where the enemy threat was greatest. When the 

transitional support force level was reached in June 1971, I Corps contained seven of the nine American brigades that remained in Vietnam. Of 

72 Cosmas and Murray, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1970–1971, pp. 86–88, 187–90, 237–47. 

Msgs, Westmoreland WDC 19733 to Abrams, 27 Oct 70; Westmoreland WDC 20048 to Rosson info 

Abrams, 31 Oct 70; Sutherland DNG 2602 to Abrams, 9 Nov 70; Palmer WDC 20818 to Rosson and 

Abrams, 12 Nov 70; Abrams MAC 14691 to Sutherland, 14 Nov 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 

MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 365–66.

A self-propelled 155-mm. howitzer backs onto the ramp of the Landing Ship 

Tank Pitkin County (LST 1082) at Da Nang as the marines in 1971 continue 

their redeployment from Vietnam.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

176

the other two brigades, one reinforced II Corps and the other III Corps. 

In the autumn of 1971, the 23d (Americal) Infantry Division redeployed 

from I Corps, followed in February 1972 by the 101st Airborne Division 

(Airmobile), the last American division to leave Vietnam. Only two U.S. 

brigades then remained: the 3d of the 1st Cavalry Division at Bien Hoa 

and the 196th Infantry Brigade at Da Nang. Support forces also stayed, 

including Army aviation companies and engineer units, as well as sufficient Air Force tactical fighter squadrons to provide, when combined 

with Thailand-based Air Force units and Navy carrier squadrons, 10,000 

attack sorties per month.73

The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam was more complex 

than simply marching units to ships and planes. Each redeployment, 

although translated into lists of units, actually consisted of a reduction 

in MACV’s authorized personnel strength. MACV, Pacific Command, 

and the Joint Chiefs, following a principle established in earlier T-Day 

planning, made up each increment by redeploying individuals who 

had the least amount of time left in their one-year tours “in-country.” 

After transfer or redeployment of their personnel, many organizations 

slated for each increment were inactivated in Vietnam or went home 

as command groups and color parties. The service components “mixmastered” their personnel to fill departing units with short-time men 

and reassign those with the most months left until rotation to organizations remaining in Vietnam. This policy caused great turbulence 

within units and exacerbated the discipline and racial problems from 

which MACV suffered during the withdrawal period. On the positive 

side, it allowed the Military Assistance Command to carry out redeployments using its existing personnel system, which staffs and troops 

understood; and in theory each new MACV strength level then could 

be maintained by proper adjustment of the flow of replacements.74 

In practice, the authorized levels were not maintained. The Military 

Assistance Command’s actual strength—the number of men in South 

Vietnam on any given day—invariably was less than authorized as 

a result of unpredictable variations in losses from combat and other 

causes. When redeployments began in June 1969, MACV had an authorized strength of 549,500 but only about 537,000 people on board; and 

it had been on the average 9,000 men short in each of the past five 

73 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” p. 161. Major 

unit withdrawals are summarized in MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 4, pp. 10–13; ibid., 1970, 

vol. 1, ch. 4, pp. 10, 12; and ibid., 1971, vol. 2, an. F, pp. F–14 and F–1–1. Redeployments may be 

followed graphically in Shelby L. Stanton, Vietnam Order of Battle (New York: Galahad Books, 

1986), pp. 375–82. Initial plans are in USARV Talking Paper, AVHGC-P, 17 Jul 69, sub: NSSM 

36—Vietnamization, CMH; and Msg, Abrams MAC 7175 to Wheeler and McCain, 26 May 70, 

Abrams Papers, CMH. MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, p. 348. 74

 Msgs, Abrams MAC 4743 to McCain info Wheeler, 15 Apr 69; Abrams MAC 10808 to McCain 

and Wheeler, 20 Aug 69; Gen Haines HWA 4101 to McCain info Abrams and Westmoreland, 26 

Sep 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Memo, Laird for the President, 18 Jun 69, sub: CINCPAC 

Redeployment Planning Conference, 12–14 Jun 1969, box 138, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 

MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 4, pp. 13–25.
177

Redeployment and Vietnamization

months. After each succeeding increment, MACV had fewer people on 

hand than the new, lower authorization. The administration, seeking 

to avoid news reports of any increases in the number of Americans in 

Vietnam at any point in the withdrawals, periodically enforced actual 

manpower ceilings below the authorized ones. When it did not, the 

services, increasingly short of funds and personnel, often had difficulty 

keeping up their programmed flow of replacements. During the summer 

of 1970, for example, the Army fell short by about 10,000 men of meeting replacement requirements for U.S. Army, Vietnam. General Abrams 

protested repeatedly against both the double ceilings and the service 

defaults. He pointed out that they amounted to additional withdrawals 

above and beyond the planned increments, which he considered risky 

in themselves, and that they left many units, notably advisory teams 

and infantry rifle companies, dangerously understrength. Nevertheless, 

political and budgetary realities once again prevailed.75 (Table)

Besides conducting the redeployment of American forces, General 

Abrams helped to negotiate the withdrawal of the allied contingents. 

As the Americans departed, the Australian, New Zealand, Thai, and 

South Korean governments—all under varying degrees of domestic 

pressure to disengage—prepared to follow suit. The Nixon administration, through direct government-to-government diplomacy, and 

through lower-level contacts by Ambassador Bunker, Admiral McCain, 

and General Abrams, worked to keep allied soldiers in Vietnam as long 

as possible to support the South Vietnamese and maintain the image 

of a multinational anti-Communist effort. Abrams, besides assisting in 

the diplomatic campaign, worked out with the allied commanders and 

defense ministers withdrawal schedules for their forces and arrangements for the South Vietnamese to replace them. His efforts, and those 

of the administration, held the major allied contingents in place until 

the American drawdown reached the transitional force phase. The 

Australian, New Zealand, and Thai troops withdrew in increments, the 

bulk of them during 1971.76

Withdrawal of the large South Korean contingent became the 

subject of debate within the Nixon administration. When the Seoul 

government began planning for disengagement early in 1971, General 

Abrams, supported by Secretary Laird and the Joint Chiefs, advocated 

75 Msgs, Abrams MAC 7794 to McCain info Wheeler, 18 Jun 69; Wheeler JCS 09539 to McCain 

info Abrams, 1 Aug 69; Abrams MAC 10808 to McCain and Wheeler, 20 Aug 69; Abrams MAC 

11001 to Wheeler info McCain, 23 Aug 69; Wheeler JCS 07344 to McCain and Abrams, 27 May 70; 

Abrams MAC 7837 to Westmoreland, 10 Jun 70; Westmoreland WDC 11742 to Abrams info McCain 

et al., 27 Jun 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War 

in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 389–90, 490; MACV History, 1970, Supp., pp. 7–8. 76 Msgs, Abrams MAC 4200 to Wheeler and McCain, 1 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 12395 to McCain 

info Moorer and Bunker, 14 Sep 70; Abrams MAC 13652 to Seith info McCain, 16 Oct 70; Abrams 

MAC 08017 to McCaffrey, 20 Jul 71. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Msg, Bunker SGN 12242 to Sec 

State, 30 Jul 70, box 148, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 

261–63, 358, 395, 422; MACV History, 1970, vol. 1, ch. 4, pp. 34, 37–38; ibid., 1971, vol. 2, an. F, 

p. F–15. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

Table—U.S. Troop

Redeployments

Increment Date Army Reduction Air Force Reduction Navy Reduction Marine Corps Reduction Total Reduction Remaining (549,500)1I. . . . . . . . Jul–Aug 69 15,712 (+321) 1,222 8,387 25,000 524,500II. . . . . . . Sep–Dec 69 14,092 2,532 5,412 18,464 40,500 484,000III. . . . . . . Feb–Apr 70 29,396 5,614 2,110 12,880 50,000 434,000IV. . . . . . Jul–Oct 70 15,932 7,362 9,666 17,040 50,000 384,000V. . . . . . . Oct–Dec 70 38,054 613 1,328 5 40,000 344,000VI. . . . . . Jan–Apr 71 41,848 1,194 5,600 11,358 60,000 284,000VII. . . . . . May–Jun 71 15,030 164 516 13,590 29,300 254,700VIII. . . . . Jul–Sep 71 21,769 5,700 1,122 109 28,700 226,000IX. . . . . . Sep–Nov 71 35,000 5,600 1,400 0 42,000 184,000X. . . . . . . Dec 71–Jan 72 36,718 6,265 2,017 0 45,000 139,000XI. . . . . . Feb–Apr 72 58,096 8,765 4,032 (+893) 70,000 69,000XII. . . . . . May–Jun 72 14,552 4,884 526 38 20,000 49,000XIII. . . . . Jul–Aug 72 8,484 1,354 155 7 10,000 39,000XIV. . . . . Sep–Nov 72 7,282 3,208 603 907 12,000 27,000

Total. . . . . . . . 351,965 52,934 35,709 81,892 522,500

1 Highest authorized U.S. military strength, 1968–69.Source: Army Activities Report: SE Asia, 8 Nov 72, pp. 4–5, CMH.
179

Redeployment and Vietnamization

rapid removal of the Koreans’ two army divisions and marine brigade. 

Abrams argued that the $300 million the United States was spending 

annually to support the Koreans was not producing sufficient return 

in combat effectiveness and that the funds would be better used in 

modernizing the South Vietnamese forces. President Nixon and Dr. 

Kissinger, however, along with Secretary of State Rogers, favored retaining the Koreans as long as possible, since they constituted a ground 

force reserve in the endangered northern half of South Vietnam. In July, 

President Nixon decided to provide support for South Korean forces 

at least through 1972. After further negotiation with the Americans 

and South Vietnamese, the Koreans removed their marine brigade 

from I Corps late in 1971 in conjunction with the departure of the U.S. 

Marines. However, they agreed to keep their two infantry divisions in 

place to protect coastal areas of II Corps for at least another year.77

A Rear Guard Action

President Nixon’s decisions during 1969 and the following two years 

amounted to a U.S. commitment to disengage from Vietnam. Even 

while it disengaged, however, the administration sought to buy enough 

time to weaken the enemy in South Vietnam, equip Saigon to carry 

on, and perhaps compel Hanoi to agree to an acceptable compromise 

settlement. President Nixon and his advisers had few illusions about 

the fragile balance they were trying to maintain, both in Southeast 

Asia and at home. Yet they saw no alternative except escalation, which 

might not work and at any event was politically impossible, and forcing the immediate capitulation of their South Vietnamese ally, which 

they considered strategically and morally unacceptable.78

Although the political maneuvers that attended Nixon’s public 

announcements of the withdrawals were complex and confusing, 

the actual conduct of the redeployments was steady and methodical. Essentially, the administration followed the two-year schedule for 

removing combat forces that the Joint Chiefs and MACV had proposed 

in 1969. Then it allowed two more years for drawing down the residual 

support force to the level of a large assistance and advisory group. By 

announcing large withdrawals over long periods of time, Nixon both 

neutralized his domestic political opposition and provided himself and 

General Abrams with flexibility so that they could retain the maximum 

combat power as late in each redeployment increment as possible. 

77 Memo, Odeen, 25 Jan 71, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, folder 76; 

Memos, Odeen, 28 Apr 71, 1, 10, 15, 21, 25 Jun 71, 20 Jul 71, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with 

Secretary Laird, folder 77. All in Thayer Papers, CMH. Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and 

the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pp. 168–74; MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 404, 406–07, 

412–13, 416–18. Memo, Haig for Kissinger, 3 Feb 72, sub: Discussion between the President and 

Amb Bunker, box 158, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. MACV History, 1970, vol. 1, ch. 4, p. 36. 78 Kissinger, White House Years, p. 288, emphasizes the lack of acceptable alternatives to 

Vietnamization.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

180

Initially pessimistic, in mid-June 1971 Abrams expressed to his senior 

subordinates general satisfaction with the pace of redeployments to 

that point, declaring that withdrawals were going “fast enough that 

[the South Vietnamese] are stretching and not so fast that they feel 

abandoned.” 79

General Abrams, along with Admiral McCain and the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff, exercised at best limited influence on the development of 

President Nixon’s overall Vietnamization policy. Domestic political 

considerations, congressional pressures, budgetary limitations, and 

intra-administration maneuvering, more than military advice, determined Nixon’s course. As a military adviser, General Abrams played an 

ambivalent role. Especially during the first two years of redeployment, 

he warned of risks, advocated deliberation and cut-and-try, and sought 

to postpone the loss of his American combat power. Yet privately, 

according to one of his chief withdrawal planners, Abrams realized 

almost from the start that “we were going to get out completely” and 

that all he could do was try to see that the United States disengaged in 

an orderly fashion and did not “completely bugout on the Vietnamese 

and leave them flat and unable to defend themselves”—concerns 

Abrams shared with Nixon and Kissinger. Abrams and his superiors harbored, and expressed, deep doubt that Laird’s goal of South 

Vietnamese military self-sufficiency could be achieved. Nevertheless, 

when pressed, they produced the necessary plans along with explanations of why they would work and periodic reports of progress. As 

did Westmoreland before him, Abrams loyally supported and carried 

out administration strategy, never publicly or privately challenging its 

basic assumptions.80

For the Military Assistance Command, the war became an extended 

rear guard action. General Abrams pursued his “one war” strategy 

while presiding over an inexorable diminution of his American combat 

power, a diminution he sought to slow as much as possible and to 

manage to the maximum military advantage of his own forces and 

those of South Vietnam, but which he could not stop. At the same 

time, he tried to prepare the South Vietnamese armed forces as well 

as time permitted to assume the entire burden of the war. In the end, 

Abrams, like the administration he served, saw no real alternative but 

to do the best he could under the prevailing conditions to ensure an 

orderly American disengagement and give the South Vietnamese the 

best possible chance for survival.

79 Notes on Senior Officers Conference, 10–11 Jun 71, folder 2001, MACV Collection, MHI. 

80 First quotation is from Starry Interv, 14 Dec 76, pp. 35–36, 39–40. A typical Abrams warning 

of the risks of rapid Vietnamization is in MACV History, 1970, Supp., pp. 11–12. Kissinger, White 

House Years, pp. 34–35, observes that senior military officers “rarely challenge the Commander-inChief; they seek for excuses to support, not to oppose him.”
6

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

By the time troop withdrawals and Vietnamization began, the major interservice and interagency conflicts over management of the 

American effort in South Vietnam had been resolved. MACV’s headquarters organization and command structure, the products of evolution and improvisation to meet changing circumstances, had matured 

and were functioning effectively. The command’s relationships with 

Pacific Command and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were well defined and 

stable. MACV had accumulated a large database of intelligence about 

the enemy and experience in fighting him; many of the senior leaders 

under Abrams were veterans of previous command and staff tours in 

Vietnam. With minimal organizational change, MACV managed troop 

redeployments and Vietnamization, even as it continued military and 

pacification operations in South Vietnam, waged expanding air and 

ground campaigns in Laos and Cambodia, and prepared for its own 

ultimate reduction to an advisory group.

Command Relationships under Abrams

When General Abrams took command in Saigon in mid-1968, he 

was little known to the American public but was already one of the 

U.S. Army’s most highly respected leaders. Abrams had made a brilliant 

record in World War II commanding armor units in the drive across 

France and Germany; his tanks led the relief force into Bastogne during 

the battle of the Ardennes. After the war, he rose steadily through division and corps commands and important staff assignments. In the 

early 1960s, as a major general and assistant deputy chief of staff for 

operations for civil affairs, Abrams directed Army forces during civil 

disturbances over racial integration at the University of Mississippi 

and Montgomery, Alabama; he displayed impressive ability in dealing 

with tense, politically charged situations. As vice chief of staff, he oversaw the Army’s Vietnam buildup before going to Military Assistance 

Command as General Westmoreland’s deputy and ultimate successor.1

 Abrams’ life and career are traced in Sorley, Thunderbolt.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

182

A West Point classmate of 

Westmoreland, Abrams—“Abe” 

to friends and close associates—was a study in contrast to 

his predecessor in personality 

and leadership style. Whereas 

Westmoreland was formal, 

reserved, and always perfectly 

turned out, Abrams cultivated 

a down-to-earth, unpretentious 

image. As one of his first acts 

as commander, U.S. Military 

Assistance Command, Vietnam, 

he replaced Westmoreland’s 

suite of executive-style office furniture with a standard-issue gray 

steel desk, chairs, and conference 

table. His uniform always rumpled, usually with a cigar in his 

mouth, Abrams was blunt and at 

times profane in speech, given to 

volcanic, often staged, outbursts 

of temper. A devotee of good 

whiskey, he was a congenial host 

and raconteur. Civilian and military colleagues admired Abrams’ solid 

integrity, and to many young officers he was an inspirational leader 

and example. His rough-hewn manner concealed a fondness for books 

and classical music and a mind able to move quickly to the essentials 

of a problem. Although Abrams made his career and combat reputation in armor and mechanized forces, his authorship of the “one war” 

concept attested to his grasp of the nature and requirements of the 

revolutionary conflict in Vietnam.2

Abrams gave everything he had to his job. He spent long hours in 

the office or visiting field commands and often stayed up most of the 

night in his quarters working on problems or awaiting late messages 

from Washington, where noon coincided with midnight in Saigon. 

Fifty-four years old when he took command, Abrams suffered during 

his tour from ulcers and pneumonia and in July 1970 went to Japan to 

have his gall bladder removed. Later that year, he collapsed, evidently 

from heat exhaustion, during a ceremony at Vung Tau and had to be 

hospitalized for a brief period. Despite occasional restorative visits to 

 Abrams’ personality is described in Davidson Interv, 30 Mar 82, sess. 1, pp. 13–14; Interv, 

Senior Officers Debriefing Program with Gen Andrew J. Goodpaster, 9 Jan 76, sec. 4, p. 65, MHI. 

See also the following interviews by the Abrams Project, MHI: Amb Samuel Berger, 17 May 77, pp. 

1–2, 10, 13; Amb Ellsworth Bunker, 2 May 77, pp. 4–5; Col Ted Kanamine, n.d., pp. 6–8; Gen Walter 

T. Kerwin, 9 Apr 76, pp. 14–15; Maj Gen Elias C. Townsend, 26 Feb 76, p. 60. 

Maj. Gen. John Norton (right)

and General Abrams
183

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

his wife and youngest children in Bangkok, the strain of five uninterrupted years in Vietnam told on Abrams. A former MACV chief of staff 

recalled: “he would recuperate for a little bit locally . . . but he never got 

all the way back. It seemed to me like he was just constantly draining 

away.” A member of Secretary Laird’s staff reported in June 1971 that 

Abrams “looked very tired and as if he had the ‘weight of the world’ on 

his shoulders.”3

Abrams made only gradual and marginal changes in the way 

American and allied forces were commanded and administered. While 

he had reservations about some aspects of the system he had inherited, Abrams realized that it was the product of a complex evolution 

and was shaped by political and diplomatic as well as strictly military 

considerations. Accordingly, he avoided any attempts at major revisions that might disrupt established compromises and balances of 

power. He concentrated on making the existing system work as well 

as possible.

A strong believer in an orderly chain of command, Abrams was 

incensed that every U.S. government agency in Vietnam maintained 

its own channel of communication with its Washington headquarters. Officers in the U.S. Embassy, U.S. Agency for International 

Development, and the Central Intelligence Agency habitually used 

these channels to pass on information or promote policies in conflict 

with those of MACV without the military headquarters having the 

opportunity to screen or respond to them. Making matters worse, in 

Abrams’ view, junior members of these organizations took advantage 

of these communication links to transmit dissenting views to counterparts in Washington, who in turn saw to it that those views reached 

senior policymakers. The senior officials then sent queries to MACV, 

putting Abrams and his staff constantly “on the rebuttal.” Abrams discovered that even within MACV, lower-ranking staff officers, notably 

in CORDS, regularly exchanged information with counterparts on the 

Joint Staff and in other Defense Department agencies, bypassing himself and CINCPAC.4

Abrams’ indignation at these practices brought him into an early 

collision with Secretary of Defense Clifford. Early in June 1968, Clifford 

received a report from a junior civilian official, transmitted from the 

 First quotation is from Townsend Interv, 26 Feb 76, p. 59. The second is from MFR, Odeen, sub: 

Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, 17 Jun 71, folder 77, Thayer Papers, CMH; in same 

collection, see MFR of 13 Oct 70, folder 76. Abrams’ working methods are described in Townsend 

Interv, 26 Feb 76, pp. 59–60; and Interv, Abrams Project with Lt Gen Donald H. Cowles, 20 Dec 

75, pp. 37–38, MHI. Abrams’ health problems are described in Sorley, Thunderbolt, p. 296; AP 

Dispatch, Vung Tau, Vietnam, 30 Sep 70, box 149, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA; and Interv, Lt. 

Col Douglas R. Burgess with Gen Bruce Palmer, 29 May 75, the Abrams Project, Abrams Project, 

p. 23, MHI. 

 Interv, Abrams Project with Lt Gen Charles A. Corcoran, 20 Dec 75, pp. 22, 26–27, MHI (hereafter cited as Corcoran Interv). Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 7404 to Wheeler, 5 Jun 68, 

Papers of Clark Clifford, box 5, Abrams, Creighton (1), LBJL. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

184

U.S. Embassy through the State Department, which described the devastation inflicted by American firepower in Cholon, Saigon’s Chinese 

district, during the enemy’s May offensive. Responding to this report, 

as well as to news media accounts of the destruction, Clifford directed 

Abrams through Wheeler to make a study of the civilian casualty and 

property damage problem “on an urgent basis.” Abrams answered by 

describing the study of urban tactics that MACV and the Joint General 

Staff already had under way and by recounting the tight restrictions that 

he had imposed on the use of American air and artillery in the Saigon 

area. He defended his forces’ actions in Cholon, citing the tenacity of 

the enemy there and the ferocity of the fighting. Finally, he eloquently 

affirmed his own anguish at the suffering that the war inflicted on 

the innocent. Abrams went on, however, to protest at being placed on 

the defensive by queries based on raw information from lower-ranking 

personnel that had been passed to Washington without review by his 

own headquarters.

Although Abrams saw the issue as a chain-of-command problem, 

Clifford was angered by what he perceived as insubordination by the 

MACV commander. In a memorandum to General Wheeler, Clifford 

rejected the notion that responsible U.S. Embassy officers had to obtain 

military clearance before reporting matters of concern to the State 

Department. The secretary also asserted his own right to query the field 

commander on “a question of great concern” to himself and the president. In a veiled threat to remove Abrams, Clifford added that if the 

MACV commander had a contrary view, “it is essential we know this 

now.” When he learned from Wheeler of Clifford’s displeasure, Abrams 

perforce disavowed any claim to review communications between 

the U.S. Embassy and State Department. He reaffirmed his intention 

to modify his command’s urban fighting tactics. Since Abrams and 

Clifford in fact were in agreement on the need for less destructive tactics, nothing further came of this exchange.5

Within his own command, Abrams kept on fighting the chain-ofcommand problem. Early in 1969, for example, he discovered that members of the CORDS staff were sending internal MACV reports directly to 

counterparts in the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman’s Special 

Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Security Activities (SACSA) and 

receiving and answering directly inquiries from SACSA. Abrams at once 

ordered the MACV end of the channel shut down. Informing General 

Wheeler and Admiral McCain of his action, Abrams declared that 

he was “somewhat concerned about a lot of internal MACV reports 

being distributed like the ‘shopping news’ in Washington, bypassing 

CINCPAC in the process.” If Wheeler, McCain, or the Joint Staff needed 

additional reports from MACV, Abrams promised, “you’ll get instant 

response,” but it would be furnished “within the overall chain of com-

 This incident is described in Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 28–30. See 

also Chaisson Diary, 4 Jun 68 [mislabeled 67], box 8, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution.
185

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

mand by those responsible for the activity concerned.” Even more 

emphatically, during troop redeployment discussions, he reminded his 

superiors that “in these delicate times I respond only to the direction 

of the Chairman, CINCPAC, and the Ambassador. My staff will not 

respond to direction from staffs in Washington or Hawaii.” Abrams 

had some success in disciplining communication to and from his own 

headquarters, but the multiple channels of the civilian agencies and 

even of his service components eluded his control. Like his predecessors, he had to work as best he could within the existing system.6

Abrams continued General Westmoreland’s Saturday morning 

Weekly Intelligence Estimate Update (WIEU) conferences. Attended by 

the senior staff department heads, the component commanders, the 

deputy COMUSMACV, and the deputy for CORDS, with Ambassador 

Bunker or his deputy and the Saigon CIA station chief frequently sitting 

in, these meetings began with intelligence and operations briefings, 

which occasionally brought forth displays of Abrams’ famous temper. 

Then followed discussion and decisions on various issues. As an innovation of his own, Abrams once a month enlarged the WIEU to include 

the I and II Field Force and III Marine Amphibious Force commanders 

and their G–2s and G–3s. Lt. Gen. Frank T. Mildren, deputy commander 

of U.S. Army, Vietnam, considered that these sessions “really did a lot 

for that theater. Everybody was oriented on where we were going, and 

had a complete briefing of what had happened the previous week, and 

what was expected to happen the following week.”7

In addition to the WIEU, Abrams regularly held smaller meetings 

with component commanders or staff section heads on particular problems. Typically, Abrams, his deputy, and his chief of staff might gather 

in Abrams’ quarters late in the evening to review the day’s activities. 

Abrams delegated extensive administrative authority to his chief of 

staff, who drafted and dispatched most of Abrams’ messages except 

those dealing with major assessments and policies; and he also allowed 

the chief of staff to select, with Abrams’ approval, the senior MACV 

staff officers. As had Westmoreland, Abrams employed his staff and 

component and field commanders in extensive contingency planning 

and war-gaming. MACV headquarters, the service components, and 

the regional commands, for example, all participated in an elaborate 

 Quotations are from Msgs, Abrams MAC 3996 and MAC 5760 to Wheeler and McCain, 29 

Mar 69 and 29 Apr 70; see also Msg, Wheeler JCS 04506 to Abrams info McCain, 12 Apr 69; all in 

Abrams Papers. Interv, Abrams Project with Maj Gen Roderick Wetherill, 27 Jan 76, pp. 18–19, MHI 

(hereafter cited as Wetherill Interv).

 Msgs, Abrams MAC 9620 to Field Force and Component Cdrs, 17 Jul 68; Abrams MAC 4224 

to Field Force and Component Cdrs, 4 Apr 69. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. Weekly Intelligence 

Estimate Updates (WIEUs) are described in Davidson Interv, 30 Mar and 30 Jun 82, sess. 1, pp. 

11–13; Berger Interv, 17 May 77, p. 5; Interv, Abrams Project with Lt Gen Michael S. Davison, 20 

Feb 76, p. 27, MHI (hereafter cited as Davison Interv); and Interv with Lt Gen Frank T. Mildren, 24 

Feb 76, the Abrams Project, p. 24, MHI. Final quotation is from Interv, Lt Col James T. Scott with Lt 

Gen Frank T. Mildren, Senior Officers Oral History Program, 1980, p. 254, MHI.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

186

exercise late in 1971 to test the feasibility of redeployment OPLAN 

J208A.8

Following Westmoreland’s precedent, Abrams insisted that his 

deputy COMUSMACV be an Army four-star general “fully qualified to 

take over from me.” The four-star rank, Abrams believed, was necessary to give the deputy sufficient authority in a command replete with 

three-star generals and flag officers and with an ambassador as deputy 

for CORDS. Abrams’ first deputy, General Goodpaster, spent much of 

his one-year tour observing and consulting at the Paris peace conference. General William B. Rosson, who succeeded Goodpaster in May 

1969, possessed Vietnam experience dating back to the French war; he 

had served as MACV chief of staff during the 1965–66 American force 

buildup and commanded successively I Field Force and Provisional 

Corps. General Frederick C. Weyand, who replaced Rosson in August 

1970 after a stint as military adviser to the U.S. delegation at Paris, also 

was a Vietnam veteran. He had commanded the 25th Division and 

the II Field Force under Westmoreland. Secretary Laird, in consultation 

with Abrams, selected Weyand as the man best qualified to replace 

Abrams if the MACV commander’s health problems necessitated his 

relief. Weyand served as deputy COMUSMACV for two years before 

finally succeeding Abrams.9

General Abrams employed his deputies on a wide range of missions. General Rosson recalled that as Abrams’ deputy, he received “no 

written guidance whatever.” Instead, Abrams informed him that “I 

should be prepared at all times to take over for him should the situation require, and that I should consider myself his alter ego.” Rosson in 

fact spent much of his time visiting the field and working on improvement and modernization of the South Vietnamese forces. General 

Weyand performed much the same functions, oversaw MACV support 

of Cambodia, and also eventually took over direction of CORDS.10

Abrams’ outwardly cordial relations with Ambassador Komer, 

deputy COMUSMACV for CORDS, whom Abrams inherited from 

Westmoreland, concealed personal and institutional tensions. From 

the time Abrams and Komer arrived in Saigon in May 1967, the 

two strong-willed, outspoken men had resembled a pair of large 

bulls confined in a too-small pasture. The unconventional nature of 

 Corcoran Interv, 1975, pp. 29–30; Cowles Interv, 20 Dec 75, pp. 20–25, 55–56; Exercise 

Briefing Presented to COMUSMACV 30 Oct 71 at WIEU, tab G, MACV Briefing Book no. 4, 

MACV Collection, MHI.

 Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 1736 to Westmoreland, 8 Feb 69, Abrams Papers, CMH; 

in same collection, see also Msg, Abrams MAC 1878 to Westmoreland, 12 Feb 69. Memo, Haig for 

Kissinger, 20 Jul 70, sub: Personnel Changes in Saigon, box 148; Memo, Haig for Kissinger, 23 Jul 

70, box 1002. Both in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 10

 Quotation is from Rosson Interv, 1981, pp. 416–17. Msgs, Abrams MAC 8347 to McCain 

info Wheeler, 29 Jun 69; Abrams MAC 11637 to Westmoreland, 27 Aug 70; Abrams MAC 15448 

to McCain, 2 Dec 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. For General Weyand’s takeover of CORDS, see 

below, p. 214.
187

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

Komer’s organization, its assertions of independence from the 

rest of the MACV staff, and its 

frequent disregard of command 

channels, which provoked 

complaints from field force 

commanders, offended Abrams’ 

sense of military order. Komer 

later observed that Abrams, “a 

surprisingly organization man 

as far as administration is concerned,” viewed CORDS as “sort 

of an odd-ball outfit alien to the 

Army system.” Abrams lost no 

time in indicating his dissatisfaction with the way Komer ran 

CORDS. Although Abrams and 

Komer worked together effectively to launch the Accelerated 

Pacification Campaign, when 

President Johnson offered 

Komer the American ambassadorship to Turkey, Komer 

accepted without hesitation. 

He left Vietnam in November 

1968.11

Komer’s replacement as head of CORDS was his personally selected 

deputy, Ambassador William E. Colby. A long-term CIA functionary, 

Colby had spent the previous year understudying Komer as assistant 

chief of staff for CORDS, the second-ranking man in the organization. Colby, whose operating style was less abrasive and unorthodox 

than Komer’s and who lacked Komer’s White House connections, 

during nearly three years in his position established a harmonious 

working relationship with the MACV staff, at some cost to CORDS 

independence. General Abrams, for example, severed CORDS’ direct 

reporting channel to Washington and required CORDS staff members 

on inspection trips in the field to communicate with their Saigon 

headquarters through the military chain of command. Such changes 

led one veteran pacification practitioner to characterize the status of 

CORDS under Abrams as “a long, sad story of general loss of power 

11 Quotations are from interview of Robert W. Komer in Organization and Management of the 

New Model Pacification Program, 1966–1968 (Rand Corporation Doc no. D(L)-20104-ARPA, 7 

May 70), p. 92, copy in CMH; see also pp. 91, 192. Other indications of Abrams-Komer friction can 

be found in Ltr, Komer to Abrams, 28 Jul 68, Chronological File, Komer (1968), DepCORDS files, 

CMH; and Kerwin Interv, 9 Apr 76, p. 12; Townsend Interv, 26 Feb 76, p. 48; and Wetherill Interv, 

27 Jan 76, pp. 31–33. For field force complaints, see Msgs, Peers NHT 1279 to Wetherill, 3 Sep 68; 

and Peers NHT 2040 to Goodpaster, 6 Dec 68; William R. Peers Papers, MHI.

William Colby

(Photograph taken in 1975 when 

he was director of the Central

Intelligence Agency.)
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

188

and influence. . . .” On the positive side, Abrams defended the basic 

CORDS principle of single management of pacification and helped 

Ambassador Bunker block efforts by other government agencies to 

split off some CORDS functions. In keeping with his “one war” concept, he treated pacification as a primary objective of MACV and 

enjoined military commanders to coordinate their operations closely 

with the province and district CORDS teams.12

Single management of pacification thus survived under Abrams, 

and so did single management of MACV’s fixed-wing airpower. The 

departure in mid-1968 of General Westmoreland, Admiral Sharp, 

and General Momyer raised Marine leaders’ hopes that Abrams and 

the new CINCPAC, Admiral McCain, might be more receptive to the 

Corps’ arguments against the system. Those hopes were quickly dashed. 

General Abrams, like other Army commanders in Vietnam, believed 

that single management provided more responsive Air Force support 

to Army ground units. More broadly, Abrams regarded airpower as his 

principal theater reserve, which he must control as “one great pool.” 

“The air,” Abrams declared, “is really a powerful weapon, but to use this 

power effectively, you need both integrated all-source intelligence and 

an integrated all-source reaction.” In September 1968, both Abrams 

and McCain affirmed their intention to retain single management; and 

the Defense Department, Marine appeals to the Joint Chiefs notwithstanding, accepted its field commanders’ judgment. The Marine Corps 

commandant continued to agitate, but for practical purposes the question was decided.13

While the doctrinal dispute persisted, Air Force and Marine commanders in Vietnam developed practical, harmonious working relations under which the marines gradually regained in practice much 

of what they had lost in principle. Momyer’s successors at Seventh Air 

Force, Generals George S. Brown and Lucius D. Clay, Jr., took a pragmatic rather than a doctrinaire approach to the problem, as did their 

counterparts at III Marine Amphibious Force and the 1st Marine Aircraft 

Wing. Typically, Lt. Gen. Keith B. McCutcheon, a veteran Marine aviator who commanded III Marine Amphibious Force during most of 

1970, declared: “single management is here, and the way to beat it is 

to join it and outmanage them.” By the time the last Marine aircraft 

12

 Quotation is from Richard A. Hunt, Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts 

and Minds (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 180–81; see also pp. 214 and 273–74. Rosson 

Interv, 1981, pp. 432–36, describes his working relations with Colby. Abrams’ support for CORDS is 

illustrated in Msgs, Abrams MAC 12111 to Field Force Cdrs and Sr Adviser IV Corps, 7 Sep 68; and 

Abrams MAC 4336 to McCain et al., 6 Apr 69. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. 13

 Quotations are from MFR, Col Elizabeth H. Branch, 20 Apr 71, sub: COMUSMACV Remarks 

in Connection with History Briefing, in folder, same title, MACV Collection, MHI; and MACV 

History, 1970, vol. 1, pp. 6–19. Msgs, CG FMFPAC to CMC, 16 and 22 Jun 68; CG III MAF to 

CMC and CG FMFPAC, 16 Sep 68. Both in HQMC Msg files, MCHC. McCutcheon to Quilter, 15 

Jul 68, box 20, McCutcheon Papers, MCHC. McCutcheon, Draft of CMC Memo for CJCS, 14 Nov 

68, sub: Single Management System, McCutcheon folder, MFRs, MCHC. Msg, McCain to Abrams 

info Wheeler and Chapman, 7 Sep 68, Abrams Papers, CMH.
189

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

squadrons left Vietnam in mid-1971, McCutcheon and his successors, 

by manipulating technicalities of the system, had recovered control 

of a large proportion of their sorties. They also had inserted wording 

in a revision of MACV’s basic air command directive that reaffirmed 

the unity of the Marine air-ground team even under single management. On their side, the Seventh Air Force commanders tolerated the 

marines’ encroachments because the marines invariably cooperated 

in genuine emergencies, and because a general decline in the level of 

combat reduced MACV’s need to borrow the marines’ jets.14

Under Abrams as under Westmoreland, single management of airpower meant management by COMUSMACV, not the Air Force component commander. From the bombing halt of November 1968 until 

the resumption of air attacks on North Vietnam in spring 1972, Abrams 

directed a unified Southeast Asia air war, including aerial reconnaissance of southern North Vietnam and, in conjunction with the ambassador in Vientiane, bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Plain 

of Jars in Laos. He also nominated targets to Washington for the secret 

B–52 strikes on enemy base areas in Cambodia. To the continuing displeasure of the Seventh Air Force, Abrams kept the crucial decisions on 

14 The evolution of single management is recounted in Cosmas and Murray, U.S. Marines in 

Vietnam, 1970–1971, pp. 273–79; quotation from McCutcheon is on pp. 275–76 and that from the 

commandant is on p. 278. See also Interv, Project Corona Harvest with Gen George S. Brown, 

19–20 Oct 70, pp. 17–18, AFCHO (hereafter cited as Brown Interv).

Admiral McCain and General Abrams
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

190

targeting and allocation of resources in his own hands and those of his 

Army-dominated MACV staff, with the Air Force headquarters limited 

to nominating targets and carrying out the missions. He personally 

supervised targeting of the B–52s, whose importance as MACV’s mobile 

reserve increased as American ground strength dwindled. As General 

Brown acknowledged, “the chief targeteer was one General Abrams, 

and to try and take it away from him . . . would have been like taking 

his right arm.”15

General Abrams retained his second “hat” as Commanding General, 

U.S. Army, Vietnam; although he delegated most Army logistical and 

administrative matters to his deputy commanding generals of USARV, 

successively Lt. Gens. Mildren and William J. McCaffrey. Abrams 

claimed late in 1971 that he held onto the USARV command primarily 

because “I wanted control over assignment of General Officers.” He 

personally reviewed and approved all assignments and reassignments 

of Army generals in Vietnam and exercised a strong influence over 

which generals the Department of the Army sent to his command. 

As the Army’s internal problems of race, drugs, and discipline intensified during the withdrawal, Abrams also perforce involved himself 

in a series of politically sensitive cases. On all Army matters, he dealt 

with his former Vietnam superior, General Westmoreland, the Army 

chief of staff. Westmoreland, isolated and all but ignored in the Nixon 

administration because the president regarded him as Johnson’s general, scrupulously avoided interfering in operations in Vietnam; and 

he usually deferred to Abrams’ wishes on officer assignments to MACV 

and USARV.16

Abrams’ relationship to U.S. Army, Pacific (USARPAC), the Pacific 

Command’s Army component headquarters, at times was contentious. 

MACV’s Army component was under the command of USARPAC for 

all except operational matters and depended on the Honolulu headquarters for administrative and logistical support. Abrams, however, 

considered USARPAC an unnecessary link in his line of communications to the Department of the Army, and he resented the USARPAC 

commander’s frequent visits to Vietnam and occasional attempts to 

15

 Wayne Thompson, “From Rolling Thunder to Linebacker: The Air War over North Vietnam, 

1966–1973” (Draft MS [Washington, D.C.:], Office of Air Force History, 1995), ch. 6, pp. 17–18; 

MACV History, 1970, vol. 1, ch. 6, p. 19. Msgs, Abrams MAC 4153 to McCain and Wheeler, 2 Apr 

69; Abrams MAC 13410 to McCain and Wheeler, 16 Oct 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Cowles 

Interv, 20 Dec 75, pp. 31–32; Townsend Interv, 26 Feb 76, p. 41; Interv, Marine Corps Historical 

Program with Lt Gen John N. McLaughlin, USMC, 1980, pp. 21–22, 31–32, MCHC (hereafter cited 

as McLaughlin Interv). Quotation is from Brown Interv, 19–20 Oct 70, pp. 37–40. 16

 Quotation is from MFR, Cdr Peter K. Fitzwilliam, USN, 23 Aug 71, sub: Briefing to Command 

Group and General Staff, in folder, Briefing to Command Group and General Staff—Significant 

Impacts MACV Transition to VAC Hqs . . . , MACV Collection, MHI. Msgs, Abrams MAC 8822 

to Mildren, 2 Jul 68; Abrams MAC 5806 to Maj Gen Charles M. Gettys, 15 Jun 71; Abrams Papers, 

CMH; Cowles Interv, 20 Dec 75, p. 66. Kerwin Interv, 9 Apr 76, pp. 2–3. Mildren Interv, 24 Feb 76, 

pp. 8–13, 22–23. Westmoreland’s situation and relationship with Abrams are described in Kissinger, 

White House Years, pp. 1004–05; and Palmer Interv, 29 May 75, p. 24. 
191

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

intervene in areas that Abrams 

believed were in the purview of 

MACV. General Mildren recalled 

that when General Ralph E. 

Haines, the USARPAC commander, visited USARV, Abrams 

treated him with bare courtesy. 

At conferences, Abrams “would 

cut [Haines] off half the time. 

. . . [He] just didn’t want him 

interfering.”17 

Abrams exercised more distant supervision of his Navy and 

Air Force service components. In 

1968, the Navy, with the approval 

of the Joint Chiefs, CINCPAC, 

and COMUSMACV, upgraded the 

post of commander Naval Forces, 

Vietnam (NAVFORV) from a rear 

admiral to a vice admiral. The 

first incumbent in that rank, 

Vice Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt, 

enhanced the status of his command by gaining direct access 

to General Abrams, whereas his predecessors had had to deal entirely 

through the MACV chief of staff. Zumwalt further strengthened his 

position with Abrams by improving NAVFORV’s riverine operations 

and aggressively building up the Vietnamese Navy. Abrams interfered 

little in the internal workings of NAVFORV and the Seventh Air Force. 

His only instruction to General John D. Lavelle when Lavelle took over 

operation of Seventh Air Force in September 1971 was to run his air 

force and resolve a dispute between the Seventh Air Force and MACV 

intelligence staffs. The Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps routinely 

sought Abrams’ approval when they changed component commanders and their principal officers on the MACV staff. Abrams as regularly 

accepted their nominees.18

17

 Mildren Interv, 24 Feb 76, pp. 26–27. See also Palmer Interv, 29 May 75, p. 24.

18

 McLaughlin Interv, 1980, p. 40. Zumwalt’s achievements are summarized in Edward J. 

Marolda, By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast 

Asia (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1994), ch. 4. Abrams’ 

instructions to Lavelle are recounted in USAF Oral History Interv, Lt Col John N. Nick, Jr., with Gen 

John D. Lavelle, 17–24 Apr 78, AFCHO. Msgs, Wheeler JCS 7221 to Abrams info Sharp, 29 Jun 

68; CMC to COMUSMACV, 11 Feb 69; Ryan to McCain and Abrams, 24 Apr 70; Lt Gen Robert J. 

Dixon, Commander, USAF Military Personnel Center, to McCain, Abrams, and Nazzaro, 8 Apr 71; 

Abrams MAC 03643 to Dixon and McCain, 9 Apr 71, all in Abrams Papers, CMH, are examples of 

Abrams’ dealing with Navy and Air Force command matters.

Admiral Zumwalt

(Photograph taken in 1970 when 

we was Chief of Naval Operations.)
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

192

General Abrams controlled his U.S. combat forces through MACV’s 

established regional commands. In I Corps, the III Marine Amphibious 

Force directed operations with XXIV Corps, as Provisional Corps had 

been renamed in August 1968, subordinate to it. The relationship was 

reversed in March 1970, when the XXIV Corps became the senior 

American headquarters with III Marine Amphibious Force under it controlling the remaining marines, who were concentrated in Quang Nam 

Province. In II and III Corps respectively, the I and II Field Forces continued in operation. In IV Corps, the Delta Military Assistance Command, 

established in April 1969, oversaw the few American units supporting 

the South Vietnamese Army. The large III Marine Amphibious Force, 

XXIV Corps, and field force headquarters had matured into what 

Abrams called “a reproduction in miniature of MACV with a similar 

CORDS setup but without component commands.”19

Abrams delegated to his regional commanders much of the planning and conduct of operations, including such politically sensitive 

ones as the 1970 Cambodian incursions. He also involved them extensively in redeployment planning, pacification, and the improvement 

and modernization of the South Vietnamese forces. Abrams took pains 

to protect his field commanders from the flood of inquiries and suggestions from Washington that accompanied every major operation 

or crisis. Lt. Gen. James W. Sutherland, Jr., who commanded XXIV 

Corps, recalled: “He shielded us and protected us. He absorbed all 

of it.” To give guidance to his commanders, Abrams used the same 

devices Westmoreland had used—annual and quarterly combined 

campaign plans, occasional special directives, periodic commanders’ 

conferences, and frequent visits to their headquarters. On his field 

trips, Abrams received situation briefings from his commanders and 

gave operational direction. He also took every opportunity to see and 

be with his soldiers in their camps and firebases.20

Under Abrams, the Military Assistance Command’s relationships 

with the South Vietnamese and allied forces did not change. General 

Abrams, like Westmoreland before him, understood the political 

imperatives that dictated “cooperation and coordination” between 

his forces and the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces rather than 

combined command. President Nixon’s Vietnamization policy made 

19

 Quotation is from Memo, Charles B. MacDonald for SJS MACV, 15 Apr 69, sub: Luncheon 

Meeting with COMUSMACV, in folder, same title, MACV Collection, MHI; Maj. Gen. George S. 

Eckhardt, Command and Control, 1950–1969, Vietnam Studies (Washington, D.C.: Department of 

the Army, 1974) p. 81; I FFV Organization and Functions Manual, 2 Mar 69, Peers Papers, MHI. 20 Quotation is from Interv, Abrams Project with Lt Gen James W. Sutherland, n.d., p. 37, MHI, 

see also pp. 23–24 (hereafter cited as Sutherland Interv). Corcoran Interv, 1975, pp. 69–71; Davison 

Interv, 20 Feb 76, pp. 17–18, 23–25; Kerwin Interv, 9 Apr 76, pp. 3–4; Wetherill Interv, 27 Jan 76, pp. 

31, 34. Significance of campaign plans is noted in Lt Gen Arthur S. Collins, Jr, CG I FFV, Debriefing 

Report, 7 Jan 71, p. 1, Arthur S. Collins Papers, MHI. For other examples of operational guidance, 

see MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, p. 14; Msg, Peers NHT 933 to Abrams, 6 Jul 68, Peers Papers, 

MHI; and the Abrams Message files, Abrams Papers, CMH.
193

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

those imperatives all the more compelling. During his year as deputy 

COMUSMACV, Abrams had worked closely with the South Vietnamese 

military. He understood well its strengths and weaknesses and had 

developed rapport with its leaders, including his direct counterpart, 

General Vien, chief of the Joint General Staff, with whom Abrams 

conferred regularly. Abrams, as the highest level American adviser to 

the RVNAF, labored diligently to persuade his allies to correct their 

many deficiencies; but, like his predecessors, he found the South 

Vietnamese hard to move. Unlike Westmoreland, he at least had the 

advantage of a stable government and high command with which to 

work. Abrams dealt with the South Koreans, Thais, Australians, and 

New Zealanders through the American field force commanders and 

through the MACV Free World Military Assistance Office until those 

contingents redeployed.21

As with the South Vietnamese government, Abrams enjoyed the 

advantage of stability at the head of the U.S. mission. Ambassador 

Ellsworth Bunker, who came out to Vietnam with Abrams in May 

1967, remained at his post until after the cease-fire agreement in early 

1973. The two theoretically coordinate directors of the American effort 

worked together closely and continuously. Abrams was a full member 

of Bunker’s mission council, which brought together the heads of all 

the U.S. agencies in Vietnam, and regularly attended the smaller working luncheons Bunker held with his most senior advisers. Bunker for 

his part usually came to Abrams’ Saturday morning Weekly Intelligence 

Estimate Updates. The two men regularly conferred together with 

President Thieu, although Bunker relieved Abrams of much of the 

burden Westmoreland had borne of overseeing South Vietnamese 

political affairs; and they prepared joint assessments and policy papers 

for the administration in Washington.22

Abrams and Bunker held each other in the highest personal esteem 

and generally were in agreement on policy. The MACV commander 

instructed his staff that “Mr. Bunker was the senior United States representative in Vietnam, and we would defer to Mr. Bunker under any 

and all circumstances.” Abrams cleared all his major actions and messages with the ambassador, and Bunker did the same with him. This 

mutual confidence did not extend to the rest of the civilian side of 

the mission. Since Bunker shared the military view on critical issues, 

21

 The combined command issue came up again in February 1968, to the same conclusion; see 

MACV History, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 221–22, and Msg, Sharp to Westmoreland, 14 Feb 68, Westmoreland 

Message files, Feb 68, CMH. A former MACV J–3 and chief of staff recalls Abrams’ views in Cowles 

Interv, 20 Dec 75, pp. 30–31. Abrams’ advantages and difficulties as an adviser are described in 

Sorley, Thunderbolt, pp. 254–56, and Clarke, Final Years, pp. 361–62, 507. 22 The mission council is described in MACV History, 1970, vol. 1, ch. 4, p. 3. Abrams’ relationship to the ambassador is recounted in Bunker Interv, 2 May 77, pp. 3–4; and Berger Interv, 17 May 

77, p. 14. Msgs, Abrams MAC 17004 to Wheeler and McCain, 12 Dec 68; and Abrams MAC 7753 

to Moorer and McCain, 8 Jun 70, both in Abrams Papers, CMH, describe typical Abrams meetings 

with Thieu.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

194

for example the Cambodian bombing, to a greater degree than many 

of his State Department colleagues, he and Abrams frequently worked 

around what Abrams called the “weak side of [the] mission.” Aware of 

this, some mission civilians complained that Bunker depended more 

heavily on Abrams and MACV for information and advice than he did 

on his embassy staff.23

Under Abrams, the Military Assistance Command remained a subordinate unified headquarters reporting to Admiral McCain, CINCPAC. 

On the doctrinal level, Abrams shared the view, widespread in the 

Army, that CINCPAC was an unnecessary link in the chain of command 

to Southeast Asia. In practice, he and Admiral McCain maintained 

a close, friendly working relationship facilitated by their common 

23 First quotation is from Cowles Interv, 20 Dec 75, pp. 28–29. See also Bunker Interv, 2 May 77, 

pp. 15–16; Corcoran Interv, 20 Dec 75, pp. 22–23, 25–26; Townsend Interv, 26 Feb 76, p. 45; and 

Rosson Interv, 1981, p. 440. Abrams describes his working relations with the embassy in Msg, MAC 

11780 to Wheeler and McCain, 31 Aug 68, Abrams Papers, CMH. Second quotation is from Msg, 

Abrams MAC 15485 to Wheeler and McCain, 30 Nov 69, Abrams Papers, CMH. For a civilian view, 

see Interv, Foreign Affairs Oral History Program with Robert A. Lincoln, 1989, pp. 7–8 (hereafter 

cited as Lincoln Interv) in Charles S. Kennedy, comp., “A Vietnam Reader: Selections from Oral 

Histories of the Foreign Affairs Oral History Program” (MS, Foreign Affairs Oral History Program, 

Georgetown University, 1993).

General Abrams with General Vien
195

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

penchant for cigar smoking and plain speaking. The end of Rolling

Thunder removed McCain from the day-to-day conduct of operations 

in Indochina until the last year of the war. As had his predecessor, 

Admiral Sharp, McCain allowed COMUSMACV a free hand, subject to 

dictates from higher authority, to fight the war in South Vietnam and 

its environs; he and his staff concentrated on supporting MACV and 

interpreting its needs to the Joint Chiefs and the Defense Department. 

They also helped coordinate support for the South Vietnamese force 

buildup and did much of the detailed logistical planning for the successive American troop withdrawals. Abrams and McCain took pains to 

maintain a united front on policy matters. They coordinated all their 

assessments and staff studies and kept up a continuous exchange of 

information. On his frequent visits to MACV, McCain received intelligence and operations briefings, often attended Abrams’ WIEUs and 

Ambassador Bunker’s mission council meetings, and closeted himself 

with Abrams to talk over problems amid clouds of cigar smoke.24

From CINCPAC, the chain of command ran to the secretary of 

defense and ultimately the president. Secretary Laird communicated 

with Abrams through the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman but also contacted him directly through separate message channels and secure 

telephone calls. On his periodic visits to South Vietnam, Laird, who 

developed a close personal rapport with Abrams, always reserved time 

for private talks with the MACV commander. Throughout their association, Abrams supported Laird as loyally as the conflicting demands of 

the administration allowed. Laird, on his part, consistently expressed 

confidence in Abrams, whose approach to Vietnamization the secretary 

considered “completely in line” with his own, and regularly praised his 

leadership in memoranda to President Nixon. General Wheeler, who 

served as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman until July 1970, and his successor, Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, kept up the established practice of 

addressing their messages on policy matters simultaneously to McCain 

and Abrams. The two chairmen regularly sought to orchestrate MACV 

and CINCPAC responses on major issues so as to present a unified military position to Secretary Laird and President Nixon.25

24

 Pacific command relationships are diagrammed in MACV History, 1970, vol. 1, ch. 4, p. 2. 

Interv, Abrams Project with Adm John S. McCain, Jr, n.d., passim, MHI, describes his working 

relationship with Abrams. See also the following interviews, all in the Abrams Project: Cowles, 20 

Dec 75, pp. 25–26, 50–51; Davison, 20 Feb 76, pp. 13–14; Kerwin, 9 Apr 76, pp. 26–27; Mildren, 24 

Feb 76, pp. 26–27; Townsend, 26 Feb 76, pp. 46–47; and Palmer, 29 May 75, p. 24. Msgs, McCain 

to Abrams, 14 Aug 68, 1 Mar 69, 5 Dec 69; Abrams MAC 10994 to McCain info Bunker, 15 Aug 

68; Abrams MAC 15782 to McCain, 6 Dec 69; and Abrams MAC 5854 to McCain, 16 Jun 71, all in 

Abrams Papers illustrate aspects of the COMUSMACV and CINCPAC relationship. 25 Abrams’ relations with the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairmen can be followed in his Msg files, Abrams 

Papers, CMH. Admiral Moorer’s working methods and dealings with Abrams are described in Walter 

Poole, “Responding to the North Vietnamese Offensive, Spring 1972” (MS [Washington, D.C.]: Joint 

History Office, 1997), pp. 1–3 and passim. Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 34–36, provides characterizations of Wheeler and Moorer. Laird quotation is from MFR, Phil Odeen, sub: Vietnamization 

Meeting with Secretary Laird, 27 May 70, folder 75, Thayer Papers, CMH; see also MFR of 15 Jun 71, 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

196

General Abrams’ relationships with the highest national command authority were shaped by the often Byzantine internal workings 

of President Nixon’s administration. When he entered office, Nixon 

established a foreign policy-making structure centered on a reorganized 

National Security Council, to which interagency subcommittees transmitted studies and proposals through a Senior Review Group chaired 

by Dr. Kissinger, the national security adviser. In emergencies, Nixon 

convened a Washington Special Action Group of senior White House, 

State Department, CIA, and Defense officials to coordinate policy and 

review contingency plans.26

In practice, Southeast Asia policy, as the maneuvering over redeployment decisions indicated, was the product of a constant tugof-war between Nixon and Kissinger on the one hand and Secretary 

Laird on the other, with Secretary of State Rogers a weak third player. 

President Nixon distrusted the permanent civilian Defense, State, 

folder 77, same collection. Typical of Laird’s praise of Abrams is Memo, Laird for the President, 8 Nov 

71, sub: Trip to Vietnam, Nov 2–8, 1971, box 158, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 26 Nixon’s foreign policy organization is described in Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 38–39, 

and Poole, “Responding to the North Vietnamese Offensive,” p. 1. Typical proceedings of the Senior 

Review Group are in MFR, 24 Jan 72, sub: Senior Review Group Meeting, box 158, NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA.

Admiral Moorer and President Nixon
197

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

and CIA establishments, which 

he viewed as dominated by disloyal Democrats and left-wingers who wanted to cut and run 

in Vietnam. He and Kissinger 

also had less than full confidence in their senior uniformed 

military advisers, who they considered had lost most of their 

initiative and aggressiveness 

during years of carrying out 

policies in which they did not 

believe. Distrusting the bureaucracy, Nixon and Kissinger 

sought independent channels 

of information and analysis. In 

September 1969, for example, 

Kissinger secured establishment 

of an interagency Vietnam 

Special Studies Group under his 

direction to review periodically 

the state of pacification in South 

Vietnam. President Nixon, temperamentally adverse to personal confrontation, made his 

major decisions in such a way 

as to involve potential dissenters, such as Laird and Rogers, only after the course was irretrievably 

set. He restricted information so that disaffected State and Defense 

bureaucrats could not forestall action by leaks to the news media, 

which Nixon also considered his enemy.27

General Abrams’ contacts with the administration initially were 

straightforward, but complication rapidly set in. During 1969 and 

1970, Abrams, along with Ambassador Bunker and Admiral McCain, 

returned to the United States periodically to brief President Nixon 

and his senior advisers and receive instructions from them. Early in 

1969, however, during the first discussions of B–52 strikes against 

the enemy bases in Cambodia, Nixon and Kissinger began communicating with Abrams and Bunker through Defense and CIA channels, bypassing the State Department. They continued this practice 

27 Nixon’s working methods are described in Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon: The Triumph of a 

Politician, 1962–1972 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), pp. 238–39, 410–12; and Kissinger, 

White House Years, pp. 11–12, 24–33, 264, 275–76. Laird’s wide-ranging interest in the war can 

be followed in the MFRs of his Vietnamization meetings, folders 75–78, Thayer Papers, CMH. 

Illustrative of White House distrust of Laird is Memo, John R. Brown III for Kissinger, 14 Jan 70, and 

Creation of the Vietnam Special Studies Group: NSDM 23, 16 Sep 69, sub: Vietnam Special Studies 

Group, both in box 118, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. See also Hunt, Pacification, pp. 210–11.

(Left to right) Secretary of Defense 

Laird, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew,

President-elect Nixon,

and Secretary of State Rogers
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

198

the following year in the planning for the ground incursions into 

Cambodia, except this time they also cut Secretary Laird out of 

the circuit. Using CIA message channels, Kissinger with increasing 

frequency transmitted instructions and requests for assessments 

directly to Bunker and Abrams. This “Bunker channel” became 

the authoritative one for all sensitive policy directives. Nixon and 

Kissinger also employed Col., later Brig. Gen., Alexander M. Haig, 

Kissinger’s military assistant, who made periodic visits to Vietnam, 

as a go-between to Abrams and Bunker. During the first two years 

of the administration, Abrams managed to retain the confidence 

of his several contending masters, primarily through maintaining 

the consistency of his own assessments and recommendations; but 

his relations with the administration became increasingly difficult 

and contentious as the war drew toward its complex conclusion.28

Changes in MACV Headquarters

When General Abrams took command, the Military Assistance 

Command headquarters and its associated agencies contained about 

3,400 military and civilian personnel. About 2,000 of these were part 

of the MACV command group and general and special staffs. The rest 

belonged to the staffs of CORDS, the Studies and Observations Group, 

the Advanced Research Projects Agency unit, the Armed Forces Radio 

and Television Service, and the Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office. In both 

numbers and positions, the Army dominated the headquarters. Army 

officers and enlisted men accounted for about 60 percent of the total 

strength; Army officers headed four of the six general staff sections 

and most of the special staff agencies. Officers of other services held 

key positions, however. The Marines Corps, for example, continued 

to supply the deputy J–3 for operations, in charge of the Command 

Center.29

Roughly two-thirds of the headquarters personnel lived and worked 

at the main MACV complex at Tan Son Nhut Air Base and the rest in 

Saigon and Cholon. In August 1968, General Abrams and his senior officers relinquished their leased villas in the city for more secure centralized 

quarters in a newly constructed MACV General Officers’ Trailer Park at the 

28 The following, all from the NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA, illustrate the administration’s interaction with Abrams: Memo, Haig for Kissinger, 13 Feb 69, sub: Discussions with Mr Laird . . . , box 

104; Memo, Kissinger for the President, 9 May 69, sub: Talking Points for Use in Private Discussion 

with Gen Abrams, box 137; Memo, Kissinger for the President, 19 Dec 69, sub: Your Meeting with 

Gen Abrams, box 141; Msg, Haig WHS 0011 to Bunker, 31 Mar 70, box 410; Memo, Kissinger for the 

President, 26 Apr 70, sub: Meeting on Cambodia . . . , box 507; Msg Haig Saigon 572 to Kissinger, 21 

May 70, box 1010; Memo, Kissinger for the President, 14 Feb 71, sub: Gen Abrams’ Report on Laos 

Operation, box 081. See also Msg, Abrams MAC 9870 to McCain and Wheeler, 31 Jul 69, Abrams 

Papers, CMH. 29 MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 8, p. 76, summarizes authorized headquarters strengths from 

1969 to 1971; see also ibid., 1970, vol. 1, ch. 4, p. 9.
199

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

air base. Additional MACV personnel moved out of Saigon or ceased to go 

there for work and recreation during 1970–71. At the behest of President 

Nixon, who wanted to minimize American visibility in the capital as a sign 

of Vietnamization, the U.S. Embassy and MACV carried out Operation 

Moose (Move out of Saigon Expeditiously) II, a sequel to a similarly titled 

operation with the same purpose conducted during 1966–68. They closed 

down offices, bachelor officers’ quarters, exchanges, and other facilities in 

the city and rerouted American military traffic around the outskirts.30

Except for general officers, the military personnel in MACV headquarters served standard twelve-month tours (the marines served thirteen-month tours). General officers spent eighteen months on their 

initial Vietnam tours (twenty-four months if they moved their families 

to the Philippines or Thailand) and twelve months if they were on 

second or subsequent assignments. Their time could be split between 

headquarters duty and command, although General Abrams tried 

to ensure that command tours would last at least a year. In MACV 

headquarters, senior staff officers normally remained in their posts for 

about a year. The chiefs of intelligence (J–2) and communications (J–6) 

and some special staff officers stayed longer. Col. Robert M. Cook, the 

MACV inspector general, spent five years in his position.31

Like his predecessor, General Abrams had to cope with a steady 

stream of distinguished visitors. They included President Nixon, 

Secretary of Defense Laird, Secretary of State Rogers, and lesser administration officials on various missions, as well as congressional delegations and junketing political candidates. Like Westmoreland, General 

Abrams complained periodically about the strain the visitors imposed 

on his manpower and transportation resources; but, despite periodic 

efforts by Secretary Laird, the flow never stopped.32

The structure of the MACV staff underwent gradual incremental 

change. In May 1968, the chief of staff, General Kerwin, instituted 

a review of the MACV organization by the assistant chiefs of staff 

and chiefs of special staff agencies to identify and eliminate duplicate, overlapping, and conflicting functions. This effort resulted in 

some movement of tasks among directorates but no radical reorganization. Other changes followed, in response to new situations and 

requirements. Until late in the American withdrawal, however, the 

30 Ibid., 1968, vol. 2, ch. 12, pp. 805–06; ibid., 1969, vol. 3, ch. 14, pp. 24–26; ibid., 1970, vol. 2, 

ch. 9, p. 135; ibid., 1971, vol. 1, ch. 9, pp. 11–12. Memos, Nixon for Kissinger, 12 and 24 Nov 69; and 

Memo, Kissinger for Sec State, 18 Nov 69; box 140; Memo, Kissinger for the President, 23 Dec 69, 

sub: Reduction of American Presence in Saigon, box 141. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 31

 Msgs, Westmoreland WDC 8844 to Abrams, 27 May 69; Abrams MAC 6915 to Westmoreland, 

31 May 69; Westmoreland WDC 100080 to Abrams, 17 Jun 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 32 MACV’s handling of visitors can be followed in the Abrams Message files, Abrams Papers, 

CMH. Examples of concern with the burden are Msgs, Abrams MAC 1560 to Wheeler info Nazzaro, 

4 Feb 69; Abrams MAC 9673 to Maj Gen Peterson info Sec Army Resor et al., 27 Jul 69; Abrams 

MAC 9870 to McCain and Wheeler, 31 Jul 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH; and MFRs, Odeen, 4 

Feb 71 and 7 Oct 71, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, folders 76 and 78, Thayer 

Papers, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

200

basic structure consisted of the command group—COMUSMACV, his 

deputies, the chief of staff, the science adviser, the staff judge advocate, the inspector general, and the Office of Information; the general 

staff, which included the six J sections, the assistant chiefs of staff for 

CORDS and Military Assistance, and the comptroller; and the special 

staff—the provost marshal, adjutant general, chaplain, surgeon, construction director, training director, headquarters commandant, and 

Data Management Agency.33

The most important addition to the MACV staff was an Office of 

the Deputy Chief of Staff for Economic Affairs, headed by an Army 

brigadier general. Secretary Laird himself ordered the establishment 

of this agency out of concern that the American redeployment might 

have adverse effects on Vietnamese prices, wages, and employment that 

would “under-cut much of our military progress” in South Vietnam 

and that U.S. civilian agencies were not effectively addressing the problem. General Abrams, also aware of the economic problem, anticipated 

Laird. In July 1970, he organized an Economics Division in the MACV 

comptroller’s office, with a staff of seven economics-trained officers 

and enlisted men drawn from MACV and USARV headquarters.34

The following month, Secretary Laird directed the Joint Chiefs and 

the Military Assistance Command to prepare plans for a MACV economics agency headed by a general officer and located high enough in the 

chain of command to have significant influence on policy. Laird and 

his assistants closely followed the development of the new agency and 

canvassed the services for economics-qualified officers to man it. On 

17 September, after Laird approved his proposed plan, General Abrams 

established the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Economic Affairs, 

which was built around the comptroller’s Economics Division. To head 

the office, Abrams, after reviewing a list of service nominees, selected 

Army Brig. Gen. William W. Watkin, a former professor of geography 

at West Point who was already slated for a Vietnam command tour. 

Laird, after close scrutiny of Watkin’s qualifications, approved the 

appointment.35

During the rest of 1970 and 1971, Watkin’s office grew rapidly in 

size and influence. It acquired a staff of twenty-five, including eighteen 

professional economists whom Laird’s office had combed out of the 

33 Memo, Kerwin for Distribution List, 7 May 68, sub: Review of HQ MACV Organization and 

Functions, with staff section responses, Reel 050, MACV Microfilms, MHI; MACV History, 1970, 

vol. 3, an. A, p. 3; Briefing, 23 Aug 71, sub: Significant Impacts, MACV Transition to VAC Hq, July 

71–July 72, in folder, Briefing to Command Group and General Staff—Significant Impacts MACV 

Transition to VAC Hqs . . . , MACV Collection, MHI. 34Quotation is from MFR, Odeen, 11 Aug 70, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, 

folder 76, Thayer Papers, CMH; MACV History, 1970, vol. 2, ch. 9, p. 117. 35 MACV History, 1970, vol. 2, ch. 9, p. 117. Msgs, Westmoreland WDC 15422 to Abrams, 21

Aug 70; Abrams MAC 12526 to McCain, 17 Sep 70; Dolvin MAC 12655 to Corcoran, 21 Sep 70. 

All in Abrams Papers, CMH. MFRs, Odeen, 17 Aug 70 and 4, 10, 18, 22, 24, 25 Sep 70, folder 76, 

Thayer Papers, CMH.
201

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

services, organized into branches for commerce, industry, and macroeconomic analysis. As Deputy Chief of Staff for Economic Affairs, 

General Watkin and his successor, Brig. Gen. John A. Wickham, 

advised General Abrams on South Vietnamese economic conditions 

and on the economic impacts of military plans and actions. His office 

prepared a quarterly report to the Joint Chiefs on economic aspects 

of Vietnamization, as well as special studies on how the American 

military could assist South Vietnamese industry, agriculture, and 

commerce. Working closely with the U.S. Agency for International 

Development and the U.S. Embassy, the Office of the Deputy Chief of 

Staff for Economic Affairs during 1971 helped develop and persuade 

President Thieu to implement a program of exchange rate and tariff 

reform; and it cooperated with mission efforts to curb inflation and 

promote economic development. Extending its efforts to the operations side, the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Economic Affairs 

encouraged the South Vietnamese to use their armed forces to secure 

areas of commercial, agricultural, and industrial value. Partly as a result 

of the office’s work, the allies’ Combined Campaign Plan for 1972 for 

the first time included an economic annex.36

Other MACV staff directorates underwent internal adjustments 

of their subdivisions and functions. In the J–3 section, for example, 

General Abrams shifted short-range planning and the issuance of operation orders out of the Command Center, which under Westmoreland 

had all but supplanted the J–3 proper, to other divisions of J–3. Under 

a MACV Directive of 12 June 1969, the J–3, through his Psychological 

Operations Division, assumed the role of staff single manager of the 

command’s psychological warfare activities, which previously had 

been divided among CORDS and other staff elements. In August 1970, 

the J–3 formed a Redeployment Control Group, chaired by the Deputy 

J–3 for Organization, Plans, and Requirements, to coordinate the headquarters’ proliferating redeployment-related staff actions and conduct 

briefings on the status of the effort.37

As improvement and modernization of the South Vietnamese 

armed forces took center stage among MACV’s missions, the headquarters centralized much of its advisory effort in the Office of the Assistant 

Chief of Staff for Military Assistance. Created in September 1967 and 

headed by an Army brigadier general, the office had a peak strength 

of sixty-six officers and enlisted men, organized into divisions for 

Plans and Force Structure, Organization and Programs, and Advisory 

Affairs. In 1968, the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Military 

36 MACV History, 1970, vol. 2, ch. 9, pp. 117–19; ibid., 1971, vol. 1, ch. 8, pp. 84–86, 89–98. 

MFRs, Odeen, 14 Oct 70 and 4 Nov 70, folder 76; 10 Jun 71 and 18 Aug 71, folder 77; 13 Oct 71, 

folder 78, Thayer Papers, CMH. 37 Townsend Interv, 26 Feb 76, pp. 38–41; McLaughlin Interv, 1980, pp. 21–24; Col Anthony 

Walker, USMC (Ret), Comments on Draft MS, Marine Corps Vietnam for 1970–71, 28 Mar 83, in 

1970–71 Comment File, MCHC; MACV History, 1969, vol. 3, ch. 13; p. 5. MACV J–3 Historical 

Summary for Aug 70, 19 Sep 70, Reel 100, MACV Microfilms, MHI.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

202

Assistance took over from J–3 supervision of the Army, Navy, and Air 

Force advisory groups. It managed service-funded military assistance to 

the RVNAF and did most of MACV’s programming of equipment and 

supplies for the South Vietnamese forces. The Office of the Assistant 

Chief of Staff for Military Assistance exercised general staff supervision of the second major MACV advisory element, the ninety-five-man 

Training Directorate, which supported the RVNAF schools and training 

centers. In addition to those offices, every MACV directorate continued 

to advise and assist its Joint General Staff counterpart. As of 1970, some 

390 members of the command group and the general and special staffs 

were performing advisory tasks.38

The Military Assistance Command headquarters by 1969 possessed an extensive, heavily automated reporting and analysis 

establishment. Its Data Management Agency split off from the J–3 

section in July 1969 to become a separate staff element headed by 

an Army colonel who reported directly to the chief of staff. The 

agency, which reached a peak strength of eighty-nine officers and 

men in 1970, generated most of the headquarters’ major statistical 

reports on its then state-of-the-art IBM 360/501 computer. Its products included the CORDS Hamlet Evaluation System reports and 

the Weekly Intelligence Estimate Update, as well as the detailed 

troop lists and movement schedules required for redeployment 

planning. The Data Management Agency served all headquarters 

agencies but the intelligence section, which had its own computer. As part of the World Wide Military Command and Control 

System for U.S. forces, it promulgated joint service data processing 

policies to MACV’s subordinate commands. Its chief advised both 

COMUSMACV and the chief of the RVNAF Joint General Staff on 

data processing matters.39

Among the analysis components, the office of the science adviser, 

which General Westmoreland had established in 1966, underwent 

reduction in size and status. After an aborted empire-building attempt 

by the first incumbent of the position, Dr. William G. MacMillan, the 

MACV chief of staff in 1969 ordered a review of the office’s functions. 

As a result of the review, MacMillan’s successors, Dr. Nels F. Wikner 

and Mr. John E. Kirk, abandoned their predecessor’s attempt to control all research, development, and testing within the command. They 

confined themselves to advising COMUSMACV on science and technology and supervising the Advanced Research Projects Agency unit 

in Vietnam. The Operations Directorate oversaw the activities of the 

38 MACV History, 1970, vol. 1, ch. 7, p. 64; ibid., 1971, vol. 1, ch. 8, p. 74; MACV, “One War,” 

ch. 7, pp. 4, 49; Brown Interv, 19–20 Oct 70, pp. 86, 89; Briefing, Jul 71, sub: MACV Training 

Directorate, in MACV Training Directorate Jul 71 folder, MACV Collection, MHI. 39 MACV General Order no. 3783, 4 Jul 69, Reel 046, MACV Microfilms, MHI MACV History, 

1970, vol. 2, ch. 9, pp. 146–47; ibid., 1971, vol. 2, ch. 10, pp. 53–55.
203

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

service component testing agencies, which retained primary responsibility for combat-related research and development.40

While the importance of the science adviser diminished, operations research and systems analysis flourished at various points in the 

headquarters. The MACV Operations Research/Systems Analysis Office, 

organized in September 1967, grew into an eighteen-man staff of military and civilian analysts and support personnel. Its head, an Army 

colonel, reported directly to the chief of staff. The MACV Operations 

Research/Systems Analysis Office provided study groups to examine 

particular problems assigned by Abrams and constituted “the focal 

point for information about on-going analysis work within the MACV 

staff and component commands.” In addition to the MACV Operations 

Research/Systems Analysis Office, the J–3 section maintained its own 

combat analysis element. The science adviser, the component commands, and CORDS also conducted analytical studies in their own 

fields.41 

General Abrams, although he commissioned and employed analytical studies, treated them with caution. He believed that analysis 

in a combat theater “must be directly responsive to the immediate 

needs of the commander—long range and highly theoretical studies 

should be done elsewhere.” In this spirit, he tactfully rejected a Defense 

Department proposal for an elaborate new Vietnam analysis agency 

with branches in both Washington and Saigon. He bluntly asked 

General Wheeler to “short stop” an initiative by the Hudson Institute, 

a private think tank, to establish an advisory and analysis office in 

South Vietnam. Aware of the difficulty of collecting data in a combat 

zone, Abrams warned that “some of the effort now going into analysis 

is wasteful because the data is bad.” He was inclined to dismiss study 

results if they conflicted with his own military judgment. In late 1968, 

he expressed hope that a planned quantitative analysis to determine 

future B–52 sortie rates would be used “solely in a supporting role” to 

his own forthcoming assessment based on “the military experience in 

the employment of this critical weapons system.”42

Two perennial problems with MACV’s reporting continued to be 

discussed but not solved: its large volume and its questionable reliability. Early in 1971, Secretary Laird asked his systems analysis office to 

suggest reports that MACV could discontinue as the command reduced 

40

 Msgs, McCain to Abrams, 18 Aug 68; Abrams MAC 11903 to Wheeler, 3 Sep 68. Both in 

Abrams Papers. MACV History, 1969, vol. 3, ch. 12, pp. 3–7. The early years of the office are described in Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, pp. 293–94. 41 The MACV systems analysis agency is described in Msg, Abrams MAC 9649 to Westmoreland, 

17 Jul 68, Abrams Papers, CMH. Quotation is from that message. LORAPL Marshall Committee, 

MACV Strategic Objectives Plan, pp. 90–91, CMH. 42

 Quotations are from Msgs, Abrams MAC 9649 to Westmoreland, 17 Jul 68; and Abrams MAC 

13813 to Wheeler info McCain, 12 Oct 68. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. In same collection, see 

Msgs, Westmoreland WDC 14063 to Abrams, 13 Sep 68; Abrams MAC 12740 to Westmoreland, 20 

Sep 68; and Abrams MAC 7730 to Wheeler, 17 Jun 69.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

204

its headquarters staff. The office produced instead a list of reports to 

be retained that was “so long that [Laird] wondered if there were any 

reports that we would let them stop.” How well the statistics flowing from MACV and the rest of the mission portrayed the actual state 

of the war also remained in question. The CORDS Hamlet Evaluation 

System, for example, the command’s comprehensive index of pacification progress, continued to have significant distortions despite several 

revisions aimed at making it more accurate and objective. If fighting 

drove peasants from contested hamlets into refugee camps in secure 

zones, for instance, the Hamlet Evaluation System would record an 

increase in population security. Administration officials, including Dr. 

Kissinger, viewed the Hamlet Evaluation System and other such systems 

with skepticism. Nevertheless, as had been true from the beginning of 

the war, in the absence of a better alternative, they accepted the results 

as at least indicating general trends and used them for public relations 

purposes when the numbers seemed to support their viewpoints.43

MACV Intelligence: A Mature Capability

In May 1969, after a month-long orientation period in country, Maj. 

Gen. William E. Potts replaced General Davidson as MACV J–2. Potts, a 

World War II European theater and Korean War combat veteran whose 

career included armor, operations, and intelligence assignments, had 

a strong background in counterinsurgency and the Vietnam conflict. 

From 1961 to 1962, while in the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for 

Intelligence, he chaired a special study group on the role of Army intelligence in counterinsurgency. He served as G–3 of U.S. Army, Vietnam, 

during the buildup from 1965 to 1966, and then had tours as Chief of 

Staff of the Army Security Agency and G–2 of U.S. Army, Pacific, before 

joining MACV. General Potts, who stayed in the MACV intelligence 

slot until August 1972, longer than any of his predecessors, brought 

continuity to this important function. He enjoyed the confidence of 

General Abrams, with whom he had served in several previous combat, 

contingency operation, and peacetime assignments. Testifying to the 

importance he attached to intelligence as well as his trust in his J–2, 

Abrams himself once observed that he spent more time with General 

Potts than with any other of his general staff chiefs.44

43

 Quotation is from MFR, Odeen, 20 Jan 71, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary 

Laird, folder 76, Thayer Papers, CMH. Hamlet Evaluation System (HES) problems are discussed 

in Hunt, Pacification, pp. 261–62. Administration doubts about the HES are illustrated in Memo, 

Kissinger for the President, 29 Jan 69, sub: Evaluation of Pacification Progress in South Vietnam, 

box 136; and Memo, Lynn for Kissinger, 28 Nov 69, sub: The Hamlet Evaluation System, box 

1009; NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. The trend argument is repeated in MACV History, 1970, 

vol. 1, ch. 8, pp. 15 –17. 44 Memo, Col Sam A. Roberts, USAF for SJS MACV, 17 Apr 69, sub: MACV History Program, 

Reel 052, MACV Microfilms, MHI; biographical sketch, Lt Gen William E. Potts, CMH. Interv, author 

with Lt Gen William E. Potts, 29 Apr 97, CMH (hereafter cited as Potts Interv).
205

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

Thanks to a buildup during General Westmoreland’s tenure, 

General Potts directed a large, mature organization with extensive 

collection and production capabilities. With operational control over 

MACV’s theater-level Army intelligence units, Potts coordinated the 

intelligence activities of other MACV staff agencies and the field and 

component commands. He codirected with his Joint General Staff 

counterpart the four combined intelligence centers. Within the J–2, 

the earlier division between the staff proper and the combined centers 

had disappeared with time and personnel turnover. The entire intelligence establishment worked as a unified team, staffed by experienced 

officers who often had served previous Vietnam tours. Potts’ section 

exchanged information with the embassy and other American agencies 

and received special intelligence support from the National Security 

Agency element in Vietnam.45

Data flowed into the J–2 from captured documents, prisoners of war, defectors, agents, sensors, communications intercepts, 

and various forms of aerial imaging, as well as combat operations. 

In 1970, for example, the Cambodian incursion produced, among 

other booty, more than five tons of enemy documents that contained 

valuable information on North Vietnamese infiltration, organization, and plans. As the field forces perfected their own intelligence 

establishments, the J–2 in mid-1968 began decentralizing some of 

its collection effort to the III Marine Amphibious Force, I and II Field 

Force, and Delta Military Assistance Command G–2s, who received 

authority to increase requirements upon collection elements in their 

areas on behalf of their own commanders and MACV. The J–2 section employed its own computer system to store and retrieve all this 

information, which constituted a comprehensive, quickly available 

database on the enemy, as well as to perform various analyses. It continued, for example, to refine its analysis of enemy activity patterns, 

which permitted more effective targeting of air strikes and ground 

operations.46

The combined intelligence centers, with their mixed Vietnamese 

and American staffs, provided valuable support to MACV’s intelligence 

output. At the capstone of the system, the Combined Intelligence 

Center, Vietnam, prepared joint estimates and studies, pattern analyses, 

and basic information pamphlets for issue to troops and maintained an 

automated data bank. Two of its most common products were pattern 

analyses requested by the corps area commands and periodic enemy 

45

 MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 3, pp. 67–69; Msg, Abrams MAC 1232 to McCain info Wheeler, 

27 Jan 70, Abrams Papers, CMH; Bfg, Lt Gen William E. Potts, sub: Intelligence Perspectives on the 

Vietnam War, A Collector’s View: The Perspective from J–2, p. 13, CMH. The end of the J–2 and 

Combined Intelligence Center, Vietnam (CICV), antagonism is noted in Potts Interv, 29 Apr 97. 46

 Potts Interv, 29 Apr 97; DIA Appraisal, sub: Significance of Enemy Documents Captured 

in Cambodia, box 509, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA; Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 12736 to 

CG USARV et al., 5 May 68, sub: Decentralization of Intelligence Collection Assets, in folder, 

Decentralization of Intel Collection . . . , MACV Collection, MHI.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

206

base area studies. The Combined Document Exploitation Center by 1970 

could receive a captured document from the field one day, translate it, 

and return it to the capturing unit the next day for use in continuing 

operations.47

The single most important product of this intelligence complex was 

General Potts’ daily briefing for General Abrams, his deputies, and the 

principal MACV staff officers, which expanded each Saturday morning 

into the WIEU. In this briefing, Potts and his assistants summarized 

current developments in North Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and South 

Vietnam, concluding with an estimate of the “nature of the threat.” A 

former USARV deputy commander recalled that in the WIEUs, Abrams 

“jumped on Potts quite often. But I never remember any time that 

Potts came up differently the next time.” The same information went 

daily to Admiral McCain and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman by 

secure message. To provide rapid response to queries from headquarters, the field, and Washington, the J–2 section was manned, in three 

shifts, twenty-four hours a day. General Potts was in his office most 

days from 0500 to 2200, as well as answering an average of three calls a 

night during enemy offensives or high points from Washington or the 

field commanders.48

General Potts’ briefings for senior officers—which he also gave in 

modified form to an endless succession of distinguished visitors to 

MACV—were only one channel through which military intelligence 

and information were disseminated to MACV headquarters and its 

subordinate commands. According to a 1969 Military Assistance 

Command study, all MACV directorates and subordinate commands 

were receiving and exchanging timely intelligence through a rich network of formal and informal systems. This network had evolved over 

time and was too complex for centralized regulation, but it was highly 

effective in furnishing each agency with the information and intelligence it required.49 

A mature and responsive intelligence capability was one of the foundations of General Abrams’ “one war” strategy and made possible the 

effective use of MACV’s diminishing military strength. For example, 

General Potts and his staff developed the ability to predict, with nearly 

100 percent accuracy, when the enemy would launch his periodic 

offensives or high points, as well as major local attacks. On the basis of 

this information, General Abrams and his field commanders mounted 

preemptive operations that blocked the enemy initiatives or greatly 

reduced their effects. In October 1969, a National Security Council 

staff member concluded: “The commander in the field is supported by 

47

 Potts Interv, 29 Apr 97; Potts, Intelligence Perspectives, p. 14. For a description of CICV in 

1970–71, see Cosmas and Murray, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1970–1971, p. 389. At that time, CICV 

was directed by a U.S. Marine colonel with a Vietnamese lieutenant colonel as codirector. 48

 Potts Interv, 29 Apr 97. Quote is from Mildren Interv, 24 Feb 76, p. 25.

49

 Memo, Col T. J. DeFranco for Col Roberts, 2 Apr 69, sub: Beige Box Intelligence Flow 

Survey, in folder, same title, MACV Collection, MHI.
207

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

the most sophisticated intelligence apparatus ever assembled. He has, 

therefore, been able to take advantage of his foreknowledge of enemy 

intentions . . . to undertake devastating preemptive actions.”50

Despite the growing sophistication of intelligence, some questions 

still lacked definitive answers. The exact size of enemy forces in South 

Vietnam, for instance, long remained a matter of dispute between the 

Military Assistance Command on one side and the Central Intelligence 

Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency on the other, with the latter 

two agencies adhering to the higher estimates. Even when the intelligence community agreed to use strength ranges instead of single figures, disagreements continued over whether, and by how much, enemy 

strength was declining—an issue that had public relations as well as 

intelligence implications because it reflected on administration claims 

of progress and on redeployment criteria. General Abrams and his field 

commanders gave production of an accurate enemy order of battle a 

high priority; Abrams personally reviewed and approved each enemy 

strength report prepared by his staff before forwarding it to higher 

headquarters. Nevertheless, the problem was complex, in part because 

small enemy units and replacement groups could enter South Vietnam 

almost overnight across the long Cambodian and Laotian borders and 

it took time to make contact with them and identify them. The various 

estimative methods used by MACV and other agencies were difficult to 

reconcile, and their differing conclusions caused disquiet among senior 

officials. As late as March 1971, Secretary Laird, who followed the issue 

with much interest and concern, cautioned President Nixon to avoid 

specific numbers in public discussions of enemy strength and “speak 

only in terms of qualitative trends.”51

Intelligence, like every other aspect of the allied war effort, underwent Vietnamization. The process was gradual because MACV had to 

ensure full support of American forces until they departed and then 

attempt to leave South Vietnamese intelligence in as strong a position 

as possible. General Potts devoted much attention to the latter task. He 

secured the appointment of a capable Joint General Staff intelligence 

chief, Col. Hoang Ngoc Lung. Potts worked closely with Lung and also 

50 Quotation is from Memo, Dave McManis for Haig, 8 Oct 69, sub: Predictions of Enemy 

Offensives, box 089, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. See also Memo, Haig for McManis, 7 Oct 

69, sub: Predictions of Vietnamese Offensives; and Memo, Laird for the President, 11 Oct 69, sub: 

“Batting Average” in Predicting Enemy Activity. Both in box 089, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 

Abrams notes the great improvement in intelligence in Memo, Charles B. MacDonald for SJS MACV, 

15 Apr 69, sub: Luncheon Meeting with COMUSMACV, in folder, same title, MACV Collection, 

MHI. 51

 Quotation is from Memo, Laird for the President, 3 Mar 71, sub: Estimates of Enemy Forces 

in Southeast Asia, box 153, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Continuing controversy is reflected in 

Memo, Haig for Brig Gen Robert E. Pursley, 25 Mar 71, sub: NVA/VC Strength Estimates, box 153; 

Untitled, Undated Paper, [late 69], sub: Enemy Manpower, box 1009; and Memo, Paul V. Walsh for 

Lynn and Winston Lord, 4 May 70, box 146. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, CMH. Laird’s concern 

is noted in MFRs, Odeen, 30 Jul 70, 1 Mar 71, and 8 Apr 71, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with 

Secretary Laird, folders 75 and 77, Thayer Papers, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

208

with Col. Pham Huu Nhon, who headed the South Vietnamese counterpart of the National Security Agency. To a greater degree than his 

predecessors, Potts regularly exchanged views and estimates with his 

counterparts on the substance of intelligence. Potts, Lung, and their 

staffs held weekly meetings; and Potts, according to Colonel Lung, 

“made himself available for every worthy discussion.”52

As redeployments proceeded, U.S. intelligence units gradually 

withdrew from South Vietnam. MACV incrementally removed 

its personnel from the combined centers so that they ultimately 

became all-Vietnamese installations. To provide trained personnel 

for the centers and other agencies, General Potts arranged to send 

261 South Vietnamese officers, most of them captains and majors, 

to the U.S. Army, Pacific, intelligence school in Okinawa and 24 

to the Army intelligence school at Fort Holabird, Maryland. While 

such MACV efforts improved South Vietnamese capabilities, they 

could not overcome the fragmentation and politicization of the 

Vietnamese intelligence community. In addition, Vietnamization 

could not fully compensate for the removal of American technology 

and expertise. The Vietnamese, for example, even though they sent 

officers to the United States for computer training and had other 

personnel instructed on the job in Saigon, could not make full use 

of the Americans’ automated intelligence data-handling system. 

Recognizing these shortfalls, MACV included in the 69,000-man 

residual force projected in OPLAN J208A about 6,000 intelligence 

personnel. MACV plans for its own headquarters reorganization and 

reduction called for a sizeable directorate of intelligence well into 

the purely advisory period.53

Reducing the Command Structure

As troop withdrawals accelerated, MACV developed and incrementally implemented plans for scaling back the American command 

structure in South Vietnam, including its own headquarters. Under 

the command’s contingency “T-Day” plans, MACV was to revert to a 

joint Military Assistance Advisory Group capable of providing advice 

and support to the South Vietnamese forces as well as conducting 

unilateral U.S. intelligence and communications activities. As part of 

52 Quotation is from Lung, Intelligence, pp. 82–83. RVNAF military intelligence organization is 

described in MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 3, p. 69; Potts Interv, 29 Apr 97. 53 Msg, Abrams MAC 12568 to McCain, 18 Sep 70, Abrams Papers, CMH; Clarke, Final Years, 

p. 435. Difficulties of Vietnamization are described in Lung, Intelligence, pp. 84–86; and in George 

W. Allen, “Intelligence in Small Wars: Lessons from Vietnam?” (Paper prepared for 1991 Annual 

Meeting of the American Political Science Association), pp. 14–16, copy in CMH. Memo, Cowles 

for Distribution, 29 Sep 71, sub: Consolidation of Headquarters . . . , in folder, Minutes of Hq MACV 

Reorganization Study Group Meeting, 28 Sep 71; and Briefing for Gen Lucius D. Clay, Jr., USAF, 

21 Jan 72, sub: U.S. Redeployment Status, tab D, MAC J303 Briefing Book no. 4. Both in MACV 

Collection, MHI. Number of Vietnamese officers trained is from Potts Interv, 29 Apr 97. 
209

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

its National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM) 36 submission, the 

command in mid-1969 indicated that it would gradually draw down 

headquarters manpower in preparation for the transition to T-Day. It 

also envisioned reducing or consolidating subordinate headquarters, 

notably the III Marine Amphibious Force and the Army’s 1st Logistical 

Command.54

Actual headquarters reductions were small during the initial redeployment increments, since command, control, and advisory requirements did not diminish. MACV headquarters strength, for example, 

declined by only about 200 personnel between May 1969 and May 

1970. Secretary Laird, concerned at the apparent imbalance between 

combat and support forces in the withdrawals, continually pressed 

General Abrams to bring headquarters drawdowns into line with the 

overall pace of redeployment.55

In response to these pressures, during the first half of 1970, 

General Abrams carried out the III Marine Amphibious Force and 1st 

Logistical Command reductions called for in the NSSM 36 plan. The 

first of these—the replacement of III Marine Amphibious Force by 

XXIV Corps as the senior U.S. headquarters in I Corps—turned out to 

be more of a command change than a reduction. Given the fact that 

two corps-level American headquarters existed in the northernmost 

military region, as well as General Abrams’ determination to remove 

the entire Marine contingent in the early redeployment phases, an 

Army takeover of I Corps was logical and inevitable. Accordingly, as 

the 3d Marine Division departed during the summer and fall of 1969, 

Abrams’ staff and that of III Marine Amphibious Force began planning 

for the turnover. Complicating the task, the marines insisted that, to 

preserve the integrity of their air-ground team, their 1st Division and 

1st Aircraft Wing must operate under a Marine headquarters until they 

redeployed.56

On 26 January 1970, after much consultation with III Marine 

Amphibious Force and with the Joint Chiefs and the Marine Corps 

commandant, General Abrams decided simply to place the XXIV Corps 

in command of all U.S. forces in I Corps. A scaled-down III Marine 

Amphibious Force, under XXIV Corps operational control, would direct 

Marine air and ground operations and act as service component command during the short time Marine forces were expected to remain 

in Vietnam. The turnover, which included movement of XXIV Corps 

headquarters from Phu Bai to the former III Marine Amphibious Force 

54

 MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, p. 23. Msgs, COMUSMACV MAC 22495 to Component 

Cdrs, 14 Apr 69; COMUSMACV MAC 32821 to CINCPAC, 3 Jun 69. Both on Reel 056, MACV 

Microfilms, MHI. Msg, Abrams MAC 10110 to McCain info Wheeler, 5 Aug 69, Abrams Papers, 

CMH. 55 Headquarters strength is summarized in MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 8, p. 76; MACV J–3, 

Force Planning Synopsis for Gen Abrams, vol. 2, pp. 113–14, 352, CMH; MFR, Odeen, 23 Jun 70, 

sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, folder 75, Thayer Papers, CMH. 56 Cosmas and Murray, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1970–1971, pp. 15–16.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

210

compound at Da Nang, was completed on 9 March. However, it produced no immediate elimination of any headquarters. Because of the 

stretch-out of Marine redeployments, the III Marine Amphibious Force 

stayed in operation for another year, with Da Nang and Quang Nam 

Province as its area of responsibility. It redeployed in April 1971 along 

with the division and wing, giving way to the short-lived 3d Marine 

Amphibious Brigade.57

During 1970, U.S. Army, Vietnam, carried out the second headquarters consolidation envisioned in NSSM 36 by absorbing the 1st 

Logistical Command. Both headquarters, located at Long Binh, were 

engaged in administration and supply of Army forces; their general 

and special staffs overlapped in many functions. MACV, U.S. Army, 

Vietnam, and the Department of the Army considered merging the two 

in 1966 and again in 1968. Each time, they decided against it, on the 

first occasion because of the rapid troop buildup and on the second out 

of reluctance to reorganize in the midst of the heavy post-Tet fighting. 

In June 1969, with redeployment under way, MACV and U.S. Army, 

Vietnam, decided to proceed with the merger. Implemented gradually, 

the consolidation was completed a year later. It made no change in the 

relationship between MACV and the Army component headquarters, 

but left U.S. Army, Vietnam, in direct control of the four regional Army 

Support Commands.58

As U.S. combat troop redeployments accelerated during 1970, 

General Abrams set his staff to work on plans for reducing the large 

field force headquarters and shifting their functions away from military operations toward advice, support, and pacification. The MACV 

staff in November proposed a plan to combine the field force, Army 

advisory group, and CORDS staffs in each region into a single headquarters. Each new regional headquarters would contain about 350 

personnel in contrast to more than 600 in the existing organization. 

In January 1971, Abrams adopted the plan. However, at the request of 

the field force commanders, he left the CORDS staff out of the merger, 

declaring that such military-civilian integration would be “divisive at 

this critical time when we all must pull together toward a common 

goal.” Abrams also decided to postpone reorganization of the XXIV 

Corps, which continued to control large American combat forces and 

faced a strong enemy threat, until 1972.59

57 Ibid., pp. 16–21. Msgs, CG III MAF to COMUSMACV 17 Jan 70; Abrams MAC 1163 to 

McCain info Wheeler, 26 Jan 70; Zais DNG 644 to Abrams, 18 Mar 70. All in Abrams Papers, 

CMH. 58 Paper, sub: Consolidation of Hq USARV and Hq 1st Log Command, Reel 098, MACV 

Microfilms, MHI; MACV History, 1970, vol. 2, ch. 9, pp. 4–5; MACV J–3, Force Planning Synopsis 

for Gen Abrams, vol. 2, p. 267. 59 MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 8, p. 73; Memo, Cowles for Chief of Staff, Nov 70, sub: 

Restructuring of Advisory Effort and Integration of Major Headquarters in the Military Regions, 

in folder, same title, MACV Collection, MHI. Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 01171 to 

Component and Field Cdrs, 4 Feb 71, Abrams Papers, CMH. See also Msgs, Abrams MAC 14004 to 
211

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

Reorganization in the other three corps areas went forward. On 30 

April 1971, General Abrams redesignated the I and II Field Forces as 

respectively the Second and Third Regional Assistance Commands and 

combined them with the Army advisory groups, which simultaneously 

were being scaled down. At the same time, the Delta Military Assistance 

Command became the Delta Regional Assistance Command. In II 

Corps, from which most American combat forces had departed, General 

Abrams went further in merging civilian and military authority. On 16 

May, he converted the Second Regional Assistance Command into the 

Second Regional Assistance Group and placed it under a civilian, the 

veteran CORDS regional director John P. Vann. General Abrams made 

this unusual arrangement to ensure strong American influence over 

the newly appointed South Vietnamese II Corps commander, General 

Dzu, whose area was a likely target for any future major Communist 

offensive and who had learned to depend on Vann’s advice in his previous command of IV Corps. Vann, as director of the regional assistance 

group, oversaw all American military and pacification support functions in II Corps and acted as senior adviser to General Dzu. He had 

under him a military deputy, who formally commanded the remaining 

American troops, and a deputy for CORDS.60

Even as it reorganized the regional headquarters, the Military 

Assistance Command accelerated preparations for its own restructuring. During 1970, the J–5 staff completed MACV OPLAN J198, under 

which the headquarters was to reorganize by mid-1973 into a joint 

Military Assistance Advisory Group. The group, with about 24,000 

American troops under its command and a headquarters staff of about 

1,200, was to provide advice and assistance to the RVNAF, manage 

military support programs, and conduct limited intelligence, communications, pacification, and air operations until its ultimate phasedown 

and elimination.61

Besides refining plans for the Military Assistance Advisory Group, 

MACV in September 1970 began developing a concept, closely coordinated with that for reduction of the field force headquarters, for an 

interim transformation into a smaller organization, to be called the 

Vietnam Assistance Command (VAC). On 15 May 1971, to parallel the 

work on the J208 series of OPLANs for reducing American strength to 

about 60,000 by mid-1972, the chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Welborn G. 

Dolvin, established a VAC planning group chaired by the MACV deputy 

chief of staff and including representatives of the principal general staff 

McCain, 25 Oct 70; Davison HOA 0183 to Abrams, 30 Jan 71; Abrams MAC 01446 to Davison info 

McCaffrey, 10 Feb 71; Abrams MAC 01952 to McCaffrey et al., 24 Feb 71. All in Abrams Papers, 

CMH. 60 MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 8, p. 73; Letter of Instruction (LOI), Abrams to Vann, 15 

May 71, John P. Vann Papers, MHI. The circumstances of Vann’s appointment are described in Neil 

Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: Random House, 

1988), pp. 748–52. Msg, Funkhouser HOA 1774 to Abrams, 8 Sep 71, Abrams Papers, CMH. 61

 MACV History, 1970, vol. 2, ch. 7, pp. 81–84; ibid., 1971, vol. 1, ch. 8, pp. 71–72.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

212

elements. The group was to make detailed plans for reformation of 

MACV headquarters into a 950-man VAC, which in turn would phase 

down into the Military Assistance Advisory Group, renamed the Vietnam 

Assistance Group (VAG), “the ultimate organization for the long term 

advisory period.”62

As envisioned by the planning group, which finished its work in 

late August, the VAC headquarters would be essentially a scaled-down 

version of that of MACV. The transitional command would continue 

as a joint headquarters under CINCPAC with subordinate Army, Navy, 

and Air Force components. It would remain in existence as long as U.S. 

combat and combat support units were in South Vietnam and would 

conduct military and advisory operations. The VAC was to have essentially the same command group and general and special staff structures as MACV, but with the J sections redesignated as directorates and 

CORDS renamed Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development 

Assistance. Reducing the total number of headquarters agencies from 

twenty-three to nineteen, the offices of the J–5 and the Assistant Chief 

of Staff for Military Assistance, as well as the Construction and Training 

Directorates, were to be eliminated. Their functions were to be assumed 

by the J–3 and J–4 sections and, in the case of J–5’s strategic planning 

responsibilities, by Pacific Command headquarters. However, the VAC 

would retain the recently created Deputy Chief of Staff for Economic 

Affairs. To perform housekeeping and security tasks for the headquarters complex, the office of the MACV Headquarters Commandant was 

to combine with the U.S. Army Headquarters Area Command, which 

provided logistical support for U.S. installations in Saigon, as VAC 

Special Troops.63 (Chart 2)

Under the VAC plan, the component and regional commands also 

were to reduce and reorganize. U.S. Army, Vietnam, cut to 350 personnel, would become an Army support command while the Army 

advisory program continued to be directed by the VAC staff and the 

regional assistance commands. The Seventh Air Force was to revert to a 

775-man air division headquarters and Naval Forces, Vietnam, to a 200-

man Naval Advisory Group staff. The regional assistance headquarters 

were to shrink from about 350 men each to around 150.64

62 Quotation is from MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 8, p. 72. Bfg, 23 Aug 71, sub: Significant 

Impacts, MACV Transition to VAC Hq, July 1971–July 1972, in folder, Bfg to Command Group and 

General Staff—Significant Impacts MACV Transition to VAC Hqs . . . ; Bfg, sub: VAC Structure, tab 

H. MAC J303 Bfg Book no. 4; Memo, Dolvin for Dist[ribution] List, 15 May 71, sub: Headquarters 

MACV Staff Reorganization, in folder, Hq MACV Staff Organization. Both in MACV Collection, 

MHI. Msg, Abrams MAC 06525 to Component and Regional Assistance Cdrs, 7 Jul 71, Abrams 

Papers, CMH. 63 Bfg, 23 Aug 71, sub: Significant Impacts, MACV Transition to VAC Hq, July 1971–July 1972, 

23 Aug 71, in folder, Briefing to Command Group and General Staff—Significant Impacts MACV 

Transition to VAC Hqs . . . ; Briefing, sub: VAC Structure, tab H, MAC J303 Bfg Book no. 4, MACV 

Collection, MHI. 64

 Bfg, 23 Aug 71, sub: Significant Impacts, MACV Transition to VAC Hq, July 1971–July 1972, 

in folder, Bfg to Command Group and General Staff—Significant Impacts MACV Transition to VAC 
213

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

Simultaneous with the VAC planning, a working group under the 

J–5 section refined plans for the VAG. The VAG staff structure, into 

which the VAC headquarters would phase down as the last American 

combat and combat support forces redeployed, was to be a reduced 

version of that of the assistance command. It would exercise control 

of residual regional assistance agencies and small Army, Navy, and Air 

Force advisory and component elements.65

On 23 August, General Abrams, after a briefing on the VAC plan, 

approved it with a succinct “Okay, go ahead.” His words set the reorganization in motion. To oversee the drawdown, the planning group 

spawned an “executive committee” chaired by the chief of the J–3 

Manpower Control Division, with representatives from the J–1 and 

the comptroller. This committee in turn established subcommittees to 

Hqs . . . ; Memo, Cdr P. K. Fitzwilliam, USN, for Lt Col Muscari et al., 29 Aug 71, sub: Maj Gen 

Bowley’s Hq MACV Study Group Issues, in folder, Minutes of MACV Study Group Meeting, 31

Aug 71, MACV Collection, MHI. Msg, McCaffrey ARV 2403 to Abrams, 16 Jul 71, Abrams Papers, 

CMH. 65 Memo, Maj Gen John T. Carley for Asst CofS J–5, 23 Aug 71, sub: Military Advisory Policy, 

in folder, Military Advisory Policy, 3 Sep 71, MACV Collection, MHI.

COMUSVAC

CHIEF

JUDGE

ADVOCATE

DEPUTY COMUSVAC/

CHIEF of STAFF

SECRETARIATE

DEPUTY CHIEF of STAFF

FOR ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

Director of

Personnel

Director of

Intelligence

Director of

Operations,

Plans, and

Training

Director of

CommunicationsElectronics

Director

CORDA Comptroller

SCIENCE

ADVISOR

INSPECTOR

GENERAL

OFFICE of

INFORMATION

DEPUTY CORDA

DEPUTY FOR AIR

DEPUTY CHIEF of STAFF

Director of

Logistics

Adjutant

General

Data

Management

Agency

Surgeon Provost

Marshal Chaplain Special

Troops

CHART 2—PROPOSED VAC HEADQUARTERS ORGANIZATION, 23 AUGUST 1971

Source: Adopted by author from chart in VAC Bfg, 23 Aug 71, MHI.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

214

work out the details of gradually eliminating personnel spaces, consolidating functions, and disestablishing agencies. The subcommittees’ 

collective objective was to conduct a smooth reorganization with minimum disruption of the headquarters’ continuing activities, with the 

transition to be completed by the end of June 1972.66 

The executive committee, after exchanges with the staff agencies, developed a joint table of distribution for the VAC headquarters, enlarged from 950 to 1,084 spaces to accommodate staff section 

demands for additional manpower. During the 45,000-man redeployment that President Nixon ordered on 12 November, the headquarters, on the basis of this joint table of distribution, began reducing 

its manpower to VAC levels. In November, MACV disestablished the 

office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Military Assistance and distributed its personnel and functions to the J–1, J–3, and J–4 sections. 

It also merged the Headquarters Commandant with the U.S. Army 

Headquarters Area Command. Elimination of the J–5 section and the 

Training and Construction Directorates was scheduled for the first half 

of 1972. Transfer of functions to other headquarters began. The MACV 

Adjutant General, for instance, turned over most of his Army personnel administration tasks to his USARV counterpart. Simultaneously, 

MACV’s component and regional assistance commands continued 

their own headquarters reduction planning, which they had begun 

during the summer, and started to implement their plans.67

The headquarters reorganization included the elimination of the 

civilian deputy COMUSMACV for CORDS. Ambassador Colby, because 

of family problems, requested relief in June 1971. Prolonged interagency maneuvering ensued as the State and Defense Departments 

jointly sought a suitable successor. State Department officials wanted 

to keep a civilian, preferably a Foreign Service officer, in the position 

but could not find a qualified candidate acceptable to both departments. John Vann, for example, was anathema to the military, who had 

never forgiven his earlier career in Vietnam as a maverick and dissenter 

during 1962 and 1963. Finally, in September, Ambassador Bunker and 

66 Quotation is from MFR, Cdr P. K. Fitzwilliam, USN, 23 Aug 71, sub: Briefing to Command 

Group and General Staff, in folder, Briefing to Command Group and General Staff—Significant 

Impacts MACV Transition to VAC Hqs . . . ; MFR, Cdr P. K. Fitzwilliam, USN, 2 Sep 71, Minutes of 

MACV Study Group Meeting, in folder, same title, 31 Aug 71, MACV Collection, MHI. 67 MFR, Lt Col W. P. Baxter, 25 Sep 71, sub: Minutes of Hq MACV Reorganization Study 

Group Meeting, in folder, same title; Memo, Cowles, C/S MACV, for Distribution, 29 Sep 71, sub: 

Consolidation of Headquarters . . . , in folder, Minutes of Hq MACV Reorganization Study Group 

Meeting, 28 Sep 71; MFR, Lt Col W. P. Baxter, 5 Nov 71, sub: Hq MACV Reorganization Study 

Group Meeting, in folder, same title; Memo, Maj Gen Bowley, USAF for C/S MACV, 11 Nov 71, 

sub: Reorganization of Hq MACV, in folder, same title, 11 Nov 71; Memo, Cowles for Distribution, 

25 Nov 71, sub: Increment 10, in folder, C/S Action Memo no. 71–85—Increment 10. . . . All in 

MACV Collection, MHI. MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 8, pp. 73–75, and vol. 2, ch. 10, p. 53. 

Msgs, McCaffrey ARV 2403 to Abrams, 16 Jul 71; Vann NHT 1542 to Abrams, 19 Jul 71; Gen 

Lucius D. Clay, Jr, USAF to Abrams, 21 Jul 71; and COMNAVFORV to COMUSMACV, 12 Nov 

71. All in Abrams Papers, CMH.
215

MACV Headquarters: The Drawdown

General Abrams jointly recommended Abrams’ deputy COMUSMACV, 

General Weyand. They cited Weyand’s excellent rapport with the South 

Vietnamese; his extensive pacification experience, which dated back to 

his command of the 25th Division and II Field Force; and his four-star 

rank, which would maintain the prestige and bureaucratic strength of 

the organization. The State Department, after initial objection, accepted 

Weyand since CORDS was due for drastic personnel reductions in 1972 

as part of the overall drawdown. In October, accordingly, Weyand, 

as an additional duty, assumed the post of deputy COMUSMACV for 

CORDS. The civilians in the organization, many already acquainted 

with Weyand, received his appointment without demur.68

During 1971, another agency closely connected to MACV, the 

Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office (JUSPAO), came under attack. Since 

1965, this agency, staffed by both military and civilian personnel, had 

coordinated the U.S. mission’s public information activities, including those of the MACV Office of Information, and shared with MACV 

the conduct of psychological warfare operations. In June 1971, Frank 

Shakespeare, Director of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), which 

oversaw JUSPAO, announced his intention to begin phasing down 

JUSPAO into a normal U.S. Information Agency office, thereby ending 

both its media relations and psychological warfare roles. Ambassador 

Bunker, on behalf of the U.S. mission, opposed the change. He declared 

that, even as JUSPAO had ensured that the mission spoke with “one 

voice” during the buildup, it was needed to “assure such control during 

the far more difficult and subtle period of disengagement which lies 

ahead.” Swayed by Bunker’s argument, the administration postponed 

formal dissolution of JUSPAO. Nevertheless, a new JUSPAO chief, at 

Shakespeare’s instructions, during late 1971 began dismantling the 

agency by reducing civilian positions and neglecting to replace military 

personnel when their tours ended. The decline of JUSPAO constituted 

another blow to what was by then a collapsing relationship between 

MACV, and the mission as a whole, and the news media.69

68 MFRs, Odeen, 23 and 24 Jun 71, 20 Jul 71, 10 and 17 Aug 71, and 27 Sep 71, sub: Vietnamization 

Meeting with Secretary Laird, folders 77 and 78, Thayer Papers, CMH. Msg, Bunker Saigon 0164 

to Kissinger (via CAS channel), 16 Sep 71, box 412; Haig Saigon 256 to Kissinger, 22 Sep 71, box 

1014; MFRs, 7 Oct 71, sub: Vietnam Ad Hoc Working Group Meetings, 28 Sep 71, 1 and 5 Oct 71, 

and Msg, Bunker Saigon 16990 to Amb Sullivan, 25 Oct 71, box 157. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA. Msgs, Abrams MAC 59162 to Bunker, 18 Jun 71; Bunker PVD 153 to Abrams, 18 Jun 71; 

Abrams MAC 08819 to McCain and Moorer, 13 Sep 71. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 69 Memo, Frank Shakespeare for Kissinger, 30 Jun 71; Msg, Bunker Saigon 10968 to Kissinger, 

13 Jul 71, box 155; Memo, Kissinger for Director USIA, 1 Sep 71, box 157. All in NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA. Lincoln Interv, 1989, pp. 2–3, in Charles S. Kennedy, comp., “A Vietnam Reader: 

Selections from Oral Histories of the Foreign Affairs Oral History Program” (MS, Foreign Affairs 

Oral History Program, Georgetown University 1993).

7

Seasons of Scandal

After 1968, a seemingly endless series of scandals and embarrassing incidents blackened the image of the Military Assistance Command 

and the U.S. armed forces. Many of these revelations were of deficiencies that had developed during the rapid, disorderly American 

buildup. Others had their origin in the military and moral ambiguities 

of fighting a revolutionary war. Adding to the command’s travail and 

generating still more adverse news stories, the discipline and morale 

of its American soldiers showed signs of breaking down, in part due 

to conditions in Vietnam and in part as a result of conflicts erupting 

within the society at home. General Abrams and his subordinates, as 

they coped with the problems and tried to remedy the deficiencies 

and abuses, became increasingly bitter at the newsmen who persisted 

in revealing the extent of their difficulties and the imperfect nature of 

their solutions.

MACV and the Media: A Breakdown of Relations

In June 1968, General Abrams established his approach to public 

information. He declared in a message to his principal commanders: 

“Effective now, the overall public affairs policy of this command will 

be to let results speak for themselves. We will not deal in propaganda 

exercises in any way, but will play all of our activities at low key.” The 

Military Assistance Command was to report the bad news as well as 

the good, in each case after ascertaining the facts. Abrams also insisted 

on full information for the troops, declaring that “we should never 

protect our men from the truth because the very system of government 

for which they fight and sacrifice has its basic strength in its citizenry 

knowing the facts.” While thus enjoining openness, Abrams at the 

same time directed his commanders to avoid comment and speculation 

on sensitive national policy matters and to hold closely information 

on future plans and operations. Abrams deplored and tried to prevent 

information leaks from MACV headquarters. He attempted, without 

much success, to embargo news reporting of the evacuation of Khe 

Sanh. Abrams’ approach to information was in accord with those of 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

218

Defense Secretaries Clifford and Laird, both of whom instructed MACV 

to stick to facts and avoid speculation and salesmanship.1

Under Abrams, the command tried to make more information 

available to newsmen. The MACV Office of Information the sole 

release point in Vietnam for military information, in mid-1969 began 

supplementing its daily press briefings—known familiarly as the “Five 

O’Clock Follies”—with off-the-record background sessions between 

reporters and senior MACV commanders and staff officers. Through 

these meetings, the command gained advantageous media exposure 

for its views and analyses.2

General Abrams at the outset enjoyed favorable press relations. He 

held frequent informal off-the-record sessions with newsmen, often 

over dinner and drinks. He conveyed an impression of candor and realism, which the reporters contrasted favorably with what they regarded 

as Westmoreland’s incessant optimism and salesmanship. Abrams 

was able to sustain this image in part because President Nixon, unlike 

his predecessor, refrained from employing his field commander in 

public promotion of administration policy. Nixon, in accord with preVietnam presidential practice, while he sought favorable information 

from the embassy and MACV, relied on administration and Republican 

party figures—notably himself, Dr. Kissinger, and Vice President Spiro 

T. Agnew—to carry on the rhetorical battle against his critics. Abrams 

thus was able to resist successfully occasional attempts to draw him 

and his principal subordinates into the increasingly rancorous public 

debate.3

Abrams’ low-key approach gained credibility for what was in fact a 

continuing MACV emphasis on the positive in public statements and 

official reporting. Abrams and Ambassador Bunker, along with most 

other senior mission officials, believed that after Tet 1968 the tide 

of war in South Vietnam had turned in the allies’ favor. Their periodic reports and assessments, as well as their statements to newsmen, 

affirmed continuing progress in military operations, pacification, and 

Vietnamization even as they acknowledged persistent problems and 

South Vietnamese deficiencies. General Abrams enjoined his subordinates to report bad news as well as good, but he at times softened 



 First quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 7236 to Field Force and Component Cdrs, 2 Jun 68; 

the second is from Msg, Abrams MAC 4619 to Cushman, 6 Apr 68. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. 

In same collection, see also Msgs, Abrams MAC 7429 to Field Force and Component Cdrs, 6 Jun 68; 

Abrams MAC 9496 to Field Force and Component Cdrs, 14 Jul 68; and Abrams MAC 4251 to Field 

Force and Component Cdrs, 4 Apr 69. The Khe Sanh embargo story is in Hammond, Military and the 

Media, 1968–1973, pp. 34–38; see also pp. 31–33.

 MACV History, 1969, vol. 3, ch. 11, pp. 1–2, 5–6. 

 Msg, Abrams MAC 14468 to Wheeler info McCain, 8 Nov 69, Abrams Papers, CMH, describes Abrams’ press backgrounders. Berger Interv, 17 May 77, pp. 10–11; Kerwin Interv, 9 Apr 

76, pp. 22–23; and McLaughlin Interv, 1980, pp. 36–37, all describe Abrams’ approach to the press. 

Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, p. 31, notes how reporters contrasted Abrams with 

General Westmoreland. Msg, Abrams MAC 1688 to McCain info Wheeler, Abrams Papers, CMH, 

exemplifies his resistance to use his officers to defend the war.
219

Seasons of Scandal

the bad side in the digests he passed up the chain of command. For 

example, in his answers to National Security Study Memorandum 

(NSSM) 1, he played down pessimistic adviser comments on the condition and prospects of the South Vietnamese forces. Abrams regularly 

passed on to CINCPAC and the Joint Chiefs of Staff favorable bits of 

intelligence and accounts of operational success, and he cooperated 

with administration efforts to help the South Vietnamese publicize 

their own achievements.4

General Abrams’ “honeymoon” with the news media did not last. 

To the contrary, the Military Assistance Command’s relations with the 

press spiraled downward toward mutual hostility and incomprehension. The causes of the decline were many. Persistent MACV and mission 

optimism collided, as it had since the command’s earliest days, with 

reporters’ more skeptical view of the course of the war. Increasingly, 

information policy in Vietnam was dictated by President Nixon, who 

took an adversarial approach to the media and constantly sought to 

manipulate and intimidate news organizations. An increasingly antiwar 

media responded with anger and suspicion, which inevitably extended 

to MACV. As redeployments accelerated, military public affairs personnel in Vietnam declined in numbers and professional competence, a 

reduction President Nixon himself encouraged in the belief that public 

affairs officers, like the reporters with whom they dealt, “lean to the 

left.” The MACV Office of Information dropped from sixty-two officers 

and men in May 1969 to thirty-six in February 1971. A similar decline 

occurred in the size and experience of the press corps. Operations in 

Cambodia and Laos produced military-media confrontations, notably 

General Abrams’ prolonged embargo of coverage of the opening phase 

of the Laos incursion in early 1971.5

Symptomatic of the growing alienation, General Abrams abandoned his informal dinners with correspondents, claiming that they 

were turning into complaint sessions. His subordinates reflected their 

commander’s attitude. The MACV staff became slow and grudging in 

responding to press inquiries, and some field commanders actively 

obstructed coverage of their operations. The MACV Office of Information 



 The generally positive tone of Abrams’ reporting can best be followed through his Message 

files, Abrams Papers, CMH, for 1968–1971. Other illustrations of Abrams’ viewpoint can be found 

in MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, pp. 16–17; and MFR, Odeen, 1 Jun 70, sub: Vietnamization 

Meeting with Secretary Laird, folder 75, Thayer Papers, CMH. Bunker’s persistent optimism is 

traced in Wallace J. Thies, “How We (Almost) Won in Vietnam: Ellsworth Bunker’s Reports to 

the President,” Parameters, XXI, no. 2 (Summer 1992): 86–95. Clarke, Final Years, pp. 342–45, 

389–90, analyzes Abrams’ response to NSSM 1 and the overall optimism of MACV reporting on the 

South Vietnamese forces.

 The deterioration of MACV press relations is traced in Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–

1973; see especially pp. 349–58 and 423–61. Nixon’s hatred of the press is described in Ambrose, 

Triumph of a Politician, pp. 411–12, 659–60. Quotation is from Memo, Nixon for Kissinger, 1 Dec 

69; see also Memos, Kissinger for Sec Def, 4 Dec 69, sub: Reduction in Armed Services Public 

Relations Staffs in Vietnam; and Kissinger for the President, 30 Dec 69, sub: Reduction in Public 

Relations Personnel in Vietnam. All in box 141, NSC files, Nixon Papers, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

220

in September 1971 discontinued 

its Sunday press briefings. With 

less information coming from 

the command, the press corps, 

which included a minority of 

outright antiwar activists, played 

up every negative story, which in 

turn intensified military anger.6

Scandals Proliferate

A wave of scandals contributed to MACV’s deteriorating 

press relations. Early in 1969, 

Army and Senate investigations 

brought to light major racketeering and black market activities in 

the extensive officer and enlisted 

clubs,mess, and exchange system, 

which MACV had established 

during the buildup to maintain 

troop morale and reduce pressure on South Vietnam’s economy. Those 

indicted included the MACV command sergeant major, William O. 

Wooldridge. Hard upon the club scandal, General Abrams ordered the 

arrest of the commander of the 5th Special Forces Group, Col. Robert 

B. Rheault, and several subordinates on charges of murdering a South 

Vietnamese double agent.7

Even as what came to be called the “Green Beret Case” made headlines, a still more terrible story unfolded. During the summer of 1969, 

the Department of the Army investigated and substantiated a veteran’s 

report that a company of the Americal Division, during an operation 

in Quang Ngai Province in March 1968, had murdered several hundred unresisting Vietnamese civilians in My Lai (4) hamlet. During 

the investigation, it became apparent that the division chain of command had suppressed reports of the incident. The ensuing courts-martial, as well as an inquiry into the cover-up by a board headed by Lt. 

Gen. William R. Peers, a former I Field Force commander, went on for 

 Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 510–18; see also pp. 617–27. MACV 

History, 1971, vol. 2, ch. 10, p. 48. Plans for reducing support of the media are discussed in Msgs, 

McCain to Abrams info Daniel Z. Henkin, 13 Oct 70; Abrams MAC 14147 to McCain, 30 Oct 70; 

and Abrams MAC 14914 to McCain, 19 Nov 70. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH.

 These scandals are summarized in Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 138–44, 

191–93. See also MACV History, 1969, vol. 3, ch. 14, pp. 55, 68–69. Ltr, Acting Sec Army Thaddeus 

R. Beal to Sen Abraham A. Ribicoff, 11 May 71, CMH, explains the origins of the club corruption. 

The Green Beret case is summarized in Memo, Kissinger for Attorney General John N. Mitchell, 22 

Sep 69, sub: Summary of the Green Beret, box 076, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.

Command Sergeant Major Wooldridge
221

Seasons of Scandal

months, accompanied by an international public furor and additional 

atrocity allegations.8

During 1970 and 1971, still more bad news contributed to the 

witches’ brew. The unacknowledged war in Laos, which the Nixon 

administration finally felt compelled to acknowledge, drew press 

attention. So did reports of mistreatment of prisoners by the South 

Vietnamese in the “tiger cages” of Con Son Island. Governmental corruption in South Vietnam and President Thieu’s machinations in the 

1971 presidential election received constant coverage. Among American 

forces, combat refusals, racial disturbances, spreading drug use, and 

attacks on officers and noncommissioned officers (“fragging”) made 

the news. Highly decorated soldiers, notably Lt. Col. Anthony Herbert 

and Col. David Hackworth, publicly criticized the military conduct of 

the war; they also leveled specific charges of atrocities and malfeasance. 

Enemy troops overran an Americal Division firebase called Mary Ann. 

They inflicted severe American casualties under circumstances that 

pointed to negligence at all levels of command in a division already 

tainted by My Lai.9

 Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, chs. 10 and 11, recounts the public affairs side 

of the My Lai incident. Lt. Gen. William R. Peers, USA (Ret), The My Lai Inquiry (New York: W. W. 

Norton, 1979) is the standard account of the massacre and the subsequent investigation.

 For detailed accounts of these events and the media fallout, see Hammond, Military and the 

Colonel Rheault, 5th Special Forces Group commander,

and some of his men at a press conference
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

222

The Military Assistance Command responded to these events on 

public affairs, administrative, and legal fronts; but it was often a subordinate actor in larger Nixon administration efforts at news management and political damage control. On the organizational side, 

General Abrams strengthened the headquarters’ criminal investigation 

and inspection arms. Raising the status of the MACV provost marshal, 

Abrams in August 1969 constituted his office, hitherto a part of the J–1 

section, as a full-fledged special staff element, although it remained 

under general staff supervision of the J–1.10

The Office of the MACV Inspector General, headed throughout by 

Colonel Cook, a long-time Abrams comrade, underwent expansion 

and reorganization. As its load of major investigations increased from 

37 cases in 1968 to 184 in 1971 even as U.S. troop numbers shrank, the 

office grew from 8 officers and men in 1968 to a maximum of 65 in 

November 1970. Cook’s organization eventually contained divisions 

for investigations, inspections, complaints, advising the Joint General 

Staff Inspector General, and combined investigations. Its work covered 

the range of MACV’s troubles: racial incidents, racketeering and corruption, allegations of American and South Vietnamese troop misconduct, 

operational failures such as the Firebase Mary Ann debacle, and the 

Herbert and Hackworth charges. Colonel Cook’s inspectors cooperated 

with their Joint General Staff counterparts in a growing number of 

combined investigations, for example a wide-ranging probe of indiscipline and corruption in the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) 

camps. Formerly a minor element of headquarters, the Office of the 

MACV Inspector General became MACV’s front line of defense against 

the multiplying scandals.11

As incidents occurred, the Military Assistance Command, working in 

close coordination with its service components, tried to follow General 

Abrams’ formula for dealing with bad news: get the facts, report them 

fully, and when possible take remedial action. In the Wooldridge case, 

Abrams, after his inspector general confirmed the sergeant’s criminal 

activities, removed Wooldridge from his post as command sergeant 

major of MACV and returned him to the United States for trial. The 

Military Assistance Command cooperated with the mission and the 

South Vietnamese government in a campaign against black marketeering and currency manipulation.12

Media, 1968–1973, chs. 8, 9, 12, 16, and 20. 10

 Memo, Maj Gen Elias C. Townsend for Asst CofS J–3, 4 Jul 69, sub: Examination of 

Organizational Structure; MACV General Order no. 5077, 24 Aug 69. Both in Reel 046, MACV 

Microfilms, MHI. Abrams indicates the growing importance of the provost marshal in Msg MAC 

10230 to Westmoreland info Mildren et al., 29 Jul 68, Abrams Papers, CMH. 11 MACV History, 1969, vol. 3, ch. 14, pp. 55–57, 66–67; ibid., 1970, vol. 2, ch. 13, pp. 6–10; 

ibid., 1971, vol. 2, ch. 10, pp. 24–25, 29–43. 12

 Msgs, Abrams MAC 10234 to Westmoreland info Mildren, 7 Aug 69; Westmoreland WDC 

13320 to Abrams info Palmer, 9 Aug 69. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. MACV History, 1969, vol. 3, 

ch. 14, pp. 1–2; Berger Interv, 17 May 77, pp. 6, 16–17.
223

Seasons of Scandal

Under his U.S. Army, Vietnam, hat, Abrams initiated criminal 

proceedings under the Uniform Code of Military Justice against the 

alleged offenders in the Green Beret murder. After Colonel Rheault 

lied in answering queries about the incident, an angry Abrams initially 

confined the defendants in the Long Binh USARV stockade. However, 

General Westmoreland, in response to protests from Congress and 

the men’s civilian attorneys, directed Abrams to release them while 

the charges were being adjudicated. The Nixon administration, fearing embarrassing revelations of covert intelligence activities if the 

case came to trial, gladly dropped the proceedings when the Central 

Intelligence Agency declined to permit its agents, who had been 

involved in the affair, to testify. Abrams nevertheless brought in a 

new 5th Special Forces Group commander. He disengaged the Special 

Forces from clandestine intelligence operations and, on the basis of 

the aforementioned combined inspector general investigation, carried out a full-scale housecleaning of the Special Forces and the CIDG 

program that they advised.13

In the Firebase Mary Ann incident, General Abrams, dissatisfied 

with the XXIV Corps and Americal Division investigations, turned 

the case over to Colonel Cook. When Cook’s investigation confirmed 

negligence at brigade and division levels, Abrams relieved the division 

commander. The Department of the Army ultimately reprimanded the 

commander and several other officers. General Westmoreland, however, delayed for months public announcement of the resolution of 

the case, hoping to confine the unfavorable story to “a single bad day 

of publicity.”14 

The case of Colonel Hackworth, like that of the Green Berets, 

illustrated the effect of political considerations on the resolution of 

embarrassing incidents. After the highly decorated Hackworth alleged 

through the news media that senior Army officers had received undeserved awards, submitted untrue after-action reports, falsified body 

counts, and committed other derelictions in combat, the Department 

of the Army instructed General Abrams and his inspector general to 

interview Hackworth and investigate his charges. The investigation 

invalidated most of Hackworth’s claims. The plot thickened when 

13

 MACV History, 1969, vol. 3, ch. 11, p. 15, ch. 14, pp. 16–17. Msgs, Abrams MAC 10114 to 

Palmer, 5 Aug 69; Abrams MAC 10663 to McCain, 17 Aug 69; Abrams MAC 10709 to McCain, 18 

Aug 69; Abrams MAC 11027 to McCain, 24 Aug 69; Palmer WDC 14204 to Mildren info Abrams, 26 

Aug 69; Abrams MAC 1217 to Westmoreland, 26 Jan 70; Col Michael B. Healy NHT 488 to Abrams, 

16 Mar 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Mildren Interv, 24 Feb 76, pp. 17–18, and Townsend Interv, 

26 Feb 76, pp. 48–50, both in Abrams Project, MHI. Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, pp. 367–68; 

Statement by Sec Army Resor, 29 Sep 69, box 076, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 14 MACV History, 1971, vol. 2, ch. 10, p. 33. Msgs, Abrams MAC 05611 to Westmoreland info 

Rosson et al., 6 Jun 71; Abrams MAC 06312 to Westmoreland info Rosson et al., 30 Jun 71; Abrams 

MAC 06497 to Westmoreland info Rosson et al., 8 Jul 71; McCaffrey ARV 2232 to Kerwin, info 

Abrams, 9 Jul 71. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, p. 368. Public relations 

handling of the case, including the Westmoreland quotation, is covered in Hammond, Military and the 

Media, 1968–1973, pp. 505–10.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

224

Colonel Cook’s investigators came upon evidence that Hackworth himself had engaged in large-scale illegal currency transactions and had 

been involved in drug use, gambling, and prostitution during his own 

Vietnam tour. Strong grounds existed for prosecution of Hackworth. 

Perhaps for that reason, after a private talk with Abrams, Hackworth 

took a more circumspect tone in his public statements. The Army, however, with administration approval, ultimately dropped the case rather 

than appear to be retaliating against a decorated officer for speaking 

out against military abuses.15

In the case of Colonel Herbert, MACV conducted an investigation 

of Herbert’s charges of misconduct by his former brigade commander 

and other officers, concluding that most of the allegations were without foundation. In Washington, the Army secretariat saw to it that 

information reached the news media that called in question Herbert’s 

veracity and emotional stability and cast doubt on the officer’s claims 

of heroic conduct. Herbert’s former brigade commander and other 

officers came forward with misconduct charges of their own against 

Herbert. Gradually, the Army’s campaign reversed the initially favorable media coverage of Herbert’s allegations. Completing the reversal, 

in February 1973, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) aired an 

exposé of Herbert on its popular “60 Minutes” news program. Reinforced 

by an equally damaging article in the respected Atlantic Monthly, the 

CBS report “killed whatever lingering credibility Herbert held with the 

press.”16

The Impact of My Lai

Of all the unpleasant revelations of the post-Tet period, the My 

Lai massacre most affected MACV’s operations. The command was at 

best a secondary participant in the investigation. The Peers commission established that in March 1968 neither MACV, USARV, nor III 

Marine Amphibious Force had received any information about the 

atrocity, due to suppression of the facts by the Americal Division. 

Circumstances had facilitated concealment. A widely dispersed aggregation of formerly separate brigades, the division was remote from 

the Army component headquarters and not closely supervised by 

its immediately superior command, III Marine Amphibious Force, 

which was preoccupied at the time with Khe Sanh and the threat to 

northern I Corps. Hence, the division’s sketchy routine report of the 

engagement, one of scores that took place daily during the heavy 

15

 MACV History, 1971, vol. 2, ch. 10, p. 33. Msgs, Palmer WDC 11298 to Abrams info 

McCaffrey, 25 Jun 71; Abrams MAC 06226 to Palmer info McCaffrey, 26 Jun 71; Abrams MAC 

06410 to Palmer info McCaffrey, 2 Jul 71; Palmer WDC 11832 to Abrams, 3 Jul 71; and Abrams 

MAC 06724 to Palmer, 12 Jul 71. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Hammond, Military and the Media, 

1968–1973, pp. 498–500. 16

 Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 496–97.
225

Seasons of Scandal

post-Tet fighting, escaped higher-level notice. By the time the facts 

were revealed, the personnel involved had left Vietnam.17

As a result, the investigations, courts-martial, and public relations 

actions arising from the incident were directed from Washington by 

Secretary of the Army Stanley R. Resor and General Westmoreland. 

MACV collected documents for the Peers commission and supported 

its inquiries in Vietnam, an effort that included arranging an on-theground tour of My Lai (4) as well as visits to all the concerned American 

and Vietnamese commands. General Abrams and Ambassador Bunker 

carried out the delicate task of briefing President Thieu on the unfolding results of the investigation. In March 1970, in advance of the public 

release, members of General Peers’ group briefed General Abrams and 

Admiral McCain on the board’s finding that the Americal Division commander, Maj. Gen. Samuel W. Koster, and other officers of the division 

had been guilty of dereliction of duty in that they failed to investigate 

the incident fully and report it promptly up the chain of command. 

The rest of My Lai’s complicated legal and political aftermath played 

itself out in the United States.18

For MACV, the My Lai massacre and the Peers board’s report made 

more urgent the long-standing problem of reducing South Vietnamese 

civilian casualties resulting from American operations. Fought among 

and for control of the people, the revolutionary war in South Vietnam 

by its nature blurred the conventional distinction between combatants 

and noncombatants. As early as 1965, General Westmoreland summarized the dilemma. Although he intended to use his American troops 

and their firepower primarily against enemy main forces and base areas 

in thinly populated regions, he acknowledged that

in order to be effective we can not isolate US troops from the population nor deploy them 

solely in jungle areas where they can be bypassed and ignored by the VC. In the long run, 

we must use them in areas important to the VC and the [government of Vietnam]. With few 

exceptions, important areas coincide with heavy population. . . . The final battle is for the 

hamlets themselves and this inevitably draws the action toward the people and the places 

where they live.19

17

 Peers, My Lai Inquiry, pp. 241–42; Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 66582 to Secretary of the 

General Staff, Department of the Army, 3 Dec 69, Reel 044, MACV Microfilms, MHI. Palmer Interv, 

1975, pp. 239–42, 422–23, reviews the reasons why the incident failed to come to the attention of 

MACV and USARV. See also Westmoreland, Soldier Reports, pp. 375–80. 18

 MACV History, 1969, vol. 3, ch. 11, pp. 15–16. Msgs, Coats WDC 14852 to Connor, info 

Abrams, McCain, et al., 5 Sep 69; Resor WDC 20641 to Bunker info Abrams, 26 Nov 69; Abrams 

MAC 16218 to Mildren et al., 16 Dec 69; Peers WDC 22263 to Abrams, 20 Dec 69; Peers ACD 001 

to Resor and Westmoreland info Abrams, 1 Jan 70; Resor and Westmoreland WDC 00085 to Peers 

info Abrams, Rosson, 3 Jan 70; Palmer WDC 04837 to Bunker, Abrams, et al., 15 Mar 70; Palmer 

WDC 05071 to Abrams, 18 Mar 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Memo, Maj Cyrus N. Shearer for 

Insp Gen MACV, 12 Jan 70, sub: AAR for Lt Gen Peers’ Visit, Reel 044, MACV Microfilms, MHI. 19 Msg, Westmoreland MAC 4382 to Wheeler, 28 Aug 65, Westmoreland Message files, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

226

The action took its toll. About 

1.2 million civilians became 

casualties during the conflict; 

estimates of the number killed 

ranged from 195,000 to 415,000. 

Many of these casualties resulted 

from enemy actions—terrorism, indiscriminate rocket and 

mortar shellings, road minings, 

and deliberate massacres such as 

that of 3,000 persons at Hue in 

1968; but a large proportion also 

were caused by allied operations. 

American artillery fire and air 

strikes, necessary to defeat heavily armed guerrillas and main 

force units dug into populated 

areas, killed and injured noncombatants; and there were as 

well occasional deliberate acts 

of murder and other crimes by 

American and allied soldiers.20

As the antiwar movement in the United States intensified, civilian casualties and alleged atrocities in Vietnam became an issue even 

before My Lai. War critics, including Senators J. William Fulbright 

and Edward M. Kennedy, in congressional hearings regularly publicized civilian death and suffering. Communist propaganda—abetted 

by sympathizers like the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, who 

organized his own war crimes tribunal—kept up a barrage of atrocity 

charges. Non-Communist news media in the United States and Europe 

published accounts of American-inflicted civilian casualties and 

damage. During the 1968 Tet offensive, American firepower inflicted 

widespread destruction upon Saigon and other towns in the process 

of expelling the enemy. Television screens and front pages around the 

world featured the horrifying picture of the South Vietnamese National 

Police chief shooting a captured Viet Cong officer in the head. During 

1969, American television networks broadcast other stories of South 

Vietnamese abuse and killing of prisoners. Finally, in November of that 

year, came the revelation of the My Lai massacre.21

20 Civilian casualty figures are from Thomas C. Thayer, “How To Analyze a War Without Fronts: 

Vietnam 1965–72,” Journal of Defense Research, Series B, Tactical Warfare Analysis of Vietnam 

Data, 7B, no. 3 (Fall 1975), ch. 12. 21

 Civilian casualty and atrocity issues can be followed in Hammond, Military and the Media 

1962–1968, pp. 185–93, 266–70, 274–79, 300–06; and Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–

1973, pp. 26–31, 217–53, 493–94. Department of the Army, Deputy Chief of Staff for Military 

Operations, “Final Report of the Research Project: Conduct of the War in Vietnam,” May 71, copy in 

CMH, was prepared to refute American war critics’ charges that General Westmoreland’s conduct of 

General Peers
227

Seasons of Scandal

From the start of large-scale American operations, MACV issued 

and enforced strict rules of engagement designed to minimize civilian 

casualties and property damage. The rules restricted firing in inhabited 

areas to positively identified enemy targets and required that commanders obtain clearance from both American and South Vietnamese 

authorities before using artillery and air strikes in and near towns, villages, and hamlets. General Westmoreland issued directives, incorporated into the orientation of arriving American troops and printed on 

pocket cards for each individual soldier, calling for humane treatment 

of prisoners and noncombatants. The standing operating procedures of 

MACV’s subordinate commands repeated the same principles. Given 

the constant rotation of personnel and the often desperate circumstances of combat, lapses inevitably occurred in enforcement of these 

rules; and commanders and troops had to be indoctrinated and reindoctrinated in their terms and importance.22

Well before the My Lai tragedy came to light, General Abrams moved 

to reaffirm and tighten the MACV rules of engagement. To prevent a 

repetition of the urban destruction of the first two 1968 offensives, he 

withdrew the authority of lower-level commanders to call for indirect 

fire in built-up areas. In August 1968, he initiated a campaign to reduce 

casualties among both American troops and South Vietnamese civilians caused by “carelessness and a lack of professionalism in handling 

our weapons systems.” 

On 2 March 1969, he reissued in strengthened form a 1966 MACV 

directive on minimizing noncombatant battle casualties. Declaring 

that “the use of unnecessary force and indiscriminate employment of 

weapons” could embitter the people and drive them to support the Viet 

Cong, Abrams ordered commanders at all echelons to “establish a balance between the force and weapons necessary to accomplish their missions and the safety of the noncombatant populace” even though that 

would require “the exercise of restraint beyond that usually required of 

soldiers on the battlefield.” Abrams forbade preparatory air and artillery 

strikes in friendly populated areas, reconnaissance by fire into hamlets 

and villages, and “uncontrolled” harassment and interdiction fires. He 

called on commanders to continually indoctrinate their troops in the 

importance of minimizing noncombatant casualties. Whenever security considerations permitted, commanders were to plan operations in 

coordination with South Vietnamese province and district chiefs and 

exchange liaison officers with them. Advisers were to encourage their 

Vietnamese counterparts to follow these same principles.23

the Vietnam conflict constituted a war crime under international law. 22 MACV’s rules of engagement are reviewed in Gen William B. Rosson, “Assessment of Influence 

Exerted on Military Operations by Other Than Military Considerations,” ch. 1, CMH; “Extracts of 

Remarks by General Westmoreland Relating to Noncombatant Casualties” in Westmoreland-CBS 

Case file folder, MACV Collection, MHI; Department of the Army, “Conduct of War,” vol. 1, pp. 3ff; 

and Peers, My Lai Inquiry, pp. 29–30. 23 First quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 10826 to Field Force and Component Cdrs, 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

228

On 9 March, the Military Assistance Command published a fulldress revision of its Directive 525–13, the basic document defining its 

rules of engagement, which last had been amended in October 1968. 

Like Abrams’ earlier message, the amended directive began with the 

premise that “all practical means will be employed to limit the risk to 

the lives and property of friendly forces and civilians.” The directive 

prescribed standing operating procedures, which subordinate commands were not to alter or amend, for the conduct of artillery, tank, 

mortar, and naval gunfire as well as tactical air and helicopter gunship strikes. Incorporating Abrams’ earlier orders, it permitted no one 

lower than corps and field force commanders to call for indirect fire 

in city fighting. The new rules emphasized that all fire in populated 

areas must be against clearly identified enemy targets, clarified requirements and procedures for target clearance by American and South 

Vietnamese authorities, and declared that all tactical air and helicopter 

gunship missions must be controlled by observers and approved by the 

ground commanders. A unit now was considered to be “in contact” 

only “when it is engaged with an enemy force, being fired upon, and 

returning fire,” a more specific definition than in previous editions 

of the rules. Advisers were to take “all necessary advisory actions” to 

ensure South Vietnamese compliance with the MACV rules and were 

to refuse RVNAF requests for support that violated them.24

Following the My Lai revelations, Abrams took additional steps 

to enforce and elaborate upon MACV’s rules of engagement. He reassured Admiral McCain in December that “within the past 36 hours 

(within the bounds of operational capability), every member present in 

this command has been reinformed of his obligations with respect to 

noncombatants, POW’s and civilians.” At a conference on 22 February 

1970, he told his commanders that there was an “absolute requirement” for “real sensitivity” toward the Vietnamese people in the conduct of operations and urged them to pay attention to the political 

impact of “everything we do” in South Vietnam. Later in the year, after 

a series of incidents in which American air strikes killed and injured 

friendly civilians, he enjoined upon his subordinates strict adherence 

to the rules of engagement and issued an implied threat to impose 

even more inhibiting restrictions if the existing rules were not rigorously enforced. In May 1971, as offensive American ground operations 

neared their end, Abrams published a revised rules of engagement directive prescribing even more restraint in the use of firepower. Units that 

received fire from inhabited places now could shoot back only if they 

10 Aug 68; see also Msg, Abrams MAC 11977 to Field Force and Component Cdrs, 4 Sep 68. 

Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. MACV Directive no. 525–23, 2 Mar 69, sub: Military Operations: 

Minimizing Noncombatant Battle Casualties, Reel 054, MACV Microfilms, MHI. This directive is 

summarized in MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 5, pp. 29–30. 24 MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 5, pp. 14–28.
229

Seasons of Scandal

could positively identify the source of the fire and only as required for 

their own self-protection.25

In its investigation of the My Lai massacre, the Peers commission 

found not only derelictions on the battlefield but also a failure by the 

Americal Division and its subordinate units to follow the established 

procedures for investigating serious incidents and reporting them up 

the chain of command. In response, Abrams and McCain, at the direction of the Joint Chiefs, reissued and reemphasized standing instructions to commands at all levels to report immediately by the fastest 

means available all events that were “of national political or military 

interest.” After publication of the Peers report, Abrams reviewed 

MACV’s directives on the handling of war crimes and other serious 

incidents and concluded that they were “as presently published, 

deemed adequate” if conscientiously applied. MACV and its subordinate headquarters investigated atrocity allegations and when justified 

prosecuted offenders, as in the case of five marines who murdered 16 

Vietnamese in Quang Nam Province in February 1970. MACV inspectors general during inspections of province advisory teams began routinely seeking information about U.S., RVNAF, and enemy war crimes. 

The MACV Inspector General’s office also reviewed every investigation 

of war crimes and Geneva Convention violations conducted in South 

Vietnam, to ensure that they were properly conducted and where indicated followed up by command actions.26

Enforcement of the rules of engagement was difficult for MACV 

among American forces, engaged as they were in widespread decentralized operations. It was even more difficult in the case of the allied 

armies that were not in fact under MACV’s command. The South 

Vietnamese and third-country forces all formally adopted the American 

rules of engagement but the degree of their actual adherence varied. 

The South Vietnamese, waging a bitter civil war, committed frequent 

acts of brutality toward enemy soldiers and their own civilians, too 

often when American news cameramen were present. Conditions in 

their military and civil prisons were a perennial concern to MACV 

and source of scandal. While the highly professional Australian and 

New Zealand contingents usually conducted themselves properly, the 

large South Korean force earned a justified reputation for harshness 

toward the Vietnamese. Ambassador Bunker admitted that “while 

25 First quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 15789 to McCain, 6 Dec 69, Abrams Papers, CMH. 

MFR, Odeen, 1 Dec 69, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, folder 75, Thayer Papers, 

CMH. Second quotation is from MACV Hq, “One War,” ch. 1, p. 21. MACV History, 1970, vol. 1, 

ch. 6, p. 20; ibid., 1971, vol. 2, an. D. 26 Msgs, McCain to PACOM Cdrs, 7 Jan 70; Abrams MAC 650 to Field Force and Component 

Cdrs, 15 Jan 70; Abrams MAC 3635 to Wheeler info McCain, 19 Mar 70; Abrams MAC 4865 to 

Palmer info Wheeler, McCain, 14 Apr 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Marine case is described in 

Cosmas and Murray, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1970–1971, pp. 344–47. Inspector general efforts are 

recounted in MACV History, 1970, vol. 2, ch. 13, p. 23 and in MS, Col Robert Sholly, “The Role of 

the Inspector General Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, 1964–1971,” n.d., p. 111, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

230

the Korean forces in Vietnam have issued directives comparable to 

MACV’s on treatment of civilians in battle areas, . . . we should recognize . . . that by our standards the Koreans are ruthless and during 

military operations they undoubtedly do not interpret or comply 

with their directives with the same inhibitions as American forces.” 

Allegations of South Vietnamese and Korean atrocities, periodically 

published in the American news media, embarrassed the administration and caused congressional and public outcry, although never on 

the scale of that which surrounded the unfolding My Lai story.27

Lacking direct command and court-martial authority over his allies, 

General Abrams used what means he had to influence their conduct. 

With the South Vietnamese, he worked through the advisory network 

and also engaged in direct persuasion of top officials to promote more 

humane behavior. Similarly, Abrams and Ambassador Bunker periodically remonstrated with the Korean force commander and his country’s 

ambassador. When MACV received reports of alleged misconduct by 

allied troops, it passed them on to the appropriate national commanders 

and encouraged them to investigate and if necessary discipline offenders. With increasing frequency, the MACV Inspector General’s office 

carried out combined inquiries with the South Vietnamese and South 

Koreans. Especially when American forces were involved, these investigations established facts and prescribed remedies. Ambassador Bunker 

acknowledged, however, that it was all but impossible to conclusively 

prove or disprove charges of Korean atrocities in operations where U.S. 

forces were not present, because American officials “are rarely in position to conduct independent investigation into [the] facts” in such 

cases and had to rely on whatever information, if any, the Koreans or 

Vietnamese would provide. Despite Abrams’ and Bunker’s best efforts, 

the independent allied forces fought by their own rules, not those of 

the Americans.28 

When all else failed, Abrams attempted to dissociate American 

advisers from their allies’ derelictions. He warned advisers working in 

the Phoenix program (“Phung Hoang”), the South Vietnamese effort to 

capture and kill Communist cadre, that they were bound by the same 

rules of war as any other soldiers; and he instructed them to refuse to 

participate in illegal acts and report those acts to higher authority. After 

27 Quotation is from Msg, Bunker Saigon 2303 to Sec State, 16 Feb 70, sub: Alleged ROK 

Atrocities, box 143; a typical complaint about the Koreans is Ltr, F. J. West, Jr, to Rear Adm William 

E. Lemos, 10 Dec 69, box 1010, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, McCain DIASO 15621 to 

Abrams info Wheeler et al., 12 Dec 69; Abrams MAC 484 to McCain info Wheeler, 12 Jan 70. All in 

Abrams Papers, CMH. Press and public reaction are covered in Hammond, Military and the Media, 

1968–1973, pp. 242–43, 359–67. 28 MACV efforts to improve South Vietnamese prisoner of war procedures and facilities are 

recounted in Clarke, Final Years, pp. 167–69, 227, 320, 376–77; MACV, “Role of the Inspector 

General,” pp. 75–77, 88–89, 92–93. For an example of a successful American–South Vietnamese 

investigation, see MACV History, 1970, vol. 2, ch. 13, p. 17. Quotation is from Msg, Bunker Saigon 

2303 to Sec State, 16 Feb 70, sub: Alleged ROK Atrocities, box 143, NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA.
231

Seasons of Scandal

the Green Beret case called attention to American military involvement in questionable clandestine intelligence and paramilitary activity, 

Abrams began trying to extricate U.S. personnel from those programs. 

In December 1969, for example, at the urging of Secretary Laird and 

Secretary of the Army Resor, he stopped replacing American advisers 

with the South Vietnamese Provincial Reconnaissance Units, key strike 

forces under the Phung Hoang program, which the American antiwar 

movement charged were assassination squads. The Central Intelligence 

Agency, which had originated the units and only transferred their support to MACV in July 1969, protested against this action, claiming that 

the Provincial Reconnaissance Units were more effective in eliminating Viet Cong cadres than any other South Vietnamese organization. 

Laird and Resor, however, considered that the adverse publicity the 

Provincial Reconnaissance Units were receiving in the United States 

made them a net liability to the American cause; and Abrams accepted 

their judgment. In the case of the Koreans, Abrams recommended 

their early redeployment from South Vietnam but the administration 

decided otherwise.29 

Among American forces, MACV’s intensified emphasis on the rules 

of engagement, combined with public and press attention to issues 

such as My Lai, affected both performance and morale. Field force commanders, picking up the cues from Abrams, urged their subordinates to 

exercise restraint and discrimination in their use of firepower and took 

new steps to prevent noncombatant deaths and injuries. Queried by 

Abrams on reaction to the My Lai revelations, the commanders of U.S. 

Army, Vietnam, and the field forces reported that officers and men at 

all levels showed new interest in the rules of engagement and in what 

constituted an atrocity. Junior officers in particular expressed concern 

that they could face legal action for battlefield mistakes and doubt that 

the Army would stand by them in such cases. In planning and executing operations, commanders were following the rules of engagement 

more precisely, relying more heavily on written orders, and when possible avoiding maneuver and engagement in populated areas. Men of 

all ranks expressed bitterness at what they considered unfairly negative media reporting of My Lai and dismay at the public opprobrium 

that was falling on the American soldier in Vietnam. The II Field Force 

commander reported that his company commanders “feel a sense of 

frustration over the lack of support by the press and the public” and 

that many “can be expected to resign when they have completed their 

service obligation.”30

29 Msgs, Westmoreland WDC 17694 to Abrams, 15 Oct 69; McCain BNK 2821 to Abrams info 

Wheeler, 29 Oct 69; Abrams MAC 14145 to McCain and Wheeler, 31 Oct 69; Abrams MAC 14585 

to Westmoreland, 11 Nov 69; Abrams MAC 16592 to McCain, Wheeler, and Weyand, 24 Dec 69. 

All in Abrams Papers, CMH. The Provincial Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) affair is recounted in Hunt, 

Pacification, pp. 245–46; and Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 144–46. For 

Abrams’ recommendation on the Koreans, see ch. 5, pp. 177–79. 30 For examples of field emphasis on discrimination in use of firepower, see Lt Gen Melvin Zais, 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

232

Race, Drugs, and Discipline

Many of the scandals that plagued the Military Assistance Command 

stemmed from a general deterioration in the professional standards, 

leadership, discipline, and morale of American forces in Vietnam. The 

problem had multiple causes, some peculiar to the war and others 

rooted in change and conflict in American society. Military manpower 

policy, specifically the early decision not to employ the National Guard 

and reserves and the adoption of the one-year tour, had resulted—especially for the Army and Marine Corps—in the war being fought by a 

“Vietnam-only” force of short-term enlisted men and equally shortterm junior officers and noncommissioned officers with only a small 

professional cadre of senior noncommissioned officers and higher-grade 

officers. The one-year tour, while considered essential to troop health 

and morale, produced constant turnover within units, compounded 

after 1969 by the turbulence created by redeployments. 

This short-term, constantly changing force was uniquely susceptible 

to disruptive political and social influences. The withdrawal of American 

units from combat left large numbers of soldiers crowded in rear base areas 

with idle time on their hands. Increasing numbers of the men, aware that 

the United States was disengaging and influenced by the antiwar movement at home, no longer saw any purpose in the conflict; some actively 

protested against the war. Successive waves of replacements brought with 

them the racial militancy, drug culture, and youth rebellion then permeating American society. Equally ominous was an apparent breakdown in 

the ethical standards of the professional cadre, as evidenced by the club 

scandals, the My Lai cover-up, and the Green Beret murder case.31

Taken together, these forces began to dissolve the long-standing mechanisms of leadership and discipline that held the armed 

services together. They produced in particular a growing alienation 

between career senior officers and noncommissioned officers (“lifers” 

in troop parlance) and the short-term junior leaders and soldiers. A 

Opening Remarks at XXIV Corps Commanders’ Conference, 22 Mar 70, Speeches box, Zais Papers, 

MHI; and Memo, Lt Col Clifford Crossman for John P. Vann, 22 Oct 70, sub: Interim Report, DMAC 

Fire Support Committee, Vann Papers, MHI. Evaluations of My Lai effects are in Msgs, McCain 

to Abrams and Haines info Wheeler and Mildren, 25 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 5563 to Mildren and 

Field Cdrs, 26 Apr 70; Mildren ARV 1221 to Abrams, 30 Apr 70; Maj Gen Hal D. McCown, Senior 

Adviser, Delta Regional Assistance Command, CTO 0465 to Abrams, 30 Apr 70; Zais DNG 995 

to Abrams, 1 May 70; Collins NHT 803 to Abrams, 1 May 70; Abrams MAC 5990 to McCain info 

Haines et al., 4 May 70; and Davison HOA 1045 to Abrams, 1 May 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 

Quotation is from final message. 31

 Useful studies of the deterioration of morale and discipline and its causes are Ronald H. 

Spector, “The Vietnam War and the Army’s Self-Image,” in John Schlight, ed., Second Indochina 

War Symposium: Papers and Commentary (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

1986), pp. 169–85; and BDM Corp., A Study of Strategic Lessons Learned in Vietnam, vol. 7, The 

Soldier (McLean, Va.: BDM Corp., 1980). For a contemporary view of the effects upon the Army 

of the failure to call the reserves, see Memo, Lt Gen Arthur S. Collins, Jr, Asst CofS for Force 

Development, for the Chief of Staff, 20 Feb 68, Arthur S. Collins Papers, MHI.
233

Seasons of Scandal

CINCPAC study in September 

1971 acknowledged that “a distinct dichotomy of dedicated life 

styles exists between a significant portion of the young, first 

term military members, and the 

older, career-oriented noncommissioned and commissioned 

officers. As a result, many leaders do not know their men and 

vice versa.” Alienation at times 

led to violence, in the form of 

attacks on officers and noncommissioned officers (“fragging”) 

and racially motivated assaults 

and disturbances. In a few 

instances, small units refused 

orders to move into combat. A 

tiny minority of black and leftist 

militants actively attempted to 

promote disorder and defiance 

of authority. More common 

were minor acts of rebellion, 

typically neglect of military 

courtesies and the wearing of 

peace symbols and nonregulation long hair. The military justice system, which many lower-level leaders considered cumbersome 

and unworkable, and which equally many enlisted men believed 

was biased against them, threatened to break down under a growing 

burden of drug and disciplinary cases.32

MACV, like other American military commands, only gradually became aware of the extent of the internal problems it faced. 

Typically, command spokesmen dismissed early news media reports 

of widespread racial trouble, drug use, and indiscipline as sensationalist and exaggerated. Then, as the facts became obvious over time, 

they gradually acknowledged the existence and scale of the problems. 

The MACV command history for 1969 proclaimed that troop morale 

had remained “at a high state” throughout the year. The history for 

the following year, however, declared that “unusual psychological 

pressures were placed upon US military personnel in the Republic of 

32 Quotations are from Memo, Col Harry C. Holloway, Medical Corps, and Cdr George P. 

Fitzgibbons, USN, for CINCPAC, 1 Sep 71, sub: CINCPAC Study for Evaluation of PACOM Drug 

Abuse Treatment/Rehabilitation Programs, pp. 30–31, CMH.

A soldier wearing long hair, love beads, 

and peace tattoo 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

234

Vietnam . . . during 1970,” and that there had been “some loss of a 

sense of mission,” reflected in various forms of troop misconduct.33

MACV dealt with most problems of discipline and morale through 

its service component commands, which possessed court-martial 

authority and were responsible under the joint system for internal 

administration. The components, often following policies established 

by their parent services, thus bore the burden of handling the comparatively rare instances of public antiwar activity and combat refusals. 

They also took the lead in preventing and punishing “fraggings” and 

other soldier-on-soldier violence. MACV monitored their activities, 

making reports as required to higher authority, and investigating—or 

directing subordinate headquarters to investigate—major incidents. 

Until 1969, MACV also delegated the task of troop information to the 

individual services. Its Office of Information was limited to publishing 

the command newspaper, The Observer, managing the Armed Forces 

Radio and Television Service stations, and issuing quarterly suggestions 

to commanders on information topics they might cover in their own 

programs.34

Gradually, the headquarters became more active in the morale field. 

In 1969, General Abrams required biweekly Commanders’ Calls for 

officers, noncommissioned officers, and enlisted men in all units, with 

discussion topics prescribed each month. In May 1970, in a letter to his 

component commanders, he emphasized the “necessity” for “creative 

and imaginative programs to meet the diversified needs and interests of 

our personnel during . . . redeployment” and to “raise morale and build 

esprit.” Colonel Cook, the inspector general, enlarged his Complaints 

Division, which responded to individual soldier grievances, and reorganized it into two branches, one to handle complaints and the other to 

analyze trends in troop discontent for the guidance of the commander. 

In May 1971, General Abrams instituted a program of inspector general 

audits of unit command effectiveness aimed at providing him with a 

broad picture of the situation and the quality of leadership.35

MACV’s expanding racial and drug problems required still more 

active intervention and new command and organizational approaches. 

33 Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 171–89, recounts the initial military reaction to the emerging problems. Quotations are from MACV History, 1969, vol. 3, ch. 14, p. 29; ibid., 

1970, vol. 2, ch. 12, p. 1. The commander of U.S. Army, Pacific (USARPAC), recognizes the emerging morale problem in Msg, Haines HWA 3856 to Westmoreland info Abrams, 11 Sep 70, Abrams 

Papers, CMH. 34

 Msg, Abrams MAC 06514 to Rear Adm R. S. Salzer, COMNAVFORV, 6 Jul 71, Abrams 

Papers, CMH, outlines the shared functions of MACV and the component commands. Abrams’ handling of various incidents can be followed through his Message files, Abrams Papers, CMH. MACV 

History, 1969, vol. 3, ch. 11, pp. 2, 22–23, describes MACV Office of Information’s troop information functions. For a detailed account of how one service, the Marine Corps, dealt with its morale and 

racial problems, see Cosmas and Murray, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1970–1971, ch. 20. 35 MACV History, 1969, vol. 3, ch. 11, pp. 22–23; ibid., 1970, vol. 2, ch. 13, pp. 9–10; ibid., 1971, 

vol. 2, ch. 10, pp. 26–27, 35–36. Quotation is from Ltr, Abrams to DCG USARV, 7 May 71, sub: 

Morale and Welfare Activities, Abrams Papers, CMH. 
235

Seasons of Scandal

Since the outbreak of major urban riots in the United States in 1967, 

MACV had anticipated the appearance of racial conflict among its 

troops. By 1969, trouble was all too evident, in manifestations of black 

pride and militancy such as Afro haircuts and black power salutes; in 

more or less peaceable confrontations with authority; and in individual and group attacks by black personnel on whites and by whites on 

blacks. Black servicemen complained of racial bias in promotions, duty 

assignments, and military justice; they demanded respect for their newfound racial identity in the form of permission to wear the Afro and 

provision of “soul” food and music in messes and clubs. In November 

1969, Mr. L. Howard Bennett, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Civil Rights, after spending a week interviewing black personnel in 

Vietnam, called all these grievances to General Abrams’ attention. He 

reported also that communication and mutual confidence had broken 

down between the majority of African American personnel and the 

“white” chain of command, which the blacks considered unresponsive 

to their concerns and complaints.36

Well before Assistant Secretary Bennett made his report, General 

Abrams had addressed the racial problem. In October 1968, in response 

to a series of incidents around Da Nang, Abrams directed the commander of III Marine Amphibious Force to form a “watch committee,” 

composed of senior representatives from each service in the Da Nang 

area, “with the mission of monitoring and taking appropriate action on 

racial tensions and incidents.” Acting on Bennett’s recommendations, 

Abrams in December 1969 dispatched a letter to every Army, Navy, 

Marine, Air Force, and Coast Guard unit commander in Vietnam, in 

which he emphasized their responsibility to keep open channels of 

communication to their troops and directed them to “eliminate unnecessary incursions on individual aspirations and identity.”37

During 1970, MACV issued Directive 600–12, outlining its approach 

to race relations. The directive reiterated the obligation of subordinate 

commanders to ensure equal treatment and opportunity for all their 

personnel. It declared that, second only to mission performance, the 

primary duty of every officer and noncommissioned officer was to 

improve his subordinates’ welfare; and it called upon them to maintain 

open channels of vertical and lateral communication throughout their 

commands. To the latter end, and to improve interracial understanding 

and head off conflict, MACV required every unit to appoint a human 

36 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 8729 to Component and Field Force Cdrs, 15 Sep 67; Rosson NHT 

1486 to Westmoreland, 30 Nov 67. Both in Westmoreland Message files, Sep and Nov 67, CMH. 

Msg, Abrams MAC 04599 to Component and Field Force Cdrs, 6 Apr 68, Abrams Papers, CMH. 

The Bennett visit is described in MACV History, 1969, vol. 3, ch. 14, p. 20; and Msg, CG III MAF 

to COMUSMACV 27 Nov 69, Abrams Papers, CMH. MACV History, 1971, vol. 2, ch. 10, pp. 9–11, 

29, discusses racial incidents and black complaints. 37 First quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 14059 to Component Cdrs, 18 Oct 68; see also Msg, 

Abrams MAC 14839 to Component Cdrs, 16 Nov 69. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. Second quotation is from MACV History, 1969, vol. 3, ch. 14, pp. 20–21.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

236

relations officer and establish a human relations council representing 

all ranks and races to assist and advise the commander. Viewed with 

suspicion by some officers and noncommissioned officers as undermining established chains of command, the councils were often of 

more cosmetic than practical effect. Nevertheless, they did constitute a 

forum for the orderly airing of racial grievances. The MACV inspector 

general investigated major racial disturbances and distributed to the 

command lessons learned reports based on his findings. MACV also 

adopted and issued to all services a Marine Corps pamphlet on the 

small unit leader’s role in improving race relations. These measures, 

combined with individual service programs and with a delicate mixture of repression and conciliation by unit commanders, kept racial 

turmoil contained during the American forces’ last years in Vietnam 

but fell well short of restoring genuine intergroup harmony.38

As much or more than racial conflict, soldier drug abuse absorbed 

command attention at all levels of MACV and the services. Indeed, the 

antidrug campaign over time expanded into a virtual war within the 

war. Relatively rare before 1968, troop drug use—primarily marijuana 

smoking—expanded rapidly thereafter, driven by a lethal combination of cheap, plentiful narcotics and bored, idle, alienated soldiers 

already part of their generation’s drug culture. After initially denying 

media reports that drug use was widespread, by late 1969 MACV and its 

service components were compelled to acknowledge that the problem 

was extensive and serious. In August 1970, General Abrams declared 

that drug abuse was “a big and serious problem, . . . in fact, the biggest 

among all those that we have, including black marketeering and currency manipulation.”39

Statistics on the amount of drug use were difficult to obtain, of 

questionable reliability, and subject to constant dispute. However, 

the trends all went upward. For example, arrests of military personnel 

on drug charges, which represented only a small proportion of users, 

increased from 344 in 1966 to 1,722 in 1967, 4,352 in 1968, and 8,446 

in 1969. By early 1970, possibly a majority of American military personnel in Vietnam had at least experimented with drugs, principally 

marijuana. A sizeable proportion of military personnel were regular 

users. Even more ominous, a heroin epidemic, fueled by the importa38 MACV History, 1971, vol. 2, ch. 10, pp. 11–15, 29. For examples of unit-level efforts, see Msg, 

Maj Gen Charles P. Brown, CG I FFV, NHT 0259 to Abrams and McCaffrey, 30 Jan 71, Abrams 

Papers; and Cosmas and Murray, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1970–1971, pp. 353–59. 39 Early military denials and public relations damage control are covered in Hammond, Military 

and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 182–89, 385–92. MACV concern is expressed in Msg, Westmoreland 

MAC 01227 to Sharp info Wheeler, 26 Jan 68, Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68, CMH. Berger 

Interv, 17 May 77, pp. 15–16, comments on how the drug problem crept up on the mission and 

MACV. Memo, Holloway and Fitzgibbons for CINCPAC, 1 Sep 71, sub: CINCPAC Study for 

Evaluation of PACOM Drug Abuse Treatment/Rehabilitation Programs, pp. 11–12, CMH, summarizes reasons for troop drug abuse. Abrams quotation is from Msg, MAC 11711 to McCain, 28 Aug 

70, Abrams Papers, CMH.
237

Seasons of Scandal

tion into Vietnam from elsewhere in Southeast Asia of cheap, highpotency narcotics, began in spring 1970 and rapidly spread to involve, 

according to a 1971 Army survey, as many as 20 percent of the soldiers 

in some commands and possibly as high as 50 percent in a few rear 

bases.40

Pressed by an increasingly concerned Nixon administration, the 

Military Assistance Command gradually developed an antidrug offensive based on law enforcement, education, and rehabilitation—the 

same strategies being applied in the United States. In December 1970, 

the command codified its program, many elements of which already 

were in operation, in its Directive 190–4. On the enforcement side, the 

directive called for establishment at the national and military region 

levels of combined U.S.-Vietnamese investigative, police, and customs 

organizations. These initiatives were aimed at inducing the South 

Vietnamese to strengthen their antidrug laws, crack down on smuggling and trafficking, and halt domestic marijuana growing. Among 

American forces, provost marshals were to search out and apprehend 

drug sellers and users. Law enforcement was to be combined with intensive antidrug education in every unit and with service developed and 

administered programs of amnesty and rehabilitation for users who 

voluntarily turned themselves in. To improve information, the directive required continuing drug abuse surveys, data from which would 

be fed into an automated Drug Abuse Reporting System serving MACV 

and the component commands.41

MACV entrusted most implementation of these programs to its 

service components. U.S. Army, Vietnam, for example, had responsibility for organizing and operating a Joint Customs Group and a Joint 

Narcotics Investigation Detachment and for conducting the nationwide 

drug abuse survey. The MACV provost marshal was to “monitor, coordinate, and assist” the services in carrying out their drug suppression 

programs, both those mandated by MACV and those prescribed by the 

military departments. Further to coordinate the effort, MACV required 

every command down to battalion/squadron level to organize a Drug 

Abuse Suppression Council with representation from the concerned 

staff agencies and from junior officers, noncommissioned officers, and 

enlisted men. The council was to meet monthly, review the antidrug 

40

 Arrest statistics are from MACV History, 1970, vol. 2, ch. 12, p. 4. See also MACV History, 

1968, vol. 2, ch. 12, pp. 839–40; ibid., 1969, vol. 3, ch. 14, pp. 4–5, 8; ibid., 1971, vol. 2, ch. 10, pp. 

15–16, 23–24. Fact Sheet, DCSPER-SARD, 19 Jan 71, sub: Drug Abuse; Memo, Dep Asst Sec Army 

John G. Kester for Sec Army, 25 May 71, sub: Use of Heroin in Vietnam, pp. 1–7, 13–17; Memo, 

Davison for McCaffrey, 17 Sep 71, sub: Marijuana and Drug Suppression. All in CMH. 41 Memos, President for Kissinger, 13 Apr 70, and Kissinger for Sec Def, 14 Apr 70, box 

145, NSC files, Nixon Papers; and MFR, Odeen, 16 Nov 70, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with 

Secretary Laird, folder 76, Thayer Papers, CMH, illustrate administration concern. MACV History, 

1968, vol. 2, ch. 12, p. 839; ibid., 1969, vol. 3, ch. 14, pp. 5–6; ibid., 1970, vol. 2, ch. 12, pp. 4–6; 

ibid., 1971, vol. 2, ch. 10, pp. 17, 47–48. Msgs, Abrams MAC 14089 to McCain info Moorer et 

al., 28 Oct 70; Abrams MAC 14114 to Sec Def info McCain and Westmoreland, 29 Oct 70. Both 

in Abrams Papers, CMH. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

238

campaign within the unit, and when appropriate make recommendations to the commander for its improvement.42

Besides putting Directive 190–4 into effect, MACV during 1971 

further escalated its antidrug offensive as reports of increasing heroin 

use alarmed authorities in Saigon and Washington. In June, President 

Nixon ordered the military services to begin urine testing of all soldiers rotating home from Vietnam and hold those found positive for 

heroin for detoxification and treatment before returning them to the 

United States. MACV and its component commands immediately 

implemented this program, and they instituted unannounced random 

testing within units in Vietnam. They also intensified their education, 

amnesty, and rehabilitation efforts. In a letter to the command on 17 

August, General Abrams declared his “personal endorsement and support” of the services’ treatment and rehabilitation programs. He urged 

drug users to take advantage of the programs and promised that “no 

punitive action will be taken against you.” Abrams designated his director of personnel, Maj. Gen. James B. Adamson, as MACV Drug Abuse 

Control Coordinator and took steps to centralize the public release of 

drug abuse and rehabilitation statistics. With the news media regularly alleging high-level South Vietnamese official involvement in the 

drug trade, Abrams and Ambassador Bunker urged President Thieu to 

enlarge his government’s antidrug effort, warning that South Vietnam 

could lose American aid if he did not. Thieu responded by replacing 

his Director General of Customs, ousting a number of other allegedly 

corrupt officials, and improving customs and security at Tan Son Nhut 

Air Base and the ports. He also established national and provincial 

interministerial drug-suppression committees, as well as participated 

in MACV joint organizations.43

These efforts had at best limited success, as was indicated by continuing high percentages of men testing positive at rotation. Enforcement 

was hampered on the American side by overcrowded, understaffed 

military courts. On the Vietnamese side, Thieu’s initial flurry of activity soon gave way to business as usual among Vietnamese agencies 

and commanders, for some of whom business included the very drug 

traffic they were supposed to suppress. The component commands’ 

drug rehabilitation programs had a higher success rate than similar 

programs in the United States, primarily because their patients were 

otherwise in good health and usually had been addicted for less than a 

42

 MACV Directive no. 190–4, 10 Dec 70, sub: Drug Abuse Suppression Program, pp. 1–4, box 

1011, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 43 Memo, Laird for Secs of Military Depts and CJCS, 17 Jun 71, CMH. Msgs, Abrams MAC 

06460 to Component Cdrs, 4 Jul 71; Salzer to Abrams, 5 Jul 71; Abrams MAC 06527 to Component 

Cdrs, 7 Jul 71, Abrams Papers, CMH; MACV History, 1971, vol. 2, ch. 10, pp. 16–23. Quotation is 

from Ltr, Abrams to the Command, 17 Aug 71, folder 2001, MACV Collection, MHI. Allegations 

against the South Vietnamese are recounted in Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 

392–99; MFRs, Odeen, 15 Jun 71 and 10 Aug 71, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, 

folder 77, Thayer Papers, CMH.
239

Seasons of Scandal

year. On the other hand, the service amnesty programs suffered from 

inconsistent administration and in some instances outright hostility 

at lower command echelons. Drug education appeared to have little 

effect on troop behavior due to heavy-handed instructional methods, 

factual inaccuracies (many senior officers and noncommissioned officers knew less about drugs than did their soldiers), and the generation 

gap. A CINCPAC study in September 1971 concluded that commanders’ efforts at antidrug indoctrination were foundering on “hair, the 

war, and marijuana.” MACV continued its antidrug offensive as long 

as U.S. troops remained in Vietnam; but the drug problem among its 

forces, as among Americans at home, resisted solution.44

The interlocking maladies of race, drugs, dissent, and the generation gap, while they attracted a great deal of command attention 

from General Abrams on down, were of uncertain effect on American 

military capability. One field force commander declared in early 1971 

that “we have a serious disciplinary problem which has resulted in 

operational slippages,” but he also praised the “dedication and performance” of American servicemen in Vietnam in the face of public, 

news media, and congressional hostility to the war. Most common was 

the view that the force was holding together despite a serious drug 

problem, continuing racial tension, and the difficulty of leading the 

new generation of soldiers. The MACV inspector general’s command 

audits reached essentially this conclusion. So did the young captains 

who, at Department of the Army direction, conducted anonymous 

field interviews with more than 800 officers, noncommissioned officers, and enlisted men during the spring of 1971. They reported that, 

while morale and discipline were better in combat than in support 

units, nevertheless “the American soldier in general is a responsible 

individual” who “still performs magnificently when led by men who 

are both technically competent and who communicate a sense of concern for the soldier’s welfare.”45

It seems evident that the majority of American personnel in 

Vietnam—including many of the drug users, black activists, and men 

who questioned the purpose of the war—continued to do their duty. 

Many problems, notably the drug epidemic, peaked after U.S. forces 

44 Memo, Kester for Sec Army, 25 May 71, sub: Use of Heroin in Vietnam; Memo, Holloway 

and Fitzgibbons, for CINCPAC, 1 Sep 71, sub: CINCPAC Study for Evaluation of PACOM Drug 

Abuse Treatment/Rehabilitation Programs. Both in CMH. Quotation is from latter document, pp. 

36–37. Memo, MACV Provost Marshal for Chief of Staff, MACV, 10 Sep 72, sub: MACV Drug 

Abuse Control Program—Talking Points Paper, CMH, describes the command’s continuing antidrug 

effort. 45

 First quotation is from Collins, Debriefing Report, 7 Jan 71, pp. 12–13, Collins Papers, MHI. 

Second quotation is from Memo, Capt Barry R. McCaffrey for Lt Gen George I. Forsythe, sub: Visit to 

USARV from 7 April to 15 May 1971, pp. 7, 32, CMH. For origin of this study, see Msg, Westmoreland 

WDC 04105 to Abrams info Rosson, 10 Mar 71, Abrams Papers, CMH. Msgs, McCaffrey ARV 0061 

to Abrams, 7 Jan 71; CG III MAF to COMUSMACV, 7 Jan 71; and Palmer WDC 02173 to Abrams, 

6 Feb 71; all in Abrams Papers, CMH, are generally positive in tone. Inspector general assessments 

are summarized in MACV History, 1971, vol. 2, ch. 10, pp. 27–28. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

240

were out of ground combat, so that the remaining operational burden 

fell upon the more mature and professional elements of the command, 

such as the advisers and aviators. Internal troubles notwithstanding, 

the Military Assistance Command was able to carry out its complex 

tasks of redeployment and RVNAF improvement and modernization 

while simultaneously waging General Abrams’ “one war” in South 

Vietnam and launching new offensives in Cambodia and Laos.
8

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

I

n the struggle for South Vietnam, the first three years of the Nixon 

administration were years of apparent progress for the allies. The 

Military Assistance Command and the South Vietnamese government 

and armed forces put General Abrams’ “one war” concept into execution against a weakened enemy who—from policy, necessity, or both—

offered only diminishing resistance. The South Vietnamese armed forces 

took over a steadily growing proportion of the fighting as American 

troops withdrew, with no significant setbacks in either combat or pacification; they appeared to be on the way to achieving Secretary Laird’s 

goal of combat and logistical self-sufficiency. The Saigon government, 

its legitimacy enhanced by a series of local and national elections, 

enlarged its administrative and military presence in the countryside 

and undertook ambitious social and economic programs, notably a 

comprehensive and long-needed land reform. Yet General Abrams, 

Ambassador Bunker, and most other American officials observed these 

developments with only guarded optimism. They realized that South 

Vietnam’s fundamental military, political, and social weaknesses still 

persisted; that much of the progress they were reporting depended on a 

high level of American support, which was not going to continue; and 

that while the Viet Cong were much weaker, North Vietnam remained 

strong and determined to prevail.

The Enemy Returns to Protracted War

The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, despite their costly military 

defeats in the three general offensives of 1968, and despite indications that their forces in South Vietnam were diminishing in numbers and quality, attempted to continue the general offensive into 

1969. Their fourth nationwide offensive, launched on 23 February, 

consisted primarily of small ground probes and rocket and mortar 

bombardments, which included shelling of Saigon for the first time 

since the November 1968 bombing halt. Aside from its psychological value as a show of strength, this effort brought the Communists 

little gain for many casualties. Allied forces anticipated the offensive, 

preempted much of it with attacks of their own, and easily repelled 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

242

the enemy assaults. Still weaker offensives in May and June had even 

less military effect.1

During the summer of 1969, in response to these setbacks and to 

the growing political and military disarray of their forces in the south, 

the North Vietnamese Politburo directed a change in tactics. Until 

1968, those Lao Dong Party leaders who favored a drive for quick, decisive victory through big-unit war and the General Offensive–General 

Uprising had seemed to be in the ascendant. During 1969, the balance 

shifted to the proponents of a less costly campaign, which would use 

small-scale guerrilla and sapper attacks combined with renewed rural 

and urban political activity to bleed American and South Vietnamese 

forces, disrupt pacification, and rebuild the revolution’s southern 

power base in anticipation of a negotiated settlement and American 

withdrawal. By fighting a less expensive southern campaign, the 

Communists also could devote more resources to economic reconstruction in North Vietnam, a goal that party leaders publicly declared 

to be of equal importance to the liberation of the south. Nevertheless, 

Hanoi’s objective remained victory, defined at this stage as complete 

American withdrawal and replacement of the Thieu government with 

a National Liberation Front–dominated coalition as an intermediate 

step to unification. Some North Vietnamese leaders, notably Defense 

Minister Vo Nguyen Giap, continued to assert that large-unit offensives 

were essential to final achievement of the revolution’s objectives.2

Resolution Nine, published in July 1969 by the Central Office 

for South Vietnam to guide operations in the southern half of South 

Vietnam, typified the new enemy tactics. The resolution made the customary claims of victory in the General Offensive–General Uprising. 

It also, however, cited Communist failures in military proselytizing, 

guerrilla warfare, recruiting, and building political associations; and it 

reprimanded lower-level party leaders for failing to understand that the 

general offensive required intensive action over a relatively long period 

of time. Resolution Nine defined the party’s mission as rebuilding its 

military and political forces to defeat the Nixon administration’s policy, 

which the resolution’s authors accurately characterized as an effort to 

“de-Americanize and de-escalate the war step by step, to preserve their 

manpower and material as they de-escalate, . . . and to compete with 

us [in territory and population control] so . . . they can end the war 

on a definite strong position.” The revolution must press forward on 

all three strategic fronts—the cities, the rural lowlands, and the mountains—employing appropriate political and military methods in each 



 Duiker, Road to Power, pp. 277–78. Msgs, Abrams MAC 11672 to Wheeler and McCain, 29 

Aug 68; Abrams MAC 13146 to Wheeler, 28 Sep 68; Abrams MAC 7391 to McCain info Wheeler, 

Bunker, 10 Jun 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. RVNAF/FWMAF Combined Campaign Plan, 1969, 

pp. 1–3, 6, CMH; CIA Directorate of Intelligence, Intelligence Memorandum, Aug 69, box 138; Msg, 

Abrams MAC 2385 to McCain and Bunker, 24 Feb 69, box 065, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 

Enemy offensives are summarized in MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 3, pp. 116–19, 123–24.

 Duiker, Road to Power, pp. 278–83, 368; MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 3, pp. 2, 19, 116.
243

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

with the objective of defeating pacification and forcing the Americans 

to withdraw troops more rapidly than the RVNAF could replace them, 

thus causing the collapse of the Saigon government. While calling as 

usual for employment of both main force and guerrilla warfare, COSVN

Resolution Nine clearly gave priority to the latter. It emphasized the 

use of guerrillas, sappers, and mortar and rocket units to inflict damage 

on the Americans and South Vietnamese at minimal cost to the revolutionary forces; and it called as well for renewed political organization 

and agitation in both rural and urban areas.3

As outlined in COSVN Resolution Nine and documents elaborating upon it, this was not a strategy of sitting back and waiting for the 

Americans to leave. Instead, the revolutionary forces were to “fight 

vigorously and for a sustained period of time, to become stronger as 

we fight and to win greater victories as we fight.” While using forces 

economically, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong would exploit 

opportunities for concentrated large-scale attacks as allied troops 

dispersed to counterguerrilla activity and protect pacification. They 

would be alert to moments for “seizing, creating and taking advantage 

of opportunities in order to produce leaps forward.” Nevertheless, 

the accent was on a prolonged, difficult struggle against an enemy 

acknowledged to be powerful, with victory “limited” rather than 

“clear-cut [and] complete” and coming in a “difficult and complicated way.”4

General Abrams, Admiral McCain, and their Washington superiors 

grasped the nature of the enemy’s tactical shift almost as soon as it went 

into effect. As early as March 1969, McCain was aware of the improving fortunes of Hanoi’s protracted war faction. General Abrams and 

his commanders, from their analysis of the enemy’s activity and their 

review of captured documents, soon spotted the trend away from large 

unit to guerrilla and sapper operations, a trend that in fact had begun 

in late 1968. Final confirmation of the new enemy tactics came in midOctober 1969, when an element of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade 

captured a complete copy of COSVN Resolution Nine. The American 

leaders believed that the enemy had been compelled to this change by 

the heavy losses of his failed offensives and by a steady decline in the 

size and quality of his forces. Abrams declared that the Communists 

were “attempting to devise a formula for tactical action that will give 

[them] the maximum psychological and military gains from a military 

force whose overall effectiveness becomes poorer with each of his . . . 

coordinated offensive efforts.” Nevertheless Abrams, especially during 

discussion of American troop withdrawals, regularly reminded his 

 Resolution Issued by the 9th Conference of COSVN, Jul 69, translated copy in folder, Overview 

9th Conference COSVN, Jul 69, MACV Collection, MHI, pp. 6–11, 25–35; quotation is on p. 12. The 

resolution is analyzed and extensively excerpted in MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 3, pp. 127–34. 

 First quotation is from Resolution, COSVN, 9th Conference, p. 21; see also pp. 31–32. Other 

quotations are from MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 3, pp. 121, 130–33; see also pp. 120, 122–23, 

126–27. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

244

superiors that the enemy still possessed strong main force units, mostly 

located in cross-border sanctuaries, and hence retained the capacity for 

large-scale attacks. He thus saw no need to alter his flexible “one war” 

concept to counter the enemy’s new initiative.5

A Change of Mission for MACV

Even as the North Vietnamese altered their tactics, the Nixon administration undertook a review of the mission and operational approach 

of its command in South Vietnam. Since 1965, there had been dissent 

against the Military Assistance Command’s emphasis on mobile offensive operations. Retired Army Lt. Gen. James M. Gavin, for example, 

advocated a more defensively oriented strategy of occupying coastal 

enclaves in order to improve population security and reduce American 

losses. In March 1968, Secretary of Defense Clifford’s staff, in their 

draft response to General Wheeler’s request for 206,000 more troops 

for Vietnam, recommended that General Westmoreland be directed to 

withdraw from remote interior positions such as Khe Sanh and concentrate his forces for mobile defense of the “demographic frontier” 

nearer the coast. General Wheeler vehemently objected to this proposal, claiming it would simply bring the fighting closer to the population centers; and Clifford dropped it from his final recommendation 

to President Johnson. Discussion of strategic alternatives ceased when 

it became apparent that the Military Assistance Command could continue its existing pattern of operations without major reinforcement.6

From the time he took command of MACV in mid-1968, General 

Abrams, supported by Admiral McCain and General Wheeler, consistently argued against any curtailment of American offensive operations. The chief of the MACV operations center reported in May 1968 

that Abrams “won’t stay if they cut back on friendly actions like [in] 

Korea.” Abrams acknowledged that the enemy largely controlled both 

his own and allied casualties by his ability to vary the tempo of action, 

but Abrams insisted that the best way to minimize friendly losses was 

through constant offensive pressure to preempt major Communist 

attacks. Preemption was especially necessary as the enemy shifted from 

infantry assaults to standoff rocket and mortar bombardments, which 

could best be forestalled by aggressive allied sweeping and patrolling 

as well as by larger operations to disrupt Communist base areas and 

 Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC to Wheeler and Bunker, 7 Jun 69; Msgs, McCain to 

Wheeler info Abrams, 5 Mar 69; Abrams MAC 11810 to Wheeler info McCain, 10 Sep 69; Abrams 

Papers, CMH; MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 3, pp. 134, 127, 135–36. Memo, John Holdridge for 

Kissinger, 14 Oct 69, sub: Enemy Strategy in SVN, box 139; Memo, Holdridge for Kissinger, 20 Oct 

69, sub: Hanoi’s War Problems, box 140; Special National Intelligence Estimate 14.3–70, 5 Feb 70, 

sub: The Outlook from Hanoi: Factors Affecting North Vietnam’s Policy on the War in Vietnam, box 

144, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.

United States–Vietnam Relations, sec. 4.C.6.(c), pp. 37–51, describes the Clifford group’s 

proposals.
245

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

supply routes. Reiterating a theme of General Westmoreland’s, Abrams 

pointed to the interdependence of pacification success and allied 

offensives. He declared in March 1969: “The accelerated pacification 

program, which we feel is progressing quite favorably, is made possible largely by friendly military initiative which keeps the enemy from 

concentrating his forces against our pacification program.” Further 

emphasizing the offensive, Abrams took every occasion to suggest that 

attacks on the enemy’s bases in Laos and Cambodia would reduce their 

combat capability and hence American casualties and would “go far 

toward making a U.S. force reduction feasible.”7

President Nixon and his advisers initially accepted the military 

point of view. A few days after the inauguration, General Goodpaster, 

the deputy COMUSMACV, who had been sounding out members of 

the new administration, reassured Abrams that “there appears to be 

no support . . . for ‘deescalating the violence’ or reducing the pressure of our operations in Vietnam.” The president’s national security 

adviser, Dr. Kissinger, argued against any negotiated or tacit de-escalation of the fighting except in the context of mutual withdrawals of

U.S. and North Vietnamese troops. Kissinger considered that any deescalation would leave the other side free to continue terrorism and 

subversion, intensify pressure in the United States to bring the troops 

home, and create morale and discipline problems in Vietnam among 

idle American soldiers. Heeding these arguments, Nixon stated in his 

first major Vietnam policy decision memorandum on 1 April that there 

would be “no de-escalation except as an outgrowth of mutual troop 

withdrawal.” If the North Vietnamese raised the issue in the Paris talks, 

“the U.S. side will listen but only discuss it in the context of mutual 

withdrawal.”8

Calls for reduction of the violence continued, however, especially 

among the increasingly antiwar Democrats in and out of Congress. 

Former Johnson administration officials, notably Clark Clifford 

and Averell Harriman, as well as Senators Fulbright and Kennedy, 

urged the new administration to seek openings for peace by curtailing American offensive operations. In May, Senator Kennedy and 

others criticized a bloody attack by the 101st Airborne Division on 

North Vietnamese troops entrenched on Dong Ap Bia Mountain in 

 First quotation is from Chaisson Diary, 29 May 68, box 9, Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institution; 

second is from Msg, Abrams MAC 3806 to Wheeler and McCain, 25 Mar 69; third is from Msg, 

Abrams MAC 4035 to Wheeler and McCain, 30 Mar 69. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. In same 

collection, see Msgs, Wheeler JCS 05824 to Abrams info Sharp, 28 May 68; Abrams MAC 8892 to 

Wheeler, 4 Jul 68; Abrams MAC 1469 to Wheeler, 2 Feb 69; Wheeler JCS 03805 to McCain and 

Abrams, 28 Mar 69; McCain to Wheeler info Abrams, 30 Mar 69. 

 Quotation is from Msg, Goodpaster JCS 01029 to Abrams, 24 Jan 69, Abrams Papers, CMH. In 

same collection, see Msg, Goodpaster DIASO/SPO to Abrams, 3 Mar 69. Memo, Kissinger for the 

President, 7 Mar 69, sub: Considerations Surrounding the Issue of Deescalation in Vietnam, box 136; 

Memo, Kissinger for the President, sub: Vietnam Situation and Options, box 142; National Security 

Decision Memorandum 9, 1 Apr 69, sub: Vietnam, box 1008, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 

Second quotation is from last-cited document.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

246

the A Shau Valley, an engagement that American soldiers and newsmen labeled the battle of “Hamburger Hill” and Senator Kennedy 

pronounced “both senseless and irresponsible.” The 101st Airborne 

Division commander, Maj. Gen. Melvin Zais, who claimed later 

that General Abrams at the time endorsed his decision to press the 

attack, replied that he fought the North Vietnamese at Dong Ap Bia 

as part of his mission to destroy enemy forces and installations and 

insisted the fight had been a “tremendous, gallant victory.” Public 

outcry over the engagement continued, however, with many important newspapers taking Kennedy’s side or calling for a lowering of 

the level of violence.9

The proponents of de-escalation had a sympathizer in Secretary 

of Defense Laird, who was preoccupied with reducing the human 

and financial costs of the war to the United States. Commenting on 

Hamburger Hill, Laird noted that the attack was in accord with the 

guidance to U.S. field commanders to keep maximum pressure on the 

enemy. He suggested that they could be given alternative guidance 

to “ease the search-and-destroy pressure and probably, at least in the 

 Pressure on the administration is summarized in Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff 

and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 81–90, and Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 262–63. 

Quotations on Hamburger Hill are in MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 5, pp. 56–57, which also 

summarizes the results of the fight. Msg, Wheeler JCS 06172 to Abrams info McCain, 21 May 69, 

Abrams Papers, CMH. Press reaction is summarized in Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–

1973, pp. 85–89. Zais, Draft MFR, 24 Jul 69, sub: Dong Ap Bia, Zais Papers, MHI, contains Zais’ 

claim that Abrams approved of his decision. 

Troops charge at Hamburger Hill.
247

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

short run, reduce friendly casualties.” Laird acknowledged the military 

commanders’ insistence that offensive pressure kept overall casualties 

down, but declared: “I am convinced there is no way to ascertain the 

validity of this thesis.”10

Pursuant to his concerns, Laird on 3 July directed the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff and through them Admiral McCain and General Abrams to 

conduct a “broad and deep reassessment” of U.S. military strategy and 

force employment in Southeast Asia. They were to take into account a 

number of major changes in American policy and the overall situation: 

the enemy’s adoption of economy of force tactics; the assumption by 

South Vietnam of major responsibility for its own security; the beginning of American troop withdrawals; the reduction in the American 

military budget; President Nixon’s scaling down of America’s Vietnam 

objective; and the fact that “General Abrams was ordered to conduct 

the war with a minimum of American casualties.”11

Abrams and McCain promptly responded that no change in strategy 

or tactics was needed or desirable. Abrams on 9 July asserted that his 

“one war” concept enabled his forces to respond to changing enemy 

tactics by varying their own operational priorities. He repeated that 

10

 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 264–65, notes Laird’s interest in de-escalation. Memo, Laird 

for the President, 21 May 69, sub: Combat Activity Related to Hill 937 (Hamburger Hill), box 067, 

NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA, contains the Laird quotations. 11 Msg, JCS 3957 to CINCPAC and COMUSMACV, 3 Jul 69, box 070, NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA. This message also can be found in MACV J–3 Force Planning Synopsis for Gen Abrams, 

vol. 2, pp. 73–75, CMH.

General Zais is greeted by a fellow officer.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

248

constant pressure on the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, besides 

keeping American casualties down, also supported pacification and 

allowed American forces to improve South Vietnamese military performance through combined operations. In a later comment on one of the 

perennial cease-fire studies, Abrams declared that “we have got where 

we are [in Vietnam] by the exercise of powerful force.” The improvements in pacification, RVNAF effectiveness, and general security, and 

the reduction of enemy capabilities, had been gained by “exploiting 

mobility and fire power. . . . We hold the initiative and the enemy is 

confronted with serious military problems.” McCain echoed Abrams’ 

arguments and cited as well indications that the enemy was engaged in 

a logistical buildup to support future offensives.12

Even as Abrams and McCain prepared their replies to Laird, President 

Nixon decided to explore the possibility of changing, if not the conduct of operations, at least the statement of General Abrams’ mission. 

That statement had evolved over the years, derived from guidance of 

the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from terms of 

reference issued by CINCPAC, and from presidential decisions, such as 

the one in 1967 making COMUSMACV the single manager for pacification. As of early 1969, CINCPAC’s and COMUSMACV’s overall task, as 

defined by the Joint Chiefs, was “to assist the Government of Vietnam 

and its armed forces to defeat externally directed and supported communist subversion and aggression and attain an independent noncommunist . . . South Vietnam functioning in a secure environment.” 

To this end, the commands were to make as difficult and costly as 

possible North Vietnam’s support of the Viet Cong; maintain plans for 

a full-scale air and naval campaign against North Vietnam; “defeat” 

the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in South Vietnam and “force the 

withdrawal” of the North Vietnamese; extend Saigon’s “dominion, 

direction, and control over all of South Vietnam”; and deter or defeat 

Chinese Communist intervention. Nowhere were improvements of 

the South Vietnamese forces or a shift of the burden of the fighting 

to them even hinted at. General Abrams, when he first took over as 

COMUSMACV, himself considered revising the statement. He then 

realized, however, that it would be a “basket of horror” to obtain concurrence for a change from the U.S. Embassy, CINCPAC, and higher 

authority and discontinued the project.13

On 7 July 1969, Nixon met with Kissinger, Laird, Secretary of State 

Rogers, General Wheeler, and other senior advisers on board the presidential yacht Sequoia. After a review of a temporary lull in fighting in 

12

 Abrams’ and McCain’s views are in MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 77–80, CMH. 

Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 10174 to McCain and Wheeler, 6 Aug 69, Abrams Papers, 

CMH. 13

 MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 2, p. 7. Mission statement quotations are from Memo, 

Kissinger for the President, 8 Oct 69, box 139, NSC files, Nixon Papers. Abrams’ attempt to revise 

the mission statement is recounted in MFR, Branch, 20 Apr 71, sub: COMUSMACV Remarks in 

Connection with History Briefing, MACV Collection, MHI.
249

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

South Vietnam, Nixon decided to revise Abrams’ instructions, if only to 

deflect domestic political criticism that the administration was ignoring a possible enemy diplomatic signal. Laird then directed Wheeler to 

pursue the question with McCain and Abrams, with a view not to alter 

the actual way MACV was operating but to indicate that the command’s 

mission in the war had changed. Wheeler, perhaps reflecting his own 

inclinations more than Laird’s, emphasized to the Pacific commanders 

that the issue concerned “semantics,” and that any revision must still 

allow maximum pressure on the enemy.14

Wheeler, Abrams, and McCain quickly went on record against a 

change of either mission or tactics. At Laird’s request, Wheeler went 

to Vietnam on 16 July to consult the field commanders and assess the 

military situation. After conferring with McCain and Abrams, Wheeler 

cabled to Washington that they all saw “inherent dangers” in any 

revision of MACV’s mission statement. Wheeler argued that General 

Abrams’ credibility with newsmen, then still high, would be damaged 

when reporters observed that a new mission statement was not followed 

14 Kissinger, White House Years, p. 276. Memo, Kissinger for the President, 8 Jul [1969], sub: 

SEQUOIA NSC Meeting on Vietnam, box 091, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Historical Division, 

“Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 90–91. Former Ambassador Henry 

Cabot Lodge also urged a mission change; see Note by Amb Lodge for Use in Meeting with President, 

Kissinger, and Lodge on 24 Jun 1969 in the President’s Office, box 138, NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting with President Nixon

and members of his staff at the White House
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

250

by any change in field operations. At the same time, a change would 

undermine the morale of U.S. and South Vietnamese troops and cause 

the Saigon government to believe the Americans were preparing for a 

precipitate withdrawal. By the same token, the enemy would interpret 

a change as indicating a weakening of American resolve and take a 

more aggressive stance both at Paris and on the battlefield. Wheeler, 

and Abrams in a separate statement, repeated their previous arguments 

about how essential it was to retain the military initiative. Before leaving Saigon on 20 July, Wheeler told the press that he saw no evidence 

in the battlefield lull of any enemy peace signal, that the American 

tactics of relentless pursuit of the enemy remained in effect, and that 

he approved of those tactics.15

While Wheeler was still in Southeast Asia, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

on the basis of his and Abrams’ cabled views, advised Laird on 18 July 

against any change in MACV’s mission statement. However, “recognizing the political pressures involved,” the Joint Chiefs offered two 

alternatives. The first, which the Joint Chiefs preferred, retained the 

commitment to defeat aggression and attain a stable, non-Communist 

South Vietnam but with new subordinate undertakings to provide 

“maximum assistance in training and equipping the RVNAF as rapidly 

as possible”; support nation building and pacification; conduct “military operations to reduce the flow of materiel and manpower support 

for enemy forces” in South Vietnam; and maintain plans for a comprehensive air and naval campaign against North Vietnam. The second 

alternative changed the mission to assisting the South Vietnamese 

armed forces to “take over an increasing share of combat operations” 

aimed at defeating aggression and allowing the South Vietnamese 

people “to determine their own future without outside interference.” 

It repeated the four tasks of the first alternative and added a new one: 

“Conduct military operations designed to accelerate improvement in 

the RVNAF and to continue to provide security for U.S. forces.”16

Secretary Laird rejected the Joint Chiefs’ arguments against a mission change. In a meeting with Wheeler on 22 July, after the chairman 

returned from Vietnam, Laird again disavowed any desire or intent to 

alter the conduct of operations in Southeast Asia. However, he insisted 

that the current MACV mission statement did not square with Nixon’s 

change in America’s national goals in Vietnam. If a new mission statement created a major credibility problem, which Laird doubted it 

would, the administration, not the military, would deal with it. On the 

twenty-eighth, Laird informed the Joint Chiefs that he had decided 

15

 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 92–95; 

Memo, McConnell JSCM–443–69 for Sec Def, 18 Jul 69, sub: Statement of Mission of US Forces in 

Southeast Asia, box 076, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. This memo has appended comments of 

Generals Wheeler and Abrams. 16

 Memo, McConnell JCSM–443–69 for Sec Def, 18 Jul 69, sub: Statement of Mission of US 

Forces in Southeast Asia, box 076, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA; Historical Division, “Joint 

Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 93–94.
251

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

to propose to the president a new MACV mission statement based on 

the language of their second alternative. The Joint Chiefs two days 

later declared that Laird’s draft was “suitable if the President wishes 

to modify the goals upon which military directives and operations for 

Southeast Asia are premised” but again expressed concern that a publicized change in the mission statement “could jeopardize the credibility 

of the Administration and military because no substantial change in 

the pattern of operations in South Vietnam would follow from the mission change.”17

On 7 August, Laird presented the new mission statement to President 

Nixon with the declaration that it “reflects your policy guidance much 

more accurately than does the current mission statement” and was 

more closely in line with “what our forces in Southeast Asia are actually doing.” The statement defined America’s objective as assuring the 

South Vietnamese people’s right “to determine their future without 

outside interference.” To that end, CINCPAC and COMUSMACV were 

to assist the South Vietnamese armed forces “to take over an increasing 

share of combat operations” aimed at defeating subversion and aggression. The commands were to provide maximum assistance for the rapid 

development, training, and equipment of the RVNAF. They were to 

continue military support for accelerated pacification, civic action, and 

security programs. They were to conduct military operations designed 

to accelerate RVNAF improvement, protect U.S. forces, and reduce the 

flow of materiel and manpower to the enemy in South Vietnam, as 

well as maintain plans for “a comprehensive air and naval campaign in 

Vietnam.” In a concession to the Joint Chiefs’ concerns about credibility, Laird proposed to issue the new instructions and incorporate them 

in appropriate joint documents but make no public announcement of 

the change. “Rather,” he told Nixon, “we plan to handle the matter in 

a low-key manner.”18

Nixon, at Kissinger’s recommendation, agreed to Laird’s approach. 

At Laird’s direction, the Joint Chiefs on 21 August relayed the new mission statement to Admiral McCain and General Abrams and inserted it 

in joint publications. In October, Abrams included the new language 

in a formal Military Assistance Command statement of mission “for 

use as a basic frame of reference” to guide MACV planners. In addition, 

he stated that “the application of U.S. military power, and the provision of civil and military support will be executed in the name of the 

Republic of Vietnam and with the approval of Vietnamese officials and 

agencies,” whom MACV was to assist “in assuming full responsibility 

17

 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 95–97. 

Memo, Wheeler JCSM–474–69 for Sec Def, 30 Jul 69, sub: Statement of Mission of US Forces in 

Southeast Asia, box 076, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Quotations are from this memorandum. 18

 First and last quotations are from Memo, Laird for the President, 7 Aug 69, sub: Statement of 

Mission of U.S. Forces in Southeast Asia, box 139, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Quotations 

from mission statement are from MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, pp. 3–4. Historical Division, 

“Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 97–98.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

252

for the planning and execution of national security and development 

programs at the earliest feasible date.”19

The new instructions soon became public and produced at least 

some of the confusion about which the Joint Chiefs had warned. On 

3 November, in a major nationally televised speech explaining his 

Vietnam policy, Nixon declared that he had “changed General Abrams’s 

orders” to the effect that “the primary mission of our troops is to enable 

the South Vietnamese forces to assume the full responsibility for the 

security of South Vietnam.” The very day of the speech, a story in the 

Washington Star pointed out that Vietnamization had made no real 

difference in the way American forces fought. After the speech, CBS 

News reported that General Abrams disapproved of the new orders and 

soon would be replaced by a “logistical type general.” Abrams, in a 7 

November message to his commanders, denied “any division between 

COMUSMACV, CINCPAC, the Chairman JCS, Sec Def, and/or the 

Commander-in-Chief.” He declared that he had “accepted completely, 

and is executing to the best of his ability, all orders of the President” 

and directed his commanders to get on with the “cohesive pursuit and 

accomplishment of U.S. objectives.” Six days later, Admiral McCain 

issued a message to all Pacific commanders reaffirming and disseminating the revised mission statement but adding that “a change in current 

operations or emphasis has not been directed by, nor is expected to 

result from this message.”20 

During the following months, the Nixon administration emitted 

conflicting signals as to what, if any, implications the mission change 

was to have for Military Assistance Command’s operations. President 

Nixon, in the fall of 1969 after the first two American troop redeployments, expressed the desire that “remaining U.S. ground forces be 

deployed so that a major enemy offensive would involve early contact” with them. In February 1970, Kissinger urged Nixon to inform 

Laird and Wheeler, who were about to leave for Vietnam, “that you 

anticipate General Abrams will utilize this period, when U.S. strength 

is still strong [sic], to initiate the maximum number of spoiling attacks 

designed to keep the enemy attrition high.” Three months later, Nixon 

committed American ground forces to an offensive against the enemy’s 

Cambodian base areas. As the Cambodian operations were ending, 

19

 Memo, Kissinger for the President, 11 Aug 69, sub: Statement of Mission of U.S. Forces in 

Southeast Asia, box 076; Memo, Laird for CJCS, 15 Aug 69, sub: Statement of Mission of U.S. 

Forces in Southeast Asia, box 1004, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Historical Division, “Joint 

Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” p. 98. Quotation is from MACV Revised 

Strategic Objectives Plan, May 70, pp. 33–34, CMH. See also MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 2, 

p. 7.20 Nixon quotation is from Msg, Wheeler JCS 13701 to Bunker, McCain, and Abrams, 4 Nov 

69; Abrams quotation is from Msg MAC 14418 to all Commanders info Bunker and Rosson, 7 Nov 

69; CINCPAC quotation is from Msg, McCain to Pacific Commanders, 13 Nov 69; see also Msg, 

Wheeler JCS 13789 to Abrams info McCain, 5 Nov 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Washington 

Star report is discussed in Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 137–38.
253

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

Nixon told Abrams to plan for an incursion into Laos, continuation of 

South Vietnamese ground and American air operations in Cambodia, 

and a summer offensive in South Vietnam. The enemy, Nixon said, 

“cannot be led to believe that we have shot our wad.” Yet Nixon also 

urged Abrams to “get the South Vietnamese to move offensively and at 

the same time keep our casualties low.”21

Secretary Laird seemed to be pushing MACV in the opposite direction. Late in 1969, he stated publicly that American units in South 

Vietnam had adopted a policy of “protective reaction” instead of 

“maximum pressure,” although newsmen in the field could see little 

practical difference between the two. In guidance to the Joint Chiefs 

on 16 May 1970, Laird declared that the two long-term objectives of 

the Cambodian incursion were to facilitate Vietnamization and allow 

“continuing and even accelerated” U.S. redeployments, with success 

measured in lower American casualties and accelerated Vietnamization 

and troop withdrawals. On 21 August, he instructed McCain and 

Abrams that American combat operations “are to be steadily decreased, 

commensurate with the increasing capability of RVNAF to assume 

combat and support responsibilities, and commensurate with the security of remaining forces.” Laird nevertheless stopped short of directing 

Abrams to discontinue offensive operations or give up maintaining 

maximum pressure on the enemy.22

In the end, what did the new mission statement mean? Its wording was loose enough to justify any offensive action Abrams chose to 

take or that the administration ordered him to take. The other side, 

contrary to administration expectations, displayed no interest in tacit 

or negotiated battlefield de-escalation. However, Laird’s new mission 

statement better reflected the administration’s policy objectives; and 

it gave President Nixon something with which to counter his political critics without tying his hands operationally. For Laird, it was a 

means of nudging MACV toward less aggressive or at least less costly 

tactics. In the end, continuing troop redeployments and tight budgets, 

as well as a persistent low level of enemy activity, did more than the 

new MACV mission statement to shape the pattern of operations in 

South Vietnam.

21

 First quotation is from Memo, Kissinger for Sec Def, sub: Future Operations in Vietnam, box 

1008; second is from Memo, Kissinger for the President, 7 Feb 70, sub: Presidential Meeting with 

Secretary of Defense, Chairman JCS, and President’s Advisor for National Security Affairs . . . , box 

143; third is from Haig, Memo of Conversation, 31 May 70, San Clemente, box 146. All in NSC files, 

Nixon Papers. NARA. 22 “Protective reaction” episode is recounted in Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, 

p. 138. Cambodia guidance is in MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, pp. 309–10. Memo, Odeen, 28 Jul 

70, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, folder 75, Thayer Papers, CMH. Final Laird 

quote is from MACV History, 1970, Supp., pp. 1–2.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

254

Military Operations, 1969–1971 

Between 1969 and 1971, the fighting in South Vietnam gradually 

diminished. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, despite the exhortations of COSVN Resolution Nine and other directives, accomplished 

little more in most of the country than harassment of the allies, insufficient to disrupt pacification or American redeployments. The allies 

maintained offensive pressure on enemy main forces, base areas, guerrillas, and political infrastructure even as U.S. troops progressively 

turned over the ground battle to the South Vietnamese. General Abrams 

and his field commanders kept their shrinking American combat forces 

in action while trying to keep down casualties and push the South 

Vietnamese Army to the front. In an effort to reduce both American 

costs and Vietnamese civilian death and suffering, they modified or 

abandoned some long-standing Vietnam War military practices.

Enemy operations in III and IV Corps, and to a lesser extent in I 

and II Corps, followed the principles of COSVN Resolution Nine. The 

number of battalion and larger size attacks declined from the levels of 

1968; but smaller assaults, increasingly directed against the government territorial forces, continued at about the same rate, and acts of 

antipacification terrorism against civilians and village and hamlet officials became more frequent. To reinforce the guerrilla campaign, the 

enemy broke down a number of main force regiments into smaller 

elements and placed them under control of its local party committees. He retained divisions in remote base areas and across the border 

in Cambodia and Laos, and he continued to move men and supplies 

down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Keeping up a main force threat, he tested 

the South Vietnamese Army during 1969 in sustained engagements 

at Ben Het and Bu Prang–Duc Lap in the II Corps highlands. On several occasions, the enemy compelled American and South Vietnamese 

units in western I Corps to evacuate isolated firebases. Overall, however, Communist offensive activity of all sorts, including terrorism, 

declined in frequency and effectiveness throughout 1970 and 1971. 

General Abrams attributed much of this decline in III and IV Corps to 

the effects of the allies’ 1970 incursions into Cambodia, which at least 

temporarily disrupted the Communists’ supply system and forced their 

troops away from the South Vietnamese border.23

American and South Vietnamese military operations continued to 

be guided by the annual combined campaign plans. Those plans, and 

their supplemental corps area plans, changed little over the years in 

basic principles. While acknowledging that U.S. strength in Vietnam 

23 Memo, Laird for the President, 28 May 70, sub: Enemy Activity in South Vietnam, box 146, 

NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, Abrams MAC 3303 to McCain and Wheeler, 13 Mar 70; 

Abrams MAC 13231 to Moorer and McCain, 6 Oct 70; Abrams MAC 6538 to Moorer and McCain, 

14 May 70; Abrams Papers, CMH. Enemy operations are summarized in MACV History, 1969, vol. 

1, ch. 3; ibid., 1970, vol. 1, ch. 3; ibid., 1971, vol. 1, ch. 1, pp. 8–9, and ch. 3, passim. A firebase siege 

and evacuation are described in MACV History, 1970, vol. 3, an. G.
255

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

gradually would diminish, the plans retained as fundamental objectives the defeat of enemy forces and the extension of Saigon’s authority throughout the countryside. They listed as subordinate tasks the 

destruction of enemy units and base areas, the expansion of territorial 

security, protection of the cities, and the opening of lines of communication. They included as well a commitment to organize, train, and 

equip the South Vietnamese armed forces and use them in accord with 

their assigned missions and capabilities. The latter phrase denoted in 

particular the replacement of South Vietnamese regulars by territorials 

in security and pacification missions, so that the South Vietnamese 

could take over from the Americans the waging of mobile warfare 

against enemy main forces and base areas. Beginning with the 1970 

edition, the plans incorporated the area security concept developed 

by the Marshall Committee with its concentric secure, consolidation, 

clearing, and border surveillance zones. The 1971 plan, in the wake of 

the Cambodian offensive, added operations outside South Vietnam to 

block enemy infiltration.24

In all four corps areas, U.S. and South Vietnamese units devoted 

much effort to what formerly were called search-and-destroy missions. For example, in I Corps the allies repeatedly swept areas in the 

mountains and piedmont, with special attention to the A Shau Valley 

and other key enemy supply and infiltration corridors. In 1970 and 

1971, the allies extended their search-and-destroy missions into the 

enemy’s Cambodian and Laotian sanctuaries. There was, however, 

a shift of emphasis in these operations away from attacking enemy 

units, which continued to be hard to find and engage, toward keeping the main forces away from the populated lowlands and uprooting 

the Communists’ supply system by searching out caches and blocking infiltration routes. As U.S. redeployments gained momentum, 

American and South Vietnamese commanders in I and II Corps gradually moved their remaining forces eastward, adopting a variant of the 

“demographic frontier” strategy, which Clifford’s staff had proposed 

back in 1968.25

Behind the shield of the regulars, the Regional and Popular Forces, 

National Police, People’s Self-Defense Force, Provincial Reconnaissance 

Units, and other pacification elements, supported by CORDS advisers, 

24

 The plans are summarized in detail in MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, pp. 5–12; ibid., 1970, 

vol. 1, ch. 2, pp. 2–8; ibid., 1971, vol. 1, ch. 2, pp. 6–9, ch. 4, pp. 5–7, ch. 7, p. 11, and vol. 2, an. H, 

pp. 1–3. Full texts of the plans are Combined Campaign Plan 1969, AB 144, 30 Sep 68; Combined 

Campaign Plan 1970, AB 145, 31 Oct 69; and Combined Campaign Plan 1971, AB 146, 31 Oct 70. 

All in CMH. 25 Operations are summarized in MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 5; ibid., 1970, vol. 1, ch. 1, p. 

1, ch. 2, pp. 9–17, ch. 5; ibid., 1971, vol. 1, ch. 1, pp. 7–8, ch. 4, pp. 8–10, 21–25, ch. 5, and vol. 2, 

an. H, p. 3. Memo, Resor for Sec Def, 12 Aug 70, sub: Sec of the Army Vietnam Trip, box 245, NSC 

files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, Corcoran NHT 0610 to Abrams, 14 Apr 69; Ewell HOA 2764 

to Abrams, 10 Sep 69. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. Zais, Debriefing for CINCPAC, Jun 70, Zais 

Papers, MHI. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

256

conducted small-unit operations to secure the villages and hamlets 

and eliminate the remaining guerrillas and Communist political cadre. 

While the allies emphasized in their plans and operations bringing 

security to the people, they also systematically depopulated certain 

strategic enemy-dominated zones. In Quang Nam Province, 1st Marine 

Division elements, supported by Army Rome plow units, between May 

and July 1969 leveled Go Noi Island, a Viet Cong stronghold south 

of Da Nang. Allied forces in III Corps similarly sanitized large parts of 

the enemy war zones menacing Saigon. A State Department official 

described the results:

A great circular swath around greater Saigon has been literally “cleared” of jungle foliage 

and resident population. This includes the classic Viet Cong concentration and military 

infiltration regions . . . War Zone C, War Zone D, and the “Iron Triangle.” They are now 

visibly empty, pockmarked by innumerable bomb craters and scarred by vehicle tracks. 

There is literally hardly any place for the Viet Cong to hide in this region. . . .26

As long as they remained in South Vietnam, American combat 

units took part in offensive operations of all types. During 1970, 

they devoted the bulk of their efforts, measured in battalion days, 

to what were described as “combat operations,” including the drive 

into Cambodia. On the average, pacification and security activities 

accounted for less than 30 percent of American battalion days each 

month. Abrams, however, expanding on the efforts of his predecessor, tried to reduce the public visibility of continuing American 

offensives. In July 1969, at General Wheeler’s suggestion, Abrams 

began referring to such activities as “pre-emptive operations.” He 

directed MACV public affairs officers to stop releasing the codename of every new American operation.27

While pressing the attack, General Abrams and his field commanders displayed increasing concern with minimizing American 

casualties. At a 5 April 1969 commanders’ conference, Abrams 

instructed his generals to keep as much pressure as possible on 

the enemy but also to avoid unnecessary losses. Field commanders picked up the cues. When he took over XXIV Corps in March 

1970, Lt. Gen. Melvin Zais, while he urged his subordinates to 

remain aggressive, also enjoined them to “recognize the atmosphere in our own country, recognize the political climate, recognize the difficulties under which the administration is operating 

insofar as public support is concerned, and recognize the impact 

26 The clearing of Go Noi Island is described in Smith, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1969, pp. 

174–87. Quotation is from Msg, Ray S. Cline Saigon 303 to Kissinger, 9 Mar 70, box 410, NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA. 27 Battalion day figures are from MACV History, 1970, vol. 2, ch. 7, p. 105. Historical Division, 

“Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 94–95; Msgs, Abrams MAC 10176 

to Lt Gen Herman Nickerson, Jr, CG, III MAF, 6 Aug 69; Nickerson to Abrams, 7 Aug 69. Both in 

Abrams Papers, CMH.
257

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

of heavy casualties.” Commanders must “remember that it can be 

very counter-productive to win a battle if it costs you too much in 

the present environment in which we are operating.”28

The effect of such injunctions is difficult to measure precisely. 

However, Zais’ forces during their 1970 summer offensive into the 

enemy’s base areas declined several opportunities for pitched battles. 

In July, for example, elements of the 101st Airborne Division evacuated 

Firebase Ripcord in the A Shau Valley when it came under siege by 

North Vietnamese troops. The MACV annual history declared candidly 

that the decision to evacuate was based in part on “the domestic and 

foreign political implications of another U.S. firebase undergoing a Khe 

Sanh or Dien Bien Phu siege. Firebase Ripcord, if given an inordinate 

amount of adverse publicity, might well have jeopardized the entire 

Vietnamization program.”29

A sure way to reduce American casualties was to turn more of the 

fighting over to the South Vietnamese—a central goal of Vietnamization. 

General Abrams continually pressed his commanders on this point. 

Even before Secretary Laird inaugurated Vietnamization, Abrams told 

General Weyand, then II Field Force commander, “the goal is a continued increase in ARVN participation.” A year later, he declared to 

Weyand’s successor, General Ewell: “We have to get ARVN to shoulder 

more of the load. . . . A major effort has to be directed toward that 

end.”30

In response to Abrams’ urging, the field commanders used various expedients to place the South Vietnamese in the forefront of the 

fight. While U.S. troops remained, the I and II Field Forces paired 

American and South Vietnamese units in combined offensives and 

territorial security operations aimed at getting the South Vietnamese 

into the field and improving their tactical capabilities. American 

forces regularly provided the South Vietnamese with B–52, tactical air, 

helicopter, artillery, and logistical support. During the battles of Ben 

Het and Bu Prang–Duc Lap, I Field Force deployed American units on 

security missions to free South Vietnamese battalions for the major 

engagements. Gradually, as American divisions departed, the South 

Vietnamese assumed the predominant combat role. By late 1971, the 

South Vietnamese Army and territorial forces were conducting most 

28 Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, p. 82. Msgs, Abrams MAC 6179 to Nickerson, 

15 May 69; Nickerson to Abrams, 17 May 69. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. Quotation is from Zais, 

Opening Remarks at XXIV Corps Commanders’ Conference, 22 Mar 70, Speeches box, Zais Papers, 

MHI; in same collection, see Zais, Commanders’ Briefing, 24 May 70. 29 Quotation is from MACV History, 1970, vol. 3, an. G, pp. 4–6. For another instance of avoiding a fight, see Cosmas and Murray, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1970–1971, pp. 75–76. For an earlier 

avoidance of “another Khe Sanh,” see Msg, Nickerson to Abrams info Zais, 10 Sep 69, Abrams 

Papers, CMH. 30 First quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 9198 to Weyand, 11 Jul 68; second is from Msg, 

Abrams MAC 4813 to Ewell, 16 Apr 69; see also Msg, Abrams MAC 8028 to Ewell info Wetherill 

and Hollis, 23 Jun 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

258

ground operations in South Vietnam and its environs; the Vietnamese 

Air Force was flying the majority of tactical air strike missions in South 

Vietnam; and the Vietnamese Navy had taken over riverine and most 

coastal surveillance tasks.31

As a result of diminishing enemy activity, more cautious tactics, 

and above all falling U.S. troop strength, American combat deaths in 

South Vietnam declined both in absolute numbers and in relation to 

total allied losses. In 1969, more than 9,100 Americans were killed in 

action; in 1970, the toll fell to 4,100 and in 1971 to about 1,300. By 

mid-1970, South Vietnamese combat deaths outnumbered American 

in every military region but I Corps, where the numbers were about 

equal. This trend continued into 1971, as did a general decline in the 

war’s intensity as measured in overall friendly and enemy casualties. 

President Nixon and his advisers, who closely monitored the casualty 

figures, welcomed these numbers as a sign that Vietnamization was 

working and that their effort to calm domestic antiwar agitation by 

cutting the war’s costs was paying off.32

Nixon and his advisers eagerly anticipated the day when they could 

announce the end of American offensive ground combat in Vietnam. 

As early as May 1970, Secretary Laird declared in a public hearing of the 

Senate Armed Services Committee that the American combat role would 

end in mid-1971 as redeployments brought U.S. forces down to the 

transitional support level. The remaining Americans would continue 

to assist the South Vietnamese, “but those support functions under our 

program will also be Vietnamized.” Laird, and Secretary of State Rogers, 

repeated that promise at intervals thereafter. General Abrams, however, insisted that his forces could not assume a totally passive posture. 

Instead, all the units in South Vietnam “must participate actively in 

combat operations consistent with their capabilities.” Assumption of a 

“guard-type security posture,” Abrams declared, would be “detrimental 

to the security of the command.”33

31

 Clarke, Final Years, pp. 391–417; MACV History 1969, vol. 2, ch. 6, pp. 147–48; ibid., vol. 

1, ch. 1, p. 5; ibid., 1971, vol. 1, ch. 1, pp. 1–3, ch. 4, p. 11; MACV J3–06 Command Briefing, 

28 Nov 71, in folder, J3 Command Briefing, 28 Nov 71, MACV Collection, MHI; Zais, Opening 

Remarks, XXIV Corps Commanders’ Conference, 22 Mar 70, Speeches box, Zais Papers, MHI. 

Msgs, Corcoran NHT 1159 to Abrams, 6 Jul 69 and NHT 1489 to Abrams, 25 Aug 69; Ewell HOA 

2077 to Abrams info Colby and Maj Gen Richardson, 10 Jul 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 32 Casualty figures are from MACV History, 1970, vol. 1, ch. 5, p. 12; ibid., 1971, vol. 1, ch. 10, 

pp. 69–72. Memo, Odeen, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, 29 Jul 70, folder 75, 

Thayer Papers, CMH. MFR, Brig Gen J. C. McDonough, 12 Nov 70, sub: U.S. Casualties in South 

Vietnam, box 150; Memo, Laird for the President, 6 Apr 71, sub: Tempo of the War, box 153; Chart 

5, Apr 71, box 084; Memo, Kissinger for the President, 15 Sep 71, sub: U.S. Combat Deaths, box 

157; Memo, J. D. Negroponte for Kissinger, 2 Dec 71, sub: Declining Intensity of the Vietnam War, 

box 158. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 33 First quotation is from Msg, Paul M. Kearney, OCJCS, JCS 06659 to Wheeler info McCain, 

Abrams, 13 May 70, Abrams Papers, CMH. Memo, Kissinger for the President, 31 May 71, sub: 

Statements on Ground U.S. Combat Role in Vietnam, box 154, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA, 

reviews of the promises of Laird and Rogers. Quotation from Abrams is in MACV, Force Planning 

Synopsis, p. 386.
259

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

During the first half of 1971, the administration conducted a muted 

repetition of the 1969 debate over changing MACV’s mission statement. 

President Nixon, Dr. Kissinger, and Secretary Laird, desiring to forestall 

congressional movements to set a deadline for American withdrawal 

or cut off war funding, wanted to announce publicly that American 

troops were out of the ground fighting. The Joint Chiefs of Staff argued 

against tying down U.S. forces in passive defense and warned of a credibility gap if in fact the troops became involved in combat after the 

public announcement. All sides finally agreed on a formula proposed 

by General Abrams. Under it, American troops would conduct active 

operations, primarily small-unit patrolling, in “dynamic defense” of 

their bases and of elements supporting the South Vietnamese; but they 

would not engage in large-unit offensives against enemy formations 

beyond striking distance of American positions. In June, Abrams formally directed his commanders to adopt this posture while continuing 

to provide operational support to the South Vietnamese forces “within 

our narrowing capabilities.” The remaining U.S. combat units gradually shifted to “dynamic defense,” which in some instances—notably 

that of the 101st Airborne Division in northern I Corps—still involved 

considerable offensive action.34

In January 1972, Secretary of the Army Robert F. Froehlke told a 

Pentagon press briefing that “basically, the responsibility for offensive 

operations in Vietnam has been taken over by the ARVN” while the 

remaining U.S. combat troops performed “defensive security tasks.” 

He noted that this mission still involved “some very real hardship 

and danger and fighting” because “good security is not provided by 

ducking down behind a fortification or hiding in a pill box.” By the 

time Froehlke spoke, the two American combat brigades still operational in Vietnam, the 196th Infantry Brigade and the 3d Brigade, 1st 

Cavalry Division, were deployed respectively to protect Da Nang and 

the Saigon–Bien Hoa–Long Binh complex. Except for the remaining 

advisers with South Vietnamese units, active American ground combat 

participation in the war had come to an end.35

As American ground troops left the battlefield, General Abrams 

turned to American airpower as his principal instrument for influencing the course of combat. “While air is powerful,” Abrams said, “it is 

34

 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pp. 219–33; 

MACV, Force Planning Synopsis, p. 407, CMH. Msgs, Bunker Saigon 943 to Kissinger, 22 May 

71, box 412; Memo, R. C. Robinson for Moorer, sub: Mission Change for United States Forces in 

Southeast Asia, box 1004. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msg, Abrams MAC 06474 to 

Component and Regional Assistance Cdrs, 5 Jul 71, Abrams Papers, CMH; MACV History, 1971, 

vol. 1, ch. 4, p. 10. MACV J–3–06 Command Briefing, 28 Nov 71, in folder, J–3 Command Briefing, 

28 Nov 71; AAR Opn OPORD 11–71, 101st Abn Div, both in MACV Collection, MHI. 35 Excerpts from Pentagon News Briefing by Sec Army Robert F. Froehlke, 28 Jan 72, in 

Command Comment, no. 88, Feb 72, in Speeches-Miscellaneous file, Peers Papers, MHI. As of early 

1972, the South Korean Capital and 9th Divisions continued security operations in Military Region 

2; see MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 1, p. 5.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

260

also flexible. . . . Where the enemy puts the heat on, whether it’s the 

Plain of Jars or Duc Lap, it’s only a matter of hours until tremendous 

shifts of power can be made.” Even as aircraft numbers and sortie rates 

were reduced by redeployments and budget cuts, U.S. Air Force, Navy, 

and Marine fighter-bombers and Thailand-based B–52s supported 

American and allied units in contact, pounded enemy troop concentrations and base areas in South Vietnam, and sought to stem the flow 

of supplies through Laos and Cambodia. Complementing the combat 

operations, American fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft continued the less 

dramatic but still essential daily work of reconnaissance, transport, and 

resupply of allied forces. General Abrams, exploiting the flexibility of 

single management, regularly shifted the weight of air attack between 

targets inside and outside of South Vietnam in response to weather 

and the combat situation. As fighting in South Vietnam lessened, he 

committed an increasing proportion of both fighter-bomber and B–52 

sorties to interdiction in Laos and support of the new allied battlefront 

in Cambodia.36

While the Military Assistance Command continued to make maximum use of its airpower, it cut back employment of other weapons, 

notably artillery, in response to budgetary and political considerations. 

As early as mid-1968, the Defense Department directed the command 

to try to reduce its expenditures of artillery ammunition. The department especially questioned the value of harassment and interdiction 

fire directed at suspected enemy movement routes, supply caches, and 

concentration points. Such fire missions accounted for nearly 30 percent of the artillery ammunition used during the early months of 1968. 

Secretary Laird, who suspected that artillery fire, like air strikes, was 

being used excessively in Vietnam, continued the drive for ammunition 

economy. By late 1970, MACV’s field commanders had sharply reduced 

their monthly shell expenditures, mainly by an almost complete termination of harassment and interdiction fire. The 1st Marine Division, for 

example, in October 1970, stopped artillery fire at targets within 500 

meters of inhabited areas except in support of troops in actual contact. 

Such measures, besides conserving ammunition, reduced civilian casualties and property damage and increased the people’s sense of security 

as the sound of artillery was heard less frequently.37

The Military Assistance Command also phased out its use of herbicides as a result of budget cuts and political pressure. Since 1962, 

the command had used commercial weed killers, sprayed from fixed36 Quotation is from MACV History, 1970, vol. 1, ch. 6, p. 1. MACV’s air operations are summarized in ibid., 1969, vol. 1, ch. 5; ibid., 1970, vol. 1, ch. 6; ibid., 1971, vol. 1, ch. 6. 37 Msg, Wheeler JCS 05567 to Westmoreland and Sharp, 22 May 68, Westmoreland Message 

files, May 68, CMH. Msgs, Abrams MAC 6870 to Wheeler and Sharp, 26 May 68; Abrams MAC 

8148 to Cushman et al., 20 Jun 68; Moorer JCS 11461 to McCain info Abrams, 18 Aug 70; Abrams 

MAC 11529 to McCain, 24 Aug 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. MFRs, Odeen, 3 and 10 Aug 70, 

1 Feb 71, 25 Mar 71, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, folders 76 and 77, Thayer 

Papers, CMH; Cosmas and Murray, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1970–1971, pp. 105–06. 
261

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

wing aircraft and helicopters and from the ground, to clear fields of fire 

along roads and around firebases and camps, as well as to wither Viet 

Cong crops in remote, unpacified areas. Crop-destruction missions 

were closely restricted, requiring prior authorization by the ambassador or COMUSMACV. In 1969, MACV defoliated 4,907 square kilometers of woods and brush and destroyed 256 square kilometers of crops. 

General Abrams, Ambassador Bunker, Secretary Laird, and the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff considered the herbicide program essential to the war 

effort because it denied the enemy cover and concealment and complicated his food supply problems. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong 

propaganda, on the other hand, charged that the chemicals were causing birth defects in humans as well as damage to plants and animals. At 

home, the antiwar movement and the growing environmental crusade 

by 1969 were picking up the issue; and scientists were questioning the 

safety of the chemicals for use in the United States as well as South 

Vietnam.38

The political furor coincided with new scientific findings and declining defense resources to bring a gradual end to the program. In September 

38 MACV History, 1969, vol. 2, ch. 7, pp. 17–24; ibid., 1970, vol. 2, ch. 14, pp. 5–7, 10–13. 

Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 374–75. Memo, Laird for the Assistant to the 

President for National Security Affairs, 18 Jul 70, sub: United States Anticrop Warfare Program 

in Vietnam, box 148, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA, summarizes Defense arguments for the 

program.

Four U.S. Air Force C–123s spray defoliant

during Operation Ranch Hand.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

262

1969, to accommodate projected reductions in procurement of the 

agents, Admiral McCain ordered General Abrams to reduce herbicide 

operations by 30 percent by 1 July 1970. The Department of Defense 

budget for fiscal year 1971 included only $3 million for herbicide procurement, whereas MACV had requested $27 million. On 15 April 1970, 

the Defense Department discontinued use of one of the three most commonly used herbicides, Agent Orange, after a report to the Department 

of Health, Education, and Welfare indicated that one of its main ingredients did indeed cause birth defects in experimental animals. MACV 

continued operations with two other agents, Blue and White; but under 

the restricted budget, stocks of those chemicals rapidly diminished. With 

herbicide supplies dwindling and the Air Force beginning to redeploy its 

UC–123 spray planes, General Abrams on 10 July terminated all fixedwing defoliation operations, although he allowed commanders to continue helicopter and ground spraying around defensive positions. He 

concentrated the remaining fixed-wing aircraft for crop destruction in 

I and II Corps in conjunction with a summer campaign against enemy 

base areas.39

Additional curtailment steps followed during 1970, even as a committee from the American Association for the Advancement of Science 

visited South Vietnam to investigate the effects of herbicides. In October, 

General Abrams placed the remaining stocks of Agent Orange under 

strict centralized control after his inspector general confirmed a press 

report that elements of the Americal Division had made unauthorized 

use of the agent. In November, at Ambassador Bunker’s and General 

Abrams’ direction, an interagency mission committee, composed of 

representatives of the U.S. Embassy, U.S. Agency for International 

Development, Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office, CORDS, and the MACV 

intelligence and operations directorates, conducted a review of the 

crop destruction program in the light of changing circumstances, 

namely dwindling supplies of chemicals and the Saigon government’s 

expanding control over food-producing areas. While the committee 

endorsed at least limited continuation of the campaign, Abrams and 

Bunker in December decided to phase it out by May 1971 and thereafter to use up the remaining stocks of Blue and White in helicopter 

and ground spraying around camps and firebases. They planned no 

public announcement of the decision so as to preserve “our option to 

reinstitute [the] program if necessary in the future.”40

39 MACV History, 1969, vol. 2, ch. 7, pp. 24–26; ibid., 1970, vol. 2, ch. 14, pp. 5, 7–10.

40

 Msg, McCain to Abrams info Moorer, 29 Jul 70, Abrams Papers, CMH; MACV History, 1970, 

vol. 2, ch. 14, pp. 13–15. Unauthorized use incident is described in MACV History, 1970, vol. 2, 

ch. 13, p. 18; and Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, p. 375. Quotation is from Msg, 

Bunker Saigon 19374 to Sec State, 9 Dec 70, sub: Herbicide Policy Review; see also Msgs, Bunker 

Saigon 18557 to Sec State, 23 Nov 70, sub: Herbicide Policy Review; box 150; and Bunker Saigon 

20011 to Sec State, 21 Dec 70, sub: Herbicide Policy Review, box 151. All in NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA.
263

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

As 1970 neared its end, the administration anticipated a critical 

report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science 

and faced in addition a congressionally mandated National Academy 

of Sciences study of the environmental and health effects of herbicide 

use in South Vietnam. The Senate had scheduled hearings on ratification of the 1925 Geneva Protocol against chemical warfare. For political reasons, therefore, the White House promptly made the mission’s 

decision public. On 29 December, it announced that an “orderly and 

rapid” phase-out of herbicide operations was under way and would be 

completed by the following spring. The Defense Department in January 

1971 ordered immediate termination of all crop destruction spraying 

and directed that defoliation around bases end by 1 May.41

The latter directive brought a protest from General Abrams. 

Supported by Ambassador Bunker, the Joint Chiefs, and Secretary Laird, 

Abrams insisted that spraying around installations must continue in 

order to protect American lives because defoliation was the only safe 

way to keep mined perimeters free of brush. He requested authority to 

spray at least until December, when defoliant stocks would run out. 

Secretary of State Rogers, however, opposed any extension for fear that 

it would cause a domestic political uproar.42 

President Nixon hesitated to make a decision until requests from 

Laird and Abrams became urgent and rumors spread that soldiers 

returning to Vietnam from leave were bringing back weed killer for 

their units. Finally, on 18 August, Nixon authorized helicopter and 

ground spraying through 1 December in situations where commanders 

considered it essential for protection of their forces and other means 

could not be used. Nixon forbade any public announcement of the 

extension. MACV public affairs officers, if queried, were to say that 

herbicides were being phased out except for limited spraying around 

bases under the same health and safety restrictions then in force in the 

United States. On this basis, MACV used up its stocks of Agents Blue

and White while the Defense Department arranged to ship the remaining Agent Orange back to the United States for destruction. No public 

furor erupted over the extension. Only after the end of the war would 

persistent scientific, political, and legal controversy arise over Agent 

Orange’s possible damage to the health of Vietnam veterans.43

41 Msg, Sec State 188497 to Am Emb Saigon and COMUSMACV, 18 Nov 70, sub: Herbicide 

Policy Review, box 150; Memo, Michael A. Guhin for Kissinger, 19 Dec 70, sub: Dr David’s 

Proposed Vietnam Herbicide Policy and Draft Announcement; Memo, Kissinger for Sec Def, 28 

Dec 70, sub: Policy Regarding Herbicides in Vietnam, with attached documents, box 151, NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA; MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 6, pp. 20–21. 42

 Msg, Sec State 072220 to Am Emb Saigon, 27 Apr 71, sub: Herbicides; Msg, Bunker Saigon 

6463 to Sec State, 28 Apr 71, sub: Herbicides, box 154; Memo, Laird for the President, 13 May 71, 

sub: Policy Regarding the Use of Herbicides in Vietnam; Memo, Rogers for the President, 24 Jun 71, 

sub: DOD Request for Authority to Continue Use of Herbicides in Vietnam, box 155; Memo, Rear 

Adm Robert O. Welander for Haig, 9 Aug 71, sub: Herbicides in Vietnam; Memo, Kissinger for the 

President, 13 Aug 71, sub: Herbicides in Vietnam, box 156. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 43

 Memo, Kissinger for Secs State and Def, 18 Aug 71, sub: Herbicides in Vietnam; Msg, Sec 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

264

MACV’s reductions in artillery fire and phasing out of defoliation 

and crop destruction, like its post–My Lai tightening of the rules of 

engagement, were aspects of the command’s effort to reduce damage 

to South Vietnamese civilians from American operations. Whether 

because of these initiatives or due to other factors, suffering attributable 

to American actions appears to have declined after 1968. According 

to a Defense Department analysis, civilian casualties, as measured by 

hospital admission rates, fell from 7,000 per month in 1968 to 3,000 

in 1971. In the same period, the percentage of injured from bombing 

and shelling—those almost certain to have been victims of American 

weapons—dropped from 43 to 22. The Defense Department analysts 

attributed most of this decline to the general lowering of the intensity 

of combat and even more to movement of the main force fighting, 

with its heavy use of air and artillery, away from population centers. In 

1969, for example, 32 percent of all tactical air strikes occurred within 

3 kilometers of hamlets; by 1971 only 16 percent did. Despite MACV’s 

conscientious efforts to enforce restraint, reduction of the war’s cruelty 

thus was largely out of the command’s control. Whatever the rules of 

engagement, if the enemy returned in force to the populated areas, 

civilians again would suffer.44

Pacification

Alleviation of civilian suffering was essential to the success of the 

pacification program, to which MACV and the rest of the American 

mission, along with the Saigon government, devoted increasing attention and resources. Ambassadors Bunker and Colby, General Abrams, 

and President Thieu all anticipated a final political struggle between 

the government and the Communists, possibly after a military ceasefire. To prepare for it, they followed up the Accelerated Pacification 

Campaign of late 1968 with a sustained effort to reoccupy the countryside and attract the peasantry to the government. Following a wellestablished strategy, Regional and Popular Forces and Revolutionary 

Development cadres moved into contested villages and hamlets, 

expelled or suppressed the Viet Cong guerrillas and political infrastructure, and set up elected local governments and People’s Self-Defense 

Force units. Behind this shield of security were to come land reform 

and other economic improvements aimed at giving the people a stake 

in Saigon’s system.45

State 153250 to Am Emb Saigon, CINCPAC, COMUSMACV, 20 Aug 71, sub: Use of Herbicides, 

box 156. Both in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA; MFR, Odeen, 20 Sep 71, sub: Vietnamization 

Meeting with Secretary Laird, folder 78, Thayer Papers, CMH; MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 6, 

pp. 20–21; Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 375–76. 44 Analysis is in Thayer, “War Without Fronts,” pp. 863–67. See also MFR, Odeen, 7 Oct 71, sub: 

Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, folder 78, Thayer Papers, CMH. 45

 Hunt, Pacification, pp. 214–17, provides an overview of allied pacification strategy. Colby expressed the view that the war was moving toward a political phase in MFR, Odeen, 31 Aug 70, sub: 
265

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

The allies embodied their strategy in annual pacification and development plans, joint products of President Thieu’s Central Pacification 

and Development Council, the Saigon government ministries, MACV, 

and CORDS, which dovetailed with the military combined campaign 

plans. Beginning with the first pacification and development plan, that 

for 1969, the Vietnamese agencies did most of the drafting of these 

plans, although with much behind-the-scenes advice from CORDS. 

General Abrams regularly instructed his American forces to treat the 

plans as authoritative guidance for their own support of pacification. 

Like the campaign plans, the national pacification plans were supplemented by corps area and province plans, the latter signed jointly by 

the province chief and his American province senior adviser.46

The annual plans translated the broad concepts of pacification into 

specific, usually quantitative, goals. Typical were the eight objectives of 

the 1969 plan: to control and secure 90 percent of the population; to 

eliminate 33,000 Viet Cong cadre under Phoenix and other programs; 

to establish elected local governments in all villages throughout the 

country; to recruit the People’s Self-Defense Force to 2 million members and arm 400,000 of them; to bring in 25,000 enemy defectors 

under the Chieu Hoi (“Open Arms”) program; to resettle at least 300,000 

refugees; to expand village-level propaganda and information efforts; 

and to improve the rural economy and increase rice production. The 

1970 plan kept the same basic objectives and added several special programs, notably land reform. For 1971, the South Vietnamese dropped 

the word “pacification” from the title of the plan. They renamed it the 

Community Defense and Local Development Plan to reflect the claim 

that “pacification”—wresting the people from enemy control—had 

been completed. They also reduced the eight objectives to three—selfdefense, self-government, and self-development—to demonstrate 

greater national self-sufficiency as the Americans withdrew. During 

1971, in what would turn out to be a premature expression of confidence, the Vietnamese began writing a four-year Community Defense 

and Local Development Plan for 1972 and beyond.47

Like every other aspect of the war, pacification underwent 

Vietnamization between 1969 and 1972. Much more than the military effort, pacification from the beginning had been Vietnamese in 

command and operation. Nevertheless, the 7,500 CORDS military 

and civilian advisers in Saigon, the corps areas, the provinces, and the 

districts played a vital role. They helped with planning, monitored 

Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, folder 76, Thayer Papers, CMH. 46

 Drafting process for the 1969 Pacification and Development Plan (P&D) is described in MACV 

History, 1969, vol. 2, ch. 8, pp. 5, 8–9. CORDS role in drafting the 1970 plan may be followed in 

detail in CORDS, 1970 Pacification and Development Plan After-Action Report, CMH. A typical 

Abrams endorsement is in Memo, Abrams for Distribution List, sub: GVN 1970 Pacification and 

Development Plan, attached to 1970 P&D Plan, CMH. 47

 P&D plans are summarized in MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, pp. 4–5, vol. 2, ch. 8, pp. 9–

17; ibid., 1970, vol. 1, ch. 2, pp. 3–4, ch. 8, pp. 4–10, 94–95; ibid., 1971, vol. 1, ch. 7, pp. 1, 7–10.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

266

execution, encouraged, persuaded, and worked to replace corrupt or 

incompetent Vietnamese officials. MACV and the mission accordingly 

delayed CORDS personnel reductions for as long as possible so as to 

sustain the momentum of pacification. Nevertheless, during 1970 and 

1971, CORDS cut its advisory strength by about two-thirds, principally 

by eliminating its mobile training teams for the Regional and Popular 

Forces and its district advisory teams. CORDS also turned over to the 

Vietnamese key administrative functions, including operation of the 

Hamlet Evaluation System, MACV’s main device for measuring pacification results.48

As measured by the Hamlet Evaluation System and other statistical 

indicators, the allies made steady progress toward their pacification 

objectives. Territorial security showed impressive gains. By the end of 

1971, close to 95 percent of South Vietnam’s population lived in places 

rated relatively secure under the Hamlet Evaluation System, compared 

to 60 percent in February 1968 when the Hamlet Evaluation System 

criteria had been less stringent. Some of this gain resulted from movement of people from contested and fought-over villages to government-controlled towns and refugee camps, but much was due to actual 

expansion of security into the countryside. To provide this security, the 

government enlarged its Regional and Popular Forces in the period from 

300,000 men to 520,000, the National Police from 74,000 to 121,000 

(many for the first time occupying village and hamlet stations), and 

the People’s Self-Defense Force—more useful as a source of intelligence 

and a means of committing people to the government than as a fighting force—from 1.4 million to 3.9 million. Most years, the government 

met its quota of Communist defectors and deserters. However, the 

Phoenix campaign to identify and “neutralize” by death or capture 

underground Viet Cong leaders fell short, hampered by corruption, 

poor administration, and the unwillingness of South Vietnamese agencies to pool information. Many American officials questioned whether 

the accomplishments of Phoenix compensated for the bad publicity 

the program received in the United States.49

48

 The Vietnamese character of pacification is emphasized in interview of Robert W. Komer, 

Organization and Management of the New Model Pacification Program—1966–1969 (Rand 

Corporation Doc no. D(L)–20104–ARPA, 7 May 70) pp. 6–7, CMH; Memo, Dean Moor for Kissinger, 

21 Aug 69, sub: Status of Pacification in South Vietnam, box 138, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 

Hunt, Pacification, pp. 261, 272–73. MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 7, pp. 1, 3–5, ch. 8, p. 77. 49

 Hunt, Pacification, pp. 253–54. Thayer, “War Without Fronts,” pp. 871–82, concludes that 

the Hamlet Evaluation System was a valid measurement system and that the increase in secure 

population after 1969 did represent government authority reaching into the countryside. For the 

view that part of the security gain resulted from people fleeing or forced to leave contested areas, 

see Memo, Col Charles A. Wilson, Jr, for Potts, 23 Nov 70, sub: VC Guerrilla and Local Force 

Erosion, in folder USMACV (J–2) CICV St. 70–02, MACV Collection, MHI; and Ltr, Zais to 

Abrams, 12 Jun 70, Zais Papers, MHI. MACV claims are in MACV History, 1969, vol. 2, ch. 8, pp. 

34–35, 48–50, 70–73; ibid., 1970, vol. 1, ch. 1, pp. 2–3, vol. 2, ch. 8, pp. 1–2, 94–99; ibid., 1971, 

vol. 1, ch. 1, pp. 3, 9, ch. 7, pp. 11–12. 
267

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

Personal observations and impressions, often from former skeptics and pessimists, seemed to confirm the statistical evidence of 

progress. John P. Vann, who had trumpeted MACV’s military and 

pacification failures during his tour as an Army adviser in 1962–63 

and later returned to Vietnam as a civilian corps area deputy for 

CORDS, as early as March 1969 informed William P. Bundy, Assistant 

Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, that “the situation is very much improved, and . . . the improvement is solid.” 

Observers from the National Security Council and analysts from the 

State Department and Central Intelligence Agency, with varying 

degrees of qualification, reached similar conclusions. Visitors could 

sense the improving security. A member of Kissinger’s staff reported 

after a December 1970 trip to Vietnam: “Roads once closed are open, 

in some cases 24 hours a day. One no longer hears bombs and artillery every night in Saigon. Trade and commerce flow more freely.” 

From the enemy side, prisoners, defectors, and captured documents 

admitted to significant losses in people and territory.50

Partly a cause and partly a consequence of improving territorial security was a steady decline in enemy guerrilla and local force 

strength. In late 1970, a MACV J–2 study estimated that enemy 

guerrilla strength had fallen from about 80,000 in December 1967 

to 43,800 in January 1970. Local force numbers in the same period 

dropped from about 30,700 to 20,300. The enemy appeared to have 

succumbed to a vicious cycle. Years of hard fighting, culminating in 

the heavy casualties of Tet 1968 and the subsequent general offensives, had worn down the Viet Cong, allowing the government to 

reoccupy many villages and hamlets. This pacification success in 

turn denied the enemy the recruits he needed to recover from the 

military attrition, ensuring that enemy strength would continue 

to decline. In an effort to compensate for these losses, the enemy 

began introducing North Vietnamese into Viet Cong local force and 

guerrilla units, even in the Mekong Delta where the war previously 

had been a South Vietnamese fight on both sides. The northerners, 

however, lacked the Viet Cong’s knowledge of the terrain and rapport with the people; their increasing dominance of the revolutionary organizations demoralized many veteran southern fighters and 

cadres.51

50 First quotation is from Memo, Haig for Kissinger, 29 Mar 69, sub: MFR on John Vann’s Views, 

box 136; second is from Memo, W. R. Smyser for Kissinger, 23 Dec 70, sub: A Few Observations on 

Pacification . . . , box 1011; see also Study, State Department, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, 

24 Jul 70, sub: South Vietnam: Pacification Holding the Line, box 148, NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA. Enemy viewpoints are reported in Memo, Wilson for Potts, 23 Nov 70, sub: VC Guerrilla 

and Local Force Erosion, MACV Collection, MHI; and Orrin DeForest and David Chanoff, Slow 

Burn: The Rise and Bitter Fall of American Intelligence in Vietnam (New York: Simon and Schuster, 

1990), pp. 100–01, 186. 51 Memo, Wilson for Potts, 23 Nov 70, sub: VC Guerrilla and Local Force Erosion, 

MACV Collection, MHI. Typical views of Viet Cong weakness are MFR, Col Amos A. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

268

Subsequent Vietnamese Communist analysts acknowledged that 

the allies’ pacification programs after Tet 1968 had hurt the revolution badly in the countryside. As they saw it, the party during 1968 

and early 1969 had made a major strategic error by concentrating 

its forces around the cities in a vain attempt to continue the general 

offensive. The allies’ rural counterattack had caught the revolution 

off balance. When Nixon initiated Vietnamization and the buildup 

of Saigon’s forces, especially the territorials and People’s Self-Defense 

Force, the Communist Party underestimated the threat posed by 

the American president’s “very dangerous plans.” In particular, as a 

former COSVN general put it,

When we saw the Americans shift to their “Vietnamization” strategy, . . . our thoughts 

were focused on our hopes for our military proselyting operations. We tried to turn the 

enemy into a watermelon, “Green on the outside but Red on the inside,”. . . because we 

thought that our people were very good people at heart. We did not realize the extent of the 

stubbornness, the viciousness, and the cunning guile of the enemy, who used demagoguery, 

bribery, and oppression to control the population.52

As the balance of armed force in the countryside swung to the 

government, political and economic development produced mixed 

results. Between 1969 and 1972, South Vietnam established elected 

governments in about 98 percent of its villages and hamlets and 

carried out successful elections for provincial councils and for both 

houses of its national legislature. The presidential election of October 

1971, however, disappointed the mission and the Nixon administration. Despite strenuous American efforts to ensure a fair, contested 

campaign—albeit one which Thieu would win—Thieu maneuvered 

his major rivals out of the race and secured overwhelming voter 

endorsement in a one-man referendum. The outcome cast doubt 

on the reality of South Vietnamese democracy and called in question Thieu’s commitment to a broad-based representative political 

system. In fact, most governmental power down to the district level 

remained in military hands; and President Thieu headed an administration of soldiers, civil servants, and technicians. Relatively efficient compared to previous Saigon regimes, though still riddled with 

corruption at all levels, Thieu’s government lacked both a popular 

political base and institutions for mobilizing one. Some American 

officials, including Dr. Kissinger, considered that Thieu was doing as 

Jordan, Jr, Oct 69, sub: Qualitative Observations on Territorial Security, Vann Papers, 

MHI; and Msg, Abrams MAC 13298 to Moorer and McCain, 7 Oct 70, Abrams Papers, 

CMH; MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 3, pp. 84, vol. 2, ch. 8, p. 54; ibid., 1970, vol. 1, 

ch. 3, pp. 185–86. Hostility of southern cadres to the North Vietnamese Army is reported 

by a CIA operative in DeForest and Chanoff, Slow Burn, pp. 186–87. 52 Sr. Gen. Hoang Van Thai, “A Few Strategic Issues in the Spring 1968 Tet Offensive and 

Uprising,” Military History Magazine [Tap Chi Lich Su Quan Su], Issue 2 (26), 1988, published by 

the Ministry of Defense’s Military Institute of Vietnam. Trans. Merle Pribbenow. Copy in CMH.
269

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

much to promote democracy as could reasonably be expected during 

a civil war; but opponents of the war in the United States branded 

Thieu a dictator unworthy of continued American support.53

If the presidential election disappointed American officials, 

President Thieu’s efforts at land reform were more encouraging. 

Under the Land to the Tiller Act, which Thieu pushed through the 

national legislature in 1970, South Vietnam during the next three 

years transferred title to 2.5 million acres of rice land from landlords 

(who received compensation) to the farmers who actually tilled the 

fields. The program, assisted by American aerial surveys and computerized record keeping and administered at the local level by village committees to ensure fairness, all but eliminated farm tenancy 

in South Vietnam and created a new class of small landowners with, 

presumably, a stake in the regime. Land reform’s immediate effectiveness in winning peasants to the government was uncertain, but it 

constituted a major contribution to the nation’s long-run political 

stability and social well-being. Unfortunately, this land reform, one 

of the most ambitious and extensive in Asia and conducted in the 

midst of war, attracted less public attention in the United States than 

did the botched presidential election.54

South Vietnam also made progress in other economic fields. 

American military engineers by 1971 were finishing construction of a 

national road network that facilitated both military movements and 

civilian commerce. The regime, its efforts assisted and monitored by 

the MACV Assistant Chief of Staff for Economic Affairs, had some 

modest success in curbing inflation, expanding agricultural production, and reviving industry. South Vietnam nevertheless remained 

heavily dependent on U.S. economic support, especially in financing 

its swollen military budget.55 

By the end of 1971, Ambassadors Bunker and Colby and General 

Abrams, as well as Washington officials such as Secretary Laird, were 

convinced that the allies were winning the pacification side of the 

war. Yet they also recognized the potential fragility of their achievement. The South Vietnamese government, for all its improvement, still 

lacked a solid popular political base; poor leadership and corruption 

persisted in both the civil administration and the armed forces; and 

the genuineness of the regime’s commitment to American-sponsored 

reforms remained in question. Saigon’s pacification gains in the countryside had resulted as much from weak opposition, which stemmed 

primarily from the bleeding of enemy forces in years of fighting, as 

53 Hunt, Pacification, pp. 265–67; Clarke, Final Years, pp. 361, 479–481. Hammond, Military 

and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 518–23, describes administration disappointment and American domestic reaction; on same theme, see Msg, Kissinger WHS 1096 to Bunker, 10 Sep 71, box 412, NSC 

files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Kissinger defends Thieu in White House Years, p. 273, as does Ray S. 

Cline in Msg Saigon 303 to Kissinger, 9 Mar 70, box 410, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 54

 Hunt, Pacification, pp. 263–65; Thayer, “War Without Fronts,” pp. 928–33. 55 MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 1, pp. 3–4, 9–11, ch. 2, p. 4, ch. 8, p. 99.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

270

from government strength or efficiency. As a Rand Corporation analyst 

put it, “Attrition is pushing pacification, not vice-versa.” Much of the 

Viet Cong political infrastructure remained in place, though temporarily driven into hiding by the government’s military domination of the 

countryside. It could arise again if the balance of force changed, and 

American troop redeployments were in fact changing the balance. The 

permanence of pacification thus depended in the end on whether the 

South Vietnamese armed forces could replace the departing Americans 

both in maintaining territorial security and in keeping the upper hand 

in the main force war.56

A Self-Defending South Vietnam?

As U.S. troops left South Vietnam, the Military Assistance Command 

and the Joint General Staff put into effect the Consolidated RVNAF 

Improvement and Modernization Plan (CRIMP). Their objective, set by 

Secretary Laird, was to create an indigenous armed force able to defend 

South Vietnam and defeat the insurgency with minimal American assistance. The final plan, which Laird approved in June 1970, called for 

expansion of the South Vietnamese forces to 1.1 million men—about 

half in the regular army, navy, and air force and half in the territorial 

elements—by the end of fiscal year 1973. With improved training and 

modern equipment, this force was to take over in successive phases—

first ground combat and then air, naval, and logistical operations—as 

the American presence dwindled to a military advisory mission.57

The Military Assistance Command and the Joint General Staff (JGS) 

set up combined organizations to carry out the plan. An overall coordinating committee, composed of the MACV Assistant Chief of Staff 

for Military Assistance, the heads of the Training Directorate and the 

CORDS Territorial Security Directorate, and the chiefs of the Air Force 

and Navy advisory groups along with the JGS Assistant to the Chief of 

Staff for Planning and the chiefs of staff of the Vietnamese Navy and 

Air Force, met weekly to review progress and identify problems. It also 

conducted periodic field inspections. Within MACV headquarters, a 

military assistance service-funded program watch committee oversaw 

materiel assistance to the Vietnamese by the American armed services. 

A subcommittee under it reviewed and approved all changes to RVNAF 

tables of equipment. Other MACV and combined committees worked 

on desertion control and South Vietnamese logistical improvement. 

MACV’s subordinate commands and combat and support units all took 

part in training Vietnamese counterparts and transferring equipment 

56 Hunt, Pacification, pp. 252, 255, 258–63, 267–68, summarizes the pluses and minuses. 

Quotation is from Ltr, F. J. West to Lemos, 10 Dec 69, box 1010; see also Memo, Holdridge for 

Kissinger, 29 Nov 71, sub: New Communist Emphasis on Countering Pacification . . . , box 158; 

NSC files, Nixon Papers. Komer Interv, 7 May 70, pp. 89–90, 226, also ties pacification success to 

military attrition. 57 MACV History, 1970, vol. 2, ch. 7, pp. 3, 15–16; ibid., 1971, vol. 1, ch. 8, p. 1.
271

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

to them. Expansion of the Vietnamese Air Force helicopter force, for 

example, was a cooperative effort of U.S. Army, Vietnam, the Army 1st 

Aviation Brigade, and the Seventh Air Force, as well as Army helicopter 

pilot training facilities in the United States.58

General Abrams, while he aggressively pushed forward the expansion and improvement of the South Vietnamese armed forces, tried 

to minimize changes in their basic organization and deployment. 

Supported by Ambassador Bunker and Admiral McCain, Abrams argued 

that radical changes would upset power relationships and institutional 

balance in the Saigon government and cause confusion and loss of 

momentum. On similar grounds, Abrams rejected periodic JGS proposals to equip their forces with advanced jets, heavy tanks, self-propelled 

artillery, and other sophisticated weapons that he believed they did 

not need and could not maintain. Abrams supported marginal changes 

and improvements, such as establishment of a separate artillery force 

for the Regional and Popular Forces and provision of additional 175-

mm. gun battalions and air defense units. He also worked with the 

Joint General Staff to incorporate the Special Forces–advised Civilian 

Irregular Defense Groups, hitherto outside the RVNAF, into the armed 

forces as Regional Force units and Border Defense Ranger Battalions, a 

change completed by the end of 1970.59

The overall structure of the armed forces, however, remained 

unchanged. The chain of command continued to run from the Joint 

General Staff to the four corps, which President Thieu in July 1970 

redesignated as military regions. In an effort to disengage the regular 

forces from territorial security functions, he gave each military region 

commander two deputies—one for military operations and the other 

for Regional and Popular Force operations and pacification. In practice, the reorganization made little difference in the corps and military 

region commanders’ discharge of their dual military and political functions. The nine South Vietnamese divisions and most other regular 

ground force units, as well as the territorials, answered to the military 

region commanders; and the regular units for practical purposes continued to be anchored to their regions, if only by the fact that their 

men were native to them. The Joint General Staff directly controlled 

the marine and airborne divisions of the general reserve, the air force 

and navy, the base logistic depots, and the training centers and military schools.60

Measured against the CRIMP’s statistical goals, the improvement 

and modernization effort made encouraging, even dramatic, progress. 

In late March 1971, Secretary Laird reported to President Nixon that 

58 MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 4, pp. 25–26; ibid., 1970, vol. 2, ch. 7, pp. 85–87; Clarke, 

Final Years, pp. 427–44. 59 MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 4, pp. 49–52; ibid., 1970, vol. 2, ch. 7, pp. 2–5, ch. 14, pp. 

1–3; Clarke, Final Years, pp. 378, 381–83, 455–56. 60 MACV History, 1970, vol. 2, ch. 7, pp. 16–20; Clarke, Final Years, pp. 378–79, 384.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

272

the South Vietnamese forces had met their fiscal year 1973 manpower 

expansion goals two years ahead of time. Provision of major new equipment items, either directly from American production lines or transferred from redeploying U.S. units, also was on or ahead of schedule. 

The Saigon government, through conscription and voluntary enlistment, was able to provide the manpower for its new units; its training centers, according to their American advisers, steadily improved 

the quantity and quality of their instruction. By late 1971, the South 

Vietnamese were close to completing their takeover of ground, air, and 

naval combat operations within their borders. At the same time, they 

were performing a growing proportion of their own logistical support, 

including supply storage and distribution, port operations, and equipment maintenance; although they still relied on U.S. forces or private 

contractors for the more technically sophisticated functions, including 

communications-electronics.61

South Vietnamese battlefield performance, although uneven, 

appeared to be adequate and steadily improving. General Abrams 

assessed South Vietnamese Army conduct of the battle of Ben Het in 

the Central Highlands in July 1969 as giving “justification for confidence”; although MACV advisers noted that the South Vietnamese 

Army had depended heavily on U.S. fire support and displayed many 

lapses in staff work, operational coordination, and logistics, as well 

as a lack of aggressiveness in pursuing the defeated enemy. By 1970, 

the South Vietnamese had remedied some of these deficiencies to the 

point where they could undertake multiregiment operations against 

enemy bases in Military Regions 3 and 4. In the Cambodian incursion 

of the same year, the South Vietnamese Army successfully planned 

and conducted mobile operations at considerable distance from their 

home bases, and they supplied their forces with minimal American 

assistance. The territorial forces in Military Regions 3 and 4 proved able 

to maintain security in the regulars’ absence. While lightly opposed, 

the Cambodian invasion, in Abrams’ view, was well conducted and 

improved South Vietnamese morale. “Their pride is up,” he privately 

told President Nixon. The 1971 South Vietnamese Army offensives in 

Laos and Cambodia, which met heavier North Vietnamese opposition, 

went less well and revealed continuing South Vietnamese operational 

deficiencies. Nevertheless, by the end of 1971, American and South 

Vietnamese commanders were expressing confidence that the South 

61

 Laird’s March 1971 report is summarized in Memo, Kissinger for the President, 26 Mar 71, 

sub: RVNAF Expansion and Modernization, box 153; see also Memo, Laird for the President, 8 Nov 

71, sub: Trip to Vietnam, November 2–8, 1971, box 158, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. For an 

earlier, similar view by Abrams, see Msg MAC 3303 to McCain and Wheeler, 13 Mar 70, Abrams 

Papers, CMH. Clarke, Final Years, pp. 377–78, 390; MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 1, pp. 2–3, 

ch. 8, p. 1; Bfg, MACV Training Directorate, Jul 71, in MACV Training Directorate Jul 71 folder, 

MACV Collection, MHI.
273

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

Vietnamese forces could hold their own, provided they received continuing American air and materiel support.62

As RVNAF improvement and modernization progressed, the Military 

Assistance Command redefined the functions of its advisers with the 

South Vietnamese forces and gradually reduced their numbers. In 

1969, the command converted its tactical advisory teams with South 

Vietnamese divisions, regiments, and battalions to combat assistance 

teams. Reflecting an established fact of life, the name change denoted 

that the teams’ mission was no longer offering advice—which South 

Vietnamese commanders did not need—but instead providing “combat 

support coordination” and liaison with U.S. forces. During 1971, 

General Abrams, believing that “we Americans can take a Vietnamese 

unit only so far,” began withdrawing the combat assistance teams first 

from battalions and then from regiments. MACV in the same period 

reduced its advisory contingent at the RVNAF schools and training 

centers by not replacing men as they ended their tours.63

In October 1971, Abrams informed Admiral McCain and the Joint 

Chiefs that the military advisory effort had gradually changed emphasis, as the South Vietnamese forces improved, from tactical operations 

to functional areas such as logistics and pacification. The number of 

advisers would continue to decline as the South Vietnamese gained 

expertise. Nevertheless, Abrams emphasized that the advisory effort 

must continue. The Vietnamese still needed assistance in command 

and control, personnel management, logistics, some aspects of training, communications-electronics, and intelligence. Abrams and his 

field commanders relied heavily on the advisers’ reports for information on their ally’s situation and performance; and they realized that 

the advisers reinforced the South Vietnamese command structure by 

using their own network to ensure coordination between Vietnamese 

headquarters. Accordingly, adviser strength in South Vietnam by the 

end of 1971 had declined by only 22 percent, whereas overall U.S. 

strength had fallen by 66 percent.64

62 First quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 8347 to McCain info Wheeler, 29 Jun 69; see also 

Msgs, Abrams MAC 1232 to McCain info Wheeler, 27 Jan 70, and Abrams MAC 15447 to McCain, 

2 Dec 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Second quotation is from Haig, Memo of Conversation, 

31 May 70, San Clemente, box 146; see also Memo for the files, 17 Nov 71, sub: Vietnam Ad Hoc 

Working Group Meeting, November 16, 1971, box 158, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Clarke, 

Final Years, pp. 401, 418–20, 472–76; MACV History, 1969, vol. 3, an. H; ibid., 1970, vol. 1, ch. 1, 

p. 4, ch. 7, p. 103. 63 Quotation is from Sutherland Interv, n.d., pp. 27–28. MACV History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 4, p. 

26; ibid., 1970, vol. 1, ch. 7, pp. 77–79; ibid., 1971, vol. 1, ch. 8, pp. 79–80; Clarke, Final Years, pp. 

368–69, 372, 449–50, 452. For a field commander’s view that advisers can be reduced, see Collins, 

Debriefing Report, 7 Jan 71, pp. 9–10, Collins Papers, MHI. 64

 Abrams’ views on adviser roles can be found in MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 8, 

pp. 81–83. For commanders’ views on continuing adviser functions, see Msgs, Sutherland 

DNG 2555 to Abrams, 3 Nov 70; Collins NHT 2128 to Abrams, 4 Nov 70; and Wagstaff 

HOA 1328 to Abrams, 12 Jul 71. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Clarke, Final Years,

p. 450.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

274

Taking all the positive indicators into account, Secretary Laird, 

Ambassador Bunker, and General Abrams regularly expressed confidence that the South Vietnamese were successfully assuming the burden 

of their own defense. Other American officials, both in Washington 

and in Vietnam, were less sanguine. Dr. Kissinger and members of his 

National Security Council staff regularly expressed skepticism at Laird’s 

optimistic projections. They pointed out that the level of enemy activity in South Vietnam was too low to provide a real test of RVNAF fighting ability; that American troop withdrawals inexorably were shifting 

the force ratio against Saigon; and that Laird’s assessments of RVNAF 

adequacy were founded on only “best case” estimates of the enemy 

threat.65

Much of the official optimism was based on reports produced by the 

Military Assistance Command’s automated System for Evaluating the 

Effectiveness of RVNAF (SEER). Established in 1968, the SEER collated 

field advisers’ periodic statistical reports and subjective evaluations 

of the performance of Vietnamese units. Like the Hamlet Evaluation 

System, the SEER was supposed to identify weak points for corrective 

action. However, also like the Hamlet Evaluation System, the SEER 

became a measurement of progress and at times a public relations tool. 

Its unit reports showed general improvement, for example in ratios 

between friendly and enemy killed and weapons lost and captured; but 

they compared units only against their own past performance rather 

than against mission requirements or the strength of enemy resistance. 

Hence, while MACV evaluations based on the SEER regularly indicated 

increasing RVNAF effectiveness, the actual meaning of the changes in 

the numbers was questionable. For instance, a highly aggressive South 

Vietnamese regiment might have a low kill ratio due to heavy mine 

and booby trap casualties. Often, the apparent upward trends were 

contradicted by specific critical situation reports from the field. In sum, 

the SEER measured achievement of program goals rather than actual 

present or future South Vietnamese ability to defeat the enemy.66

General Abrams, while positive in his overall evaluations, had 

to admit in mid-1971 that “some weaknesses in the overall RVNAF 

structure and doctrine” still required “corrective attention.” The South 

Vietnamese armed forces in fact continued to suffer from most of the 

fundamental deficiencies that had plagued them since the early 60s: 

overreliance on air and artillery rather than infantry fire and maneuver 

65 Typical expressions of Laird and mission confidence are in Memos, Kissinger for the President, 

26 Mar 71, sub: RVNAF Expansion and Modernization, box 153; and Laird to the President, 8 

Nov 71, sub: Trip to Vietnam, November 2–8, 1971, box 158. Both in NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA. Bunker expresses confidence in Memo, Odeen, 10 Aug 71, sub: Vietnamization Meeting 

with Secretary Laird, folder 77, Thayer Papers, CMH. Skeptical views are in Memos, Kissinger 

for the President, 19 Jan 70, sub: Reporting on Vietnamization, and 19 Mar 70, sub: The Risks of 

Vietnamization, box 091; and Memo, K. Wayne Smith for Kissinger, 19 May 71, sub: Secretary 

Laird’s Memo on RVNAF Improvements, box 154. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 66 Problems with SEER are analyzed in Clarke, Final Years, pp. 387–89, 512–13.
275

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

to destroy the enemy; weak leadership at all command levels; chronic 

high desertion rates; low pay and lack of social services and amenities 

for troops and their dependents; and a promotion system dominated 

by corruption, personal patronage, and bias in favor of the urban upper 

class. American advisers from Abrams on down continually pressed 

the Vietnamese for reform in these areas. The Vietnamese continually 

agreed that something must be done, but little actually changed.67

General Abrams persistently urged President Thieu to replace 

incompetent and corrupt corps, division, and lower commanders who 

constituted a major obstacle to other reforms. Like Westmoreland, 

however, Abrams considered it necessary to be circumspect in pressing 

for command changes, which usually had political as well as military 

implications. During the years of Vietnamization, President Thieu 

replaced many senior commanders, some in response to MACV recommendations but others as part of a campaign to place men loyal 

to himself in key military positions. These shakeups, in the view of 

General Abrams, resulted in a significant improvement of corps and 

division leadership. In November 1971, Abrams told Secretary Laird 

that the commanders in Military Regions 1 and 4 were “excellent” 

and those in Military Regions 2 and 3 adequate and improving, and 

that only one South Vietnamese division commander still needed to 

be replaced. Field advisers’ evaluations of the same officers often were 

less favorable. The many command changes notwithstanding, politics 

and personality still dominated RVNAF promotions. Well-connected 

incompetents usually were transferred laterally to other senior posts 

rather than being retired or cashiered. They crowded the upper echelons of the officer corps, blocking advancement of abler juniors.68 

In view of persistent South Vietnamese failure to reform, many 

American advisers and senior officials, Secretary Laird among them, 

questioned whether their ally possessed the will to prevail in the struggle. Typical of this viewpoint, Lt. Gen. Arthur S. Collins, who commanded II Field Force during most of 1970, declared: “The GVN has 

been given everything it needs to do the job. They could win this war 

in three months if they just wanted to. The one thing the military lacks 

67 Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 6474 to Component and Regional Assistance Commanders, 

5 Jul 71, Abrams Papers, CMH. Clarke, Final Years, pp. 372–76, 385–87, 422–24, 464–69, summarizes 

the faltering course of RVNAF institutional reform. MACV History, 1970, vol. 1, ch. 7, p. 98. South 

Vietnamese Army tactics are criticized in Memo, Collins, Fall 70, sub: Ideas on Vietnam; see also 

Memo, Collins, 10 Dec 70, sub: Assessment of Situation in MR 2. Both in Collins Papers, MHI. 68 Clarke, Final Years, pp. 364–68, 476–79. A typical expression of official American concern 

about Vietnamese leadership is Memo, Resor for Sec Def, 12 Aug 70, sub: Secretary of the Army 

Vietnam Trip, box 245, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. In same collection, Memos, Kissinger 

for the President, 4 Mar 71, sub: Situation Report from Gen Abrams, box 084; and Laird for the 

President, 8 Nov 71, sub: Trip to Vietnam, November 2–8, 1971, box 158, contain Abrams’ evaluations of senior South Vietnamese commanders. Contrasting views of South Vietnamese leadership 

are in MACV History, 1970, vol. 1, ch. 7, p. 24, and Collins, Debriefing Report, 7 Jan 71, pp. 5–7, 

Collins Papers, MHI.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

276

is the desire or the will, and this is something that advisors cannot 

provide.”69

These allegations of lack of determination ignored other significant 

obstacles to South Vietnamese victory—notably the existence of North 

Vietnam and its army. While the South Vietnamese had their failings, 

their American mentors’ house also was far from in perfect order. In 

particular, the statistical progress of RVNAF improvement and modernization concealed fundamental confusion in Washington and Saigon 

about what missions the forces ultimately should be able to perform. 

Secretary Laird envisioned that the South Vietnamese at some point 

must defend themselves without direct American help, even in such 

highly technical tasks as interdiction of the Ho Chi Minh Trail; but 

were the forces being built actually capable of doing that?70

Particularly in question was the readiness of the South Vietnamese 

Army to counter a North Vietnamese renewal or expansion of main 

force warfare. Under the MACV and Joint General Staff combined 

campaign plans, the territorial forces were progressively to relieve 

the South Vietnamese divisions of all pacification and local security 

missions so that the regulars could take over mobile large-unit operations from the departing Americans. Not all Nixon administration 

officials endorsed this role for the South Vietnamese Army. President 

Nixon himself, as well as Secretary Laird, occasionally expressed 

concern that MACV was developing an army too heavy and conventional for counterinsurgency operations. General Vien, chief of the 

Joint General Staff, and other South Vietnamese officials, as they had 

since the beginning of Vietnamization, saw the problem in reverse. 

They believed that their forces needed more heavy equipment than 

MACV was willing to furnish if they were to stand alone against the 

North.71

In practice, MACV fell between the extremes. The command to a 

degree extricated the South Vietnamese Army from territorial security 

tasks, at least within the military regions. However, in keeping with 

Abrams’ preference for not rocking the organizational boat, it made no 

69 Quotation is from Msg, Collins NHT 2128 to Abrams, 4 Nov 70, Abrams Papers, CMH. Laird 

expresses his concern in Memo for the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 1 Jul 

71, sub: Suggested Topics for Discussion in the Republic of Vietnam, box 155, NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA. See also MFR, Odeen, 17 Jun 71, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, 

folder 77, Thayer Papers, CMH. 70 Laird emphasizes total South Vietnamese self-sufficiency to his staff in MFR, Odeen, 1 Oct 71, 

sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, folder 78, Thayer Papers, CMH. See also Memo, 

Laird for Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 1 Jul 71, sub: Suggested Topics for 

Discussion in the Republic of Vietnam, box 155, NSC files, Nixon Papers, CMH. 71

 Clarke, Final Years, pp. 424, 456. MACV plans for the regulars are summarized in MACV 

History, 1969, vol. 1, ch. 2, pp. 12–13; and MFR, Odeen, 31 Aug 70, sub: Vietnamization Meeting 

with Secretary Laird, folder 76, Thayer Papers, CMH, which quotes Colby on this point. Concern 

that the South Vietnamese Army is becoming too conventional is expressed in Memos, Nixon for 

Kissinger, 2 Mar 70; Haig for Lynn, 6 Mar 70, sub: Vietnamization, box 144; Lynn for Kissinger, 22 

May 70, sub: Imminent Vietnamization Decision, box 146; NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.
277

South Vietnam: Waging the One War

attempt to separate the South Vietnamese divisions from their regional 

ties to the point where they could function as a unified, mobile national 

army. Abrams remained conservative also on the issue of heavy weaponry. After the Laos invasion of 1971, the Joint General Staff renewed 

its requests for main battle tanks, antitank missiles, more self-propelled 

artillery battalions, and other units and materiel to match the equipment the North Vietnamese had employed. Abrams again vetoed most 

of these proposals. He argued that the South Vietnamese Army did 

not need this equipment for its principal missions: defense of South 

Vietnam and limited cross-border raids. In mid-1971, Abrams agreed 

only to establish one battalion of M48 tanks; and he endorsed later in 

the year activation of a new South Vietnamese 3d Division, formed from 

existing units in I Corps, to strengthen the defense of the Demilitarized 

Zone.72

These modifications notwithstanding, the South Vietnamese Army 

that MACV created under the CRIMP was essentially a localized territorial defense force, supported by an air force of helicopters and shortrange fighter-bombers and a logistical organization configured for an 

area counterinsurgency campaign. Its only mobile reserve consisted of 

the marine and airborne divisions and a newly organized nine-battalion ranger force. Against full-scale conventional attack by large units 

with heavy tanks and artillery, it would have to rely on the Americans, 

principally their air forces, for rapidly deployable reinforcements, a fact 

Abrams readily acknowledged and seemed to regard as unalterable. In 

sum, the results of Vietnamization approximated closely what General 

Abrams, Admiral McCain, and other military commanders always had 

considered feasible—a force capable of defeating the internal insurgency 

but requiring American aid to counter a North Vietnamese invasion. 

Through the end of 1971, the American leaders in both Washington 

and Saigon persisted in assuming that the enemy would continue with 

a guerrilla campaign punctuated by occasional light infantry main force 

attacks, culminating in some sort of political denouement. Throughout 

the period, enemy action in South Vietnam conformed to that pattern 

and gradually diminished in intensity. Accordingly, the ambiguities of 

Vietnamization could be overlooked amid the steady flow of encouraging numbers and reports.73

72 Clarke, Final Years, pp. 384–85, 456–58; MFR, Odeen, 15 Jun 71, sub: Vietnamization Meeting 

with Secretary Laird, folder 77, Thayer Papers, CMH; MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 4, p. 23, ch. 

8, pp. 11–12; vol. 2, an. H, pp. 3–7; National Security Decision Memorandum 118, 3 Jul 71, sub: 

Improvements in South Vietnamese Forces, box 155, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 73 These themes are fully developed in Clarke, Final Years, pp. 445, 455, 508, 517–58. Laird sees 

the RVNAF having a limited, defensive mission in Memo for Assistant to the President for National 

Security Affairs, [Mar 71], sub: RVNAF Expansion and Modernization, box 153, NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

278

An Appearance of Success

As 1971 came to an end, the Military Assistance Command could 

look back on what seemed to be three years of success in every element of General Abrams’ “one war.” A J–3 briefing in November 1971 

concluded that the enemy had been prevented from defeating South 

Vietnam and had not won “a single important campaign,” including 

the 1968 Tet offensive. As a result of allied military success, pacification had made remarkable strides, providing the people with the security they needed to achieve progress in political, social, and economic 

development. Finally, the South Vietnamese, with U.S. assistance, had 

built a “strong, broadly based” military establishment “which will be 

difficult for any aggressor to defeat on its home ground.”74

The briefer’s assertions had a strong foundation in fact. Since 1968, 

the military and political balance within South Vietnam clearly had 

swung to the allies. The southern insurgency was a declining force, 

no longer by itself a threat to the regime’s survival. The Saigon government had achieved relative stability. Its military forces were replacing those of the United States on the battlefield, and it was exercising 

increasingly effective authority throughout the populated regions of 

South Vietnam. Its land reform program held out the promise of future 

stability and social equity.

Balancing these encouraging developments were two adverse circumstances that the J–3 briefer neglected to mention. First, as had 

been true since Tet 1968, battlefield and pacification progress in South 

Vietnam, even when accompanied by a sharp decline in American casualties, did not add up to victory in what had become the critical arena: 

the minds and hearts of the American people. On the home front, 

the drumbeat of scandal and controversy and the persistent reports of 

atrocities, race riots, spreading drug use, and South Vietnamese corruption drowned out official claims of success in a war many Americans 

no longer believed their country should be fighting.

A second circumstance lent validity to the public’s doubts. The allies’ 

achievements in South Vietnam had taken place in the absence of a fullstrength enemy challenge. Whether through policy or circumstance, 

the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in this period of the war were 

unable to apply enough force, on the battlefields and in the villages, to 

disrupt allied programs; although they did extract a price in American 

and South Vietnamese casualties and compel Saigon to maintain a 

military effort it could not afford on its own in the long run. South 

Vietnam had yet to meet the test of a renewed North Vietnamese main 

force offensive. The absence of such an offensive, and enemy inactivity 

in South Vietnam, in turn resulted at least in part from the course of 

the conflict beyond the republic’s borders in Laos and Cambodia.

74

 MACV J–3–06 Command Briefing, 28 Nov 71, in folder, J–3 Command Briefing, 28 Nov 71, 

MACV Collection, MHI.
9

Across the Borders: Cambodia

Even as the Nixon administration withdrew American forces from South Vietnam, it expanded U.S. and South Vietnamese military 

operations in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam. The administration by its actions acknowledged the longstanding fact that the enemy 

treated the Indochina conflict as one war and systematically used the 

territory of South Vietnam’s nominally neutral neighbors as a base and 

line of communications for his attack on the southern republic. Nixon 

expanded the allies’ cross-border actions, at considerable domestic political cost to his administration, for two principal reasons. He 

believed that, by disrupting the enemy’s sanctuaries, he could gain a 

respite in the war in South Vietnam for redeploying American forces 

and strengthening Saigon. He also hoped that the threat, and actuality, of escalation would push North Vietnam toward a diplomatic 

settlement acceptable to the United States. The Military Assistance 

Command played significant roles as advocate, planner, and implementer of the administration’s cross-border offensives.

The Situation in Early 1969

As the Nixon administration entered office, MACV’s American 

forces were operating under various authorities and rules of engagement 

in North Vietnam, the Demilitarized Zone, Laos, and Cambodia. Air 

operations over North Vietnam, after the 1 November 1968 bombing 

halt, were limited to unarmed reconnaissance flights, although MACV 

had authority to send fighter escorts as well if the enemy fired on the 

reconnaissance planes. With the end of Rolling Thunder, MACV terminated its Operations Plan 34A maritime harassment and psychological 

warfare operations in the north; but it continued to insert intelligence 

agent teams there, most of which the North Vietnamese quickly eliminated or brought under their control.1

In the Demilitarized Zone, where North Vietnamese forces continued to move and operate despite the November 1968 understandings, 



 Msg, CJCS JCS 4649 to CINCPAC, CINCSAC, COMUSMACV, 1 Nov 68, box 105, NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA; MACV History, 1968, an. F, pp. 2–5 and app. 3.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

280

MACV’s ground activities were limited to squad-size reconnaissance 

patrols supported by platoon-size reaction forces. The command could 

fire artillery and conduct air strikes against the enemy in the southern 

half of the zone; and it could bomb and bombard hostile forces north of 

the zone if they fired on allied troops. MACV could engage and destroy 

North Vietnamese units of battalion or smaller size that attacked from 

the Demilitarized Zone, but American ground forces could maneuver 

into the zone itself only with special authorization from the “highest 

authority.” If the North Vietnamese assaulted through the Demilitarized 

Zone in major force, COMUSMACV was to seek authority immediately 

from the Joint Chiefs of Staff for “appropriate counter actions.”2

In Laos, General Abrams’ forces were engaged in two separate active 

air campaigns and a major ground reconnaissance and raiding effort. 

The Seventh Air Force flew bombing and reconnaissance missions 

in northern Laos, code-named Barrel Roll, at the request of the U.S. 

Embassy in Vientiane and under the embassy’s rules of engagement, in 

support of Meo guerrillas and the Royal Laotian Army. In the Laotian 

panhandle, known as Steel Tiger, the Seventh Air Force, under MACV’s 

direction, waged a systematic interdiction campaign against the Ho 

Chi Minh Trail, using fighter-bombers, gunships, and B–52s against 

trucks, roads, bridges, way stations, and storage areas. Supporting and 

supplementing the air campaign, MACV continued its Prairie Fire

ground reconnaissance program. The command regularly sent twelveman teams recruited from the area and led by American Special Forces 

personnel into an authorized zone up to twenty kilometers deep in 

the panhandle; and it also could dispatch platoon-size reaction forces, 

of similar composition, to assist the reconnaissance teams or attack 

vulnerable targets. In addition to Prairie Fire, MACV provided limited 

fixed-wing and helicopter support to CIA-recruited Laotian irregulars 

who also watched and harassed the Ho Chi Minh Trail.3

In contrast to Laos, MACV carried on only reconnaissance operations in Cambodia, although its forces in South Vietnam could fire 

and maneuver across the border in self-defense if attacked from the 

Cambodian side. On the ground, MACV continued its Daniel Boone

reconnaissance program, initiated in 1967 and renamed Salem House

during 1969, under which twelve-man teams regularly penetrated up to 

thirty kilometers into Cambodia, strictly to gather information about 

 Memo, Wheeler CM–3895–69 for Sec Def, 29 Jan 69, sub: Additional Authorities Recommended 

for Operations in South Vietnam Border Areas, box 100, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.

 Msgs, Wheeler JCS 04332 to Westmoreland info Sharp, 22 Apr 68; Sharp to Wheeler info 

Westmoreland, 24 Apr 68; Westmoreland Message files, Apr 68, CMH. Msgs, Abrams MAC 10218 

to Maj Gen Royal N. Baker, USAF, 29 Jul 68; Abrams MAC 15605 to McCain info Nazarro, 11 

Nov 68. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Msg, Am Emb Vientiane 2616 to Sec State et al., 27 Apr 69, 

box 545, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA; MACV History, 1968, an. F, app. 4, pp. 1–2, 5–7, tab 

A. Irregular operations in Laos are described in Brig. Gen. Soutchay Vongsavanh, RLG Military 

Operations and Activities in the Laotian Panhandle, Indochina Monographs (Washington, D.C.: U.S. 

Army Center of Military History, 1981), pp. 33–40.
281

Across the Borders: Cambodia

enemy troops and bases. As of late 1968, the command was conducting 

an average of forty-six of these missions per month. An aerial reconnaissance effort called Dorsal Fin, also begun in 1967, had reached a rate of 

thirty missions per month plus thirty airborne radio direction finding 

flights, in a cross-border zone twenty kilometers deep. Supplementing 

Dorsal Fin was Giant Dragon—Strategic Air Command–controlled U–2 

missions, which covered all of eastern Cambodia except the vicinity of 

the capital, Phnom Penh. Through these operations, MACV steadily 

enlarged its mass of evidence documenting Cambodia’s essential role 

in supporting Communist operations in South Vietnam.4

The Military Assistance Command’s organization for planning and 

conducting cross-border operations was well established and stable. 

MACV’s Studies and Observations Group, a separate joint headquarters with its own intelligence, operations, and logistical directorates 

and its own army of American Special Forces–led indigenous irregulars, 

carried out the Prairie Fire and Daniel Boone/Salem House campaigns 

as well as the attempted infiltration of North Vietnam. Planning and 

conduct of all air operations were the tasks of the Seventh Air Force 

commander, who received missions, depending on the country and 

operational area, from COMUSMACV, CINCPAC, and the U.S. Air 

Attaché in Vientiane. General Abrams allocated sorties and set the priority of effort. To coordinate the several American wars in Southeast 

Asia, Abrams, Admiral McCain, and the American ambassadors to 

South Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand continued their periodic Southeast 

Asia Coordinating Committee sessions. They and their subordinates 

also met less formally to work out operational problems.5

From the time he took command, General Abrams campaigned 

for expansion of American operations outside South Vietnam. 

Indeed, only in Laos was he satisfied with the extent of his operating 

authority. Joined by Admiral McCain and usually by the Joint Chiefs, 

Abrams regularly urged resumption of Rolling Thunder as retaliation 

for the enemy’s 1968 offensives. Even after the final November 1968 

bombing halt, which both he and McCain in retrospect considered a 

mistake, Abrams persisted in advocating air strikes against the north 



 Memo, Wheeler CM–3895–69 for Sec Def, 29 Jan 69, sub: Additional Authorities Recommended 

for Operations in South Vietnam Border Areas, box 100, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, 

Abrams MAC 7601 to Peers, 9 Jun 68; Wheeler JCS 13019 to McCain and Abrams, 9 Nov 68; CJCS 

JCS 13020 to SACRECON info CINCPAC, COMUSMACV, 9 Nov 68. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 

MACV History 1968, an. F, app. 4, pp. 2–3, 7–9.

 Corcoran Interv, 20 Dec 75 pp. 40–41. Msgs, Abrams MAC 11708 to Wheeler and McCain, 

30 Aug 68; McCain to Wheeler info Abrams et al., 4 Sep 68; Abrams MAC 14798 to McCain, 3 

Nov 68; Abrams MAC 16167 to Sullivan info McCain, Brown, 23 Nov 68; McCain to Chargé 

d’Affaires Robert Hurwitch info Wheeler, Abrams, 13 May 69; McCain to Wheeler info Abrams, 

5 Mar 70, all in Abrams Papers, CMH, are examples of command and coordination relationships. 

Organization and operations of the Studies and Observations Group are detailed in MACV History, 

1968, an. F.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

282

as “an essential ingredient for effective counter actions” to any major 

new enemy offensive in South Vietnam.6

Abrams repeatedly asked for an end to the restrictions on his ground 

operations in the Demilitarized Zone. Citing extensive enemy activity 

in the zone and the risk to allied forces posed by attacks from it, he, 

McCain, and General Wheeler recommended that MACV be permitted, 

as it had been before November 1968, to send troops into the southern 

half of the zone “as necessary to counter enemy activity.” They also 

proposed that the command be given standby authority to preempt 

major enemy attacks by artillery, naval gunfire, and air strikes on targets throughout the Demilitarized Zone. The Johnson administration, 

unwilling to risk disrupting the Paris negotiations for anything other 

than the most severe provocation, rejected the military’s proposals.7

General Abrams persistently advocated air and ground attacks 

on the enemy’s Cambodian sanctuaries. Upon succeeding General 

Westmoreland, he took up without a pause his predecessor’s campaign for bombing and bombardment of North Vietnamese troops 

and supplies in the triborder area where South Vietnam, Laos, and 

Cambodia came together. During the autumn of 1968, with encouragement from General Wheeler, he had his staff develop plans for 

limited ground incursions into the Cambodian bases, three to five 

days in duration and penetrating no more than twenty kilometers, 

to be conducted in response to any new enemy offensive. Supported 

by Admiral McCain, Abrams repeatedly requested permission to 

launch such raids; and he added a proposal for a naval quarantine 

of Cambodian ports. Action against the Cambodian bases, Abrams 

argued, would have a decisive impact in reducing the threat to III 

Corps and Saigon. He declared:

Should the enemy be denied sanctuary in these base areas, a major portion of the threat 

to SVN [South Vietnam] could be neutralized. Should such action result only in driving 

the enemy deeper into Cambodia, it would be beneficial to the allied cause, as it would 

push him further from SVN borders, disrupt his well constructed and organized base area 

system, and force him nearer the populated areas of Cambodia where his presence would 

be obvious and unwelcome. The denial of these base areas by some means appears to me 

to be a prerequisite for the realization of U.S. objectives in SVN.8

 Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 1208 to Wheeler info Nazzaro, 27 Jan 69; see also Msgs, 

Abrams MAC 7605 to Sharp, 9 Jun 68; Abrams MAC 10330 to Wheeler info Sharp, 31 Jul 68; and 

Abrams MAC 14808 to Wheeler info McCain, Bunker, 3 Nov 68. All in Abrams Papers, CMH, 

McCain Interv, n.d., pp. 8–9, recalls the two commanders’ view of the bombing halt.

 Memo, Wheeler CM–3895–69 for Sec Def, 29 Jan 69, sub: Additional Authorities Recommended 

for Operations in South Vietnam Border Areas, box 100, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, 

Abrams MAC 17672 to Wheeler info McCain, Bunker, 29 Dec 68; Abrams MAC 2500 to McCain 

info Wheeler, 26 Feb 69. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH.

 Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 1102 to Wheeler and Nazarro, 24 Jan 69; see also Msgs, 

Wheeler JCS 05825 to Abrams, 28 May 68; Abrams MAC 7350 to Wheeler, 4 Jun 68; Wheeler JCS 

09245 to Abrams info McCain, 15 Aug 68; Abrams MAC 11819 to Wheeler and McCain, 1 Sep 68; 

McCain to Wheeler info Abrams et al., 30 Sep 68; Abrams MAC 14477 to Wheeler and McCain, 
283

Across the Borders: Cambodia

The outgoing Johnson administration, however, remained determined not to expand the war into Cambodia. Besides domestic and 

international political considerations, a long-standing interagency dispute over Cambodia’s significance as an enemy supply conduit inhibited 

action. The Military Assistance Command persisted in its assertion that 

most of the weapons and ammunition for North Vietnamese and Viet 

Cong forces in III and IV Corps were coming in through Sihanoukville 

and being trucked from there to the border bases. The CIA and the State 

Department, while they acknowledged the extent and importance of 

the base areas, declared MACV’s evidence for the Sihanoukville route 

to be unpersuasive. They held to the position that the bases were being 

stocked via the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In November 1968, a special State 

Department, Central Intelligence Agency, and Defense Intelligence 

Agency delegation visited South Vietnam and reviewed the evidence 

but found against MACV, a conclusion that may have reflected as 

much agency policy preferences as the facts. Whatever its cause, the 

intelligence deadlock persisted into the new administration and with 

it a lack of action on Cambodia.9

Menu and Pruning Knife

From the start, President Nixon was receptive to military proposals 

for stronger action outside South Vietnam’s borders. While preparing 

to take office, he requested a study of enemy facilities in Cambodia 

and told Kissinger that “a very definite change of policy” toward that 

country “probably should be one of the first orders of business when 

we get in.” Entering the White House amid predictions from MACV of 

another Tet-period nationwide Communist offensive, Nixon directed 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff to prepare contingency plans for retaliating 

against North Vietnam for attacks on Saigon and other major South 

Vietnamese cities. The Joint Chiefs, after consultation with Admiral 

McCain and General Abrams, late in January submitted a plan for an 

intensive forty-eight-hour air and naval assault on North Vietnamese 

military targets south of the 19th Parallel, to be executed if the other 

side bombarded Saigon or another comparable center. They also submitted plans for more limited reprisals if the enemy damaged lesser 

towns and cities. Nixon, Rogers, Laird, and Kissinger, however, were 

reluctant to strike North Vietnam even if strongly provoked, for fear 

27 Oct 68; Abrams MAC 1166 to Nazzaro, 26 Jan 69. All in Abrams Papers. Early planning for a 

Cambodian offensive is described in Townsend Interv, 26 Feb 76, pp. 42–43, 55–56.

 Memo, Hughes for Sec State, 3 Feb 69, sub: Comments on Abrams’ Reports on Cambodia, box 

505; Msg, Abrams MAC 2775 to McCain info Wheeler, 4 Mar 69, box 065; Memo, Hughes for Sec 

State, 29 Mar 69, box 065; in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA, illustrate the continuing disagreement. Msgs, Wheeler JCS 12931 to McCain info Abrams, 7 Nov 68; Msg, McConnell JCS 13502 

to McCain and Abrams, 18 Nov 68; McCain to Wheeler, 21 Nov 68. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 

Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 241–42 attributes political motives to the interagency study, as 

does the MACV J–2 at the time. Davidson Interv, 30 Jun 82, pt. 2, pp. 31–33. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

284

of the domestic and foreign political furor they knew would result. 

Hence, they looked for other retaliatory options.10

The Military Assistance Command provided them with one. On 7 

February 1969, General Kerwin, the II Field Force commander, heard 

a briefing by officers of the Combined Intelligence Center, which pinpointed the location of the COSVN just across the border in Cambodia 

in an area nicknamed the Fishhook. On the basis of this information, 

Kerwin proposed to General Abrams a “short duration, concentrated” 

B–52 strike to destroy this major enemy headquarters, simultaneous 

with a similar attack on the North Vietnamese 7th Division’s Cambodian 

base area, which also was located in the Fishhook. Kerwin declared that 

these targets could be hit without harming Cambodian citizens and 

that destruction of COSVN “would . . . have a very significant impact 

on enemy operations throughout South Vietnam.” He urged that the 

attack be carried out covertly. “A cover plan should be devised and 

knowledge of the operation held as closely as possible.”11

General Abrams adopted the COSVN part of Kerwin’s proposal. On 

9 February, he informed General Wheeler that MACV possessed “hard 

intelligence,” which he attributed to photographic reconnaissance and 

an enemy defector, on COSVN’s position. Citing his command’s extensive evidence that the enemy was preparing for another nationwide 

offensive in the near future, Abrams recommended that if the offensive occurred, among other retaliatory measures, he be authorized to 

strike COSVN with B–52s. Abrams claimed that COSVN’s destruction 

“in a single blow” would help disrupt the Communist attack as well 

as “have its effect on future military operations which COSVN may 

desire to undertake.” Ambassador Bunker, after a briefing by Abrams’ 

intelligence officers, on 12 February cabled to the State Department his 

endorsement of the plan. He argued that the United States could not 

continue to permit attacks to be planned and mounted from Cambodia, 

which had forfeited any rights of neutrality by permitting the enemy 

to use its territory as a base for aggression. Both Bunker and Abrams 

emphasized that, due to COSVN’s border location, the bombing was 

unlikely to strike Cambodian civilians.12

10

 Quotation is from Kissinger, White House Years, p. 241; see also pp. 232–40. Memo, Wheeler 

CM–3892–69 for Sec Def, 28 Jan 69, sub: Response to Major Attack on Population Centers; see 

also Memo, McConnell CM–3903–69 for Sec Def, 3 Feb 69, sub: Responses to Minor Attacks on 

Population Centers in South Vietnam. Both in box 100, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, Lt 

Gen Meyer JCS/J–3 01374 to Nazzaro info Abrams, 31 Jan 69; Abrams MAC 1465 to Nazzaro, 2 Feb 

69; Abrams MAC 1778 to Wheeler info Nazzaro, 9 Feb 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 11 Msg, Kerwin HOA 398 to Abrams and Davidson, 8 Feb 69, Abrams Papers, CMH.

12

 Quotations are from Msg, Abrams MAC 1782 to Wheeler and Nazzaro, 9 Feb 69; see also 

Msg, Abrams MAC 1844 to Nazzaro info Wheeler, 11 Feb 69; Abrams MAC 1910 to McConnell 

info Nazzaro, 13 Feb 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. The informant failed a polygraph test on his 

information, but Abrams considered that other sources confirmed COSVN’s location. Msg, Abrams 

MAC 2512 to Wheeler, 26 Feb 69, Abrams Papers, CMH; Msg, Bunker Saigon 2830 to Sec State, 12 

Feb 69, box 065, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.
285

Across the Borders: Cambodia

Ironically, Bunker’s endorsement, by alerting the State Department 

to the plan, prevented its immediate implementation. Nixon and his 

advisers were concerned that leaks from the department would make 

denial of the bombing impossible to sustain. Accordingly, Nixon on 14 

February sent instructions to Bunker through State Department channels to drop the entire matter. At the same time, he directed Abrams 

via Defense Department channels to ignore the State Department 

message, continue planning the operation, and dispatch a team to 

Washington to brief the administration on it. The MACV team on the 

eighteenth explained the proposal to Kissinger, Laird, their personal 

military assistants, and General Wheeler. The group decided that a 

covert strike against COSVN would be more useful as a signal of resolve 

to the Soviets than as retaliation for an assault in South Vietnam by the 

North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. On the nineteenth, at Kissinger’s recommendation, President Nixon, in order to “set the stage” and “clear 

the books” within the bureaucracy, authorized Abrams to conduct air 

strikes right up to the Cambodian border in III Corps and to continue 

contingency planning for the COSVN bombing. The president then 

could order execution of the raid, on Abrams’ recommendation, if “a 

suitable local action” developed in III Corps that could be used as a 

justification.13

The suitable action came almost at once, in the form of the fourth 

and weakest of the enemy’s series of nationwide offensives that had 

begun with Tet 1968. On 22–23 February, the North Vietnamese and 

Viet Cong launched attacks by fire and conducted a few ground probes 

against more than one hundred civilian and military targets throughout South Vietnam. The attacks included a seven-round rocket bombardment of Saigon, a clear violation of the understanding, which the 

North Vietnamese claimed did not exist, that the Communists would 

avoid attacks on major cities if the Americans stopped bombing the 

North. Occurring just as Nixon was embarking on his first presidential 

trip to Europe, the offensive seemed to be a direct challenge to the new 

administration. General Abrams, encouraged by General Wheeler and 

with the concurrence of Ambassador Bunker and Admiral McCain, on 

the twenty-third called for retaliation in the form of a ninety-six-hour 

air and naval gunfire bombardment of North Vietnam below the 19th 

Parallel, employing all available ships and aircraft.14

13

 Msg, Rogers State 023875 to Bunker, 14 Feb 69, box 065; Memo, Haig for Kissinger, 13 Feb 

69, sub: Discussions with Mr Laird . . . regarding COSVN Matter; Memo, Kissinger for the President, 

19 Feb 69, sub: Consideration of B–52 Options Against COSVN Headquarters; Memo, Kissinger for 

Laird, 22 Feb 69, sub: COSVN Matter, box 104. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Kissinger, 

White House Years, p. 242. 14 Msg, Wheeler JCS 02252 to Abrams and McCain, 23 Feb 69; McCain to Wheeler and Abrams, 

23 Feb 69; Abrams MAC 2372 to Wheeler and McCain, 23 Feb 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Msg, 

Bunker Saigon 3429 to Sec State, 23 Feb 69, box 065, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Democratic 

Republic of Vietnam denial of the existence of the understanding is noted in MACV History, 1969, 

vol. 1, pp. 3–11.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

286

Nixon and his advisers unanimously ruled out any bombing of 

North Vietnam during the president’s European tour. Instead, they 

turned to Abrams’ COSVN proposal. On 23 February, Nixon ordered 

execution of the operation, code-named Breakfast. He cancelled the 

mission three days later, however, before it could be launched, for fear 

news of it would leak and cause a public furor while he was in Europe. 

At General Wheeler’s direction, MACV continued to refine its tactical, 

security, and public affairs plans for the raid.15

During the last days of February and the first two weeks of March, 

the enemy continued his offensive, including sporadic bombardment of South Vietnam’s cities; and the administration continued to 

deliberate about retaliation. President Nixon issued public warnings 

that the United States was nearing the end of its patience with North 

Vietnam’s violation of the November 1968 understandings, but he and 

his advisers remained unwilling to face the political consequences of 

attacking the North or Cambodia. General Abrams and Ambassador 

Bunker kept up the pressure for retaliation against either or both North 

Vietnam and the Cambodian sanctuaries. Abrams declared that the 

city attacks and North Vietnamese activity in the Demilitarized Zone 

constituted “a fabric of bad faith, deception, and exploitation which 

we can no longer tolerate as a nation.” Besides repeating his earlier 

arguments, Abrams indicated that Cambodian operations, by reducing 

enemy offensive capabilities, could open the way for the U.S. troop 

withdrawals the administration then was considering. Secretary Laird, 

although opposed on political grounds to bombing the North, on 9 

March declared that the Breakfast plan had “merit” as an additional 

response to the continuing enemy attacks. He informed Nixon that he 

was “prepared to recommend that we go ahead with that proposal.”16

On 15 March, in response to another rocket firing on Saigon, 

Nixon ordered the immediate implementation of Breakfast. The next 

day, General Wheeler, after a final review of alternative strike plans, 

instructed Abrams to hit the presumed COSVN site with forty-eight 

B–52 sorties. As cover, twelve other sorties would attack targets near 

the border within South Vietnam. Abrams was to confine knowledge 

of the raid to as few headquarters personnel as possible. He was to 

inform the press only that B–52s had struck within South Vietnam. 

If the Cambodians issued a public protest, the United States would 

investigate, apologize, and offer compensation for damages. Executed 

15

 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 242–44. Memo, Laird for the President, 25 Feb 69; Memo, 

Haig for Pursley, 26 Feb 69, sub: Breakfast Plan; Msg, Wheeler MAC 2945 to Abrams, McCain et 

al., 7 Mar 69, box 104, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 16

 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 244–45. First quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 2836 

to Wheeler and McCain, 5 Mar 69; see also Msg, Abrams MAC 3308 to Wheeler, 16 Mar 69. All in 

Abrams Papers, CMH. Msg, Bunker Saigon 4320 to Sec State, 6 Mar 69, box 067; Memo, Laird for 

the President, 4 Mar 69, sub: Possible Responses to Enemy Activity in South Vietnam, box 136; Msg, 

Laird MAC 3049 to the President, 9 Mar 69, box 067. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Laird 

quotation is from last-cited document.
287

Across the Borders: Cambodia

on schedule on 18 March, the B–52 attack resulted in seventy-three 

large secondary explosions in the target area, which indicated the presence of a major military complex, but no evidence of any damage to 

COSVN headquarters. The Cambodians, North Vietnamese, Chinese, 

and Soviets made no diplomatic or public response to the attack; and 

the American press took no notice.17

After the initial mission, the B–52 bombings, code-named Menu

with each separate base area target denoted by a different meal of the 

day, soon expanded into a continuing campaign. The strategic bombers systematically hammered six enemy base areas located in a narrow 

strip along the Cambodian–South Vietnamese border. North Vietnam 

and the other Communist nations made no public protest against the 

attacks, probably to avoid having to acknowledge the extent of their 

own violation of Cambodia’s neutrality. Cambodia’s chief of state, 

Prince Norodom Sihanouk, followed the same policy. During 1969, he 

actually resumed diplomatic relations with the United States, which he 

had broken off in 1965, and permitted the reopening of the American 

embassy in Phnom Penh. Taking advantage of his adversaries’ silence, 

President Nixon, who had been prepared for public revelation of the 

raids, kept them covert, both to prevent opposition in the United States 

and to facilitate Sihanouk’s turning of his diplomatic blind eye. He and 

Kissinger, however, did brief a few key congressional leaders on the 

attacks.18

General Abrams’ headquarters was the principal agent for planning 

and conducting the missions. Abrams, assisted by a few staff officers, 

nominated Menu targets through Admiral McCain to the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff for final approval by Laird, Kissinger, and Nixon. During the 

first weeks of the campaign, Abrams submitted each target individually. 

Beginning in late August, the administration allowed him to propose 

weekly packages, each including three or four attacks. Under a system 

developed by MACV staff officers, each raid began with the launching 

of a regularly requested Arc Light strike against targets within South 

Vietnam. To preserve secrecy, the B–52 pilots and navigators received 

new target coordinates while in flight for their Cambodian missions. 

Reported through normal channels, the cover missions allowed inclusion of the Menu sorties in the regular statistical summaries of air activity. 

17

 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 245–47. Dictated Summary of Telephone Conversations 

between the President and Henry Kissinger; MFR, Kissinger, 15 Mar 69, sub: March 16 Rocket 

Attack on Saigon, box 089; Memo, Haig for Kissinger, 16 Mar 69, sub: Joint Chiefs of Staff Military 

Operations to Support Breakfast Plan; Msg, Wheeler JCS 03298 to Abrams, McCain, et al., 16 Mar 

69, box 104; Memo, Kissinger for the President, 18 Mar 69, sub: Breakfast Plan; Memo, Kissinger 

for the President, 19 Mar 69, sub: Reaction to Breakfast Plan, box 103. All in NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA. Msg, Abrams MAC 3414 to McCain and Wheeler, 16 Mar 69, Abrams Papers, CMH. 

Lack of media reaction is noted in Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, p. 70. 18

 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 247–54. Paper, sub: Sihanouk on Cambodian Border 

Incidents, box 089, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Stories on the bombing appeared in the U.S. 

press but did not give rise to a major public furor. See Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–

1973, pp. 70–75.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

288

After each strike, MACV used aerial reconnaissance and where possible 

Salem House teams to assess bomb damage. Abrams reported the results 

to McCain and Wheeler through a special secure channel.19

The command took elaborate and successful precautions to maintain 

the secrecy of Menu. Within the headquarters, General Abrams closely 

restricted the number of personnel involved in the operations. All message traffic went through limited-distribution backchannels. Officers 

carried the Cambodian target coordinates by hand to the ground stations that controlled the B–52s just before the strikes. Specially cleared 

personnel interpreted post-strike photography, and a few similarly 

cleared SOG teams performed the ground follow-up reconnaissance. 

Outside MACV headquarters in Saigon, only Ambassador Bunker and 

President Thieu, whom Abrams and Bunker briefed on the operations, knew of the campaign. The rest of the American mission was 

kept in ignorance. In Washington, Secretary Laird, the Joint Chiefs, a 

few officers of the Joint Staff, and the service deputy chiefs of staff for 

operations were informed. Among State Department officials, Secretary 

Rogers alone was in the know.20

During the Menu campaign’s first year, more than 3,100 B–52 sorties dropped over 91,000 tons of munitions—nearly one-fifth of the 

entire tonnage expended by American air forces in the Pacific theater 

in World War II—on six North Vietnamese/Viet Cong base areas in 

Cambodia. Bomber crews and post-strike air and ground reconnaissance regularly reported secondary explosions and extensive damage 

to enemy fortifications and facilities, with no evidence of injury to 

Cambodian civilians.21

Both the administration and MACV considered the raids successful 

and valuable. President Nixon and his advisers believed that they had 

found a way to injure the North Vietnamese and display toughness to 

the Russians and Chinese while denying to the enemy the propaganda 

advantage they would have gained if the United States had resumed 

19

 Department of Defense, “Report on Selected Air and Ground Operations in Cambodia and 

Laos,” 11 Sep 73, pp. 5–18, copy in Chief of Staff Correspondence, Miscellaneous box, Creighton 

W. Abrams Papers, MHI, (hereafter cited as DoD, “Report on Selected Air and Ground Operations”). 

Typical Menu-related cables can be found throughout the Abrams Message files for 1969 and 1970, 

Abrams Papers, CMH. Townsend Interv, 26 Feb 76, pp. 53–54; Memo, Kissinger for the President, 

26 Sep 69, sub: B–52 Operations in Cambodia; MFR, 3 Oct 69, sub: B–52 Strikes in Cambodia, box 

105. Both in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 20 Msg, Abrams MAC 1477 to Wheeler and McCain, 31 Jan 70, Abrams Papers, CMH, describes 

security procedures. In Abrams Papers, see also Msgs, Abrams MAC 5150 to Wheeler and McCain, 

23 Apr 69; Wheeler MAC 5442 to Abrams and McCain, 29 Apr 69; Abrams MAC 6355 to Wheeler 

and McCain, 18 May 69; and Abrams MAC 2121 to Wheeler, Moorer, and McCain, 15 Feb 70. DoD, 

“Report on Selected Air and Ground Operations,” pp. 15–18. Bruce Palmer, Jr, The 25-Year War: 

America’s Military Role in Vietnam (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984), pp. 96–97, 

describes Menu security in the Pentagon. 21

 Figures are from Memo, Laird for the President, 24 Mar 70, sub: Assessment of Menu operations, box 104, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. A typical post-strike report is Msg, Abrams MAC 

7014 to McCain info Holloway et al., 2 Jun 69, Abrams Papers, CMH.
289

Across the Borders: Cambodia

bombing of the North. For his part, General Abrams believed that Menu, 

although it had not achieved its initial objective of destroying COSVN, 

was damaging and disrupting the enemy’s logistical system and helping to preempt and defeat his offensives. In particular, Menu played 

an essential role in reducing the threat to III Corps and Saigon; and by 

weakening the enemy it contributed to the success of Vietnamization. 

In a typical assessment, Abrams declared in October 1969 that Menu

“has been one of the most effective campaigns of the war.” He recommended that “these operations be continued as long as the enemy is 

present in and utilizing these [Cambodian] areas.” The administration 

accepted his recommendation, extending the raids into 1970.22

President Nixon’s decision to undertake the Menu operations represented a victory for General Abrams in his campaign for authority to 

attack the enemy outside South Vietnam’s borders. On the persistent 

issue of Demilitarized Zone operations, the MACV commander achieved 

much less. Throughout the administration’s first year, Abrams and 

the Joint Chiefs repeatedly asked that MACV be permitted to resume 

unrestricted air and ground operations in the southern half of the 

Demilitarized Zone, to counter an enemy force buildup and increasing 

activity in that area. Just as regularly, Secretary Laird opposed their 

requests. Laird contended that the level of enemy activity in and around 

the Demilitarized Zone was lower than it had been before the bombing 

halt, that MACV’s existing authorities were sufficient to protect allied 

forces and repel attacks, and that expanding allied operations in the 

zone would merely raise the level of violence in the area and possibly 

lead to new demands for bombing of North Vietnam. During the year, 

President Nixon, over objections by Laird, authorized Abrams to use 

B–52 strikes at his discretion against both observed and intelligence 

targets in the southern half of the Demilitarized Zone. Otherwise, the 

limits on MACV’s operations remained in place despite continuing 

remonstrances from Abrams and the Joint Chiefs.23

Throughout 1969, President Nixon and his advisers canvassed 

the possibility of renewed military operations against North Vietnam 

22 Quotations are from Msg, Abrams MAC 13011 to Moorer and McCain, 6 Oct 69, Abrams 

Papers, CMH. In same collection, see Msgs, Abrams MAC 8809 to Wheeler and McCain, 9 Jul 69; 

Abrams MAC 9195 to McConnell and McCain, 16 Jul 69; Abrams MAC 10993 to Wheeler info 

McCain et al., 23 Aug 69; and Abrams MAC 3180 to Wheeler and McCain, 11 Mar 70. Kissinger, 

White House Years, p. 249; Memo, Laird for the President, 24 Mar 70, sub: Assessment of Menu

Operations; box 104, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 23 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 41–42, 

76–80, 165–70. Msgs, Wheeler JCS 03512 to McCain and Abrams, 21 Mar 69; Abrams MAC 8088 

to Wheeler and McCain, 24 Jun 69; Abrams MAC 10453 to McCain and Wheeler info Bunker, 11 

Aug 69; Abrams MAC 11188 to Wheeler and McCain, 27 Aug 69; Abrams Papers, CMH. Memo, 

Wheeler CM–4217–69 for Sec Def, 13 May 69, sub: Vietnam Demilitarized Zone . . . ; Memo, 

Laird for Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 14 May 69, sub: Operations in the 

Demilitarized Zone . . . ; Memo, Nixon for Laird, 16 May 69, sub: JCS Request for Extension of 

Authorities . . . , box 070; Msg, JCS 2865 to CINCPAC, 20 Oct 69, box 139. All in NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

290

which, in Laird’s words, “might jar the North Vietnamese into being 

more forthcoming at the Paris talks.” In September, with the negotiations deadlocked, the National Security Council, at Kissinger’s urging, 

began considering an alternative course of action to Vietnamization 

and diplomacy. The national security adviser’s staff developed a political-military scenario, called Duck Hook, under which the United States 

would make Hanoi a generous offer for a peace settlement. If the 

Democratic Republic of Vietnam rejected the offer, the administration 

then would stop troop withdrawals and launch heavy, damaging new 

attacks on North Vietnam. The attacks would be intended to convince 

Hanoi that it faced major damage to economic and military assets if 

it continued its intransigence and to give the Russians an incentive—

avoidance of dangerous American escalation—to push their North 

Vietnamese clients toward compromise.24

In support of Duck Hook, General Wheeler in early September, 

during Washington visits by McCain and Abrams, instructed both 

commanders to develop concepts for the contemplated attack. Wheeler 

then dispatched a group of four officers from the Joint Staff, headed by 

Rear Adm. Frederick A. Bardshar, the J–3, to Saigon to work with MACV 

and CINCPAC representatives on a final version of the plan. The plan 

received the code-name Pruning Knife to reflect its cover designation as 

a “redeployment contingency planning effort.”25

In preparation for Admiral Bardshar’s visit, General Abrams’ staff 

developed a concept for the air campaign. As envisioned at MACV, the 

campaign would begin with concentrated attacks by “all available U.S. 

air and naval bombardment forces committed to Southeast Asia and 

contiguous waters” on all significant air defense and transportation 

targets in North Vietnam, aimed at achieving “maximum military and 

political impact in minimum time.” Surprise air strikes would knock out 

the enemy’s entire air defense system, including airfields and surface-toair missile installations. This action would reduce the risk to American 

planes in subsequent phases of the operation and leave the Hanoi 

government and its military forces vulnerable to additional assaults. 

With North Vietnam’s air defenses crippled, American forces would 

mine the port of Haiphong and systematically bomb bridges, rail lines, 

storage depots, shipyards, automotive and railroad repair facilities, and 

concentrations of trucks and railroad cars. While Air Force and Navy 

fighter-bombers conducted these raids, B–52s would hammer targets 

along the routes in southern North Vietnam that fed into the mountain passes to Laos. In the event that the North Vietnamese elected 

to “accept higher levels of destruction before negotiating,” the initial 

24

 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 284–85. Laird quotation is from Memo, Laird for Kissinger, 

21 Feb 69, box 1007; Memo, Kissinger for the President, 11 Sep 69, sub: Vietnam Options, box 091. 

Both in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 25 Msgs, McCain to Wheeler info Abrams, 15 Sep 69; Rear Adm Frederick A. Bardshar JCS/J–3 

11470 to McCain and Abrams, 17 Sep 69; Abrams MAC 12219 to Wheeler and McCain, 18 Sep 69. 

All in Abrams Papers, CMH.
291

Across the Borders: Cambodia

massive blow could be followed by “sustained attacks to attain significant cumulative effects.”26

On 24 September, Admiral Bardshar dispatched to Wheeler the 

operational plan for Pruning Knife. Based heavily on Abrams’ concept, 

the plan called for a concentrated surprise air and naval assault on 

North Vietnam to achieve “maximum political, military, and psychological shock” by cutting off the enemy’s imports of war material and 

then “exacting continuing attrition upon NVN’s [North Vietnam’s]

war-making capacity and support of aggression in South Vietnam.” 

The objective was to “cause NVN to terminate its aggression . . . at the 

earliest possible date.” The plan had two phases. In the first, which 

would require five days of operations, all available American aircraft 

would be committed to destroy the North Vietnamese air force and 

air defenses, hit major supply concentrations and logistical facilities 

around Haiphong, conduct aerial mining of Haiphong and other ports, 

and cut North Vietnam’s railroad line to China. The second phase, of 

indeterminate length, would consist of tactical air and B–52 strikes at 

a variety of logistical targets in North Vietnam, a naval quarantine of 

Sihanoukville, and possible cross-border ground operations as directed 

by General Abrams. Admiral McCain would have overall command 

of the operation, with Pacific Fleet, Pacific Air Forces, the Military 

Assistance Command, and the Strategic Air Command responsible for 

planning and executing various portions.27

In comments to General Wheeler on the Pruning Knife plan, General 

Abrams emphasized that destruction of North Vietnam’s air force and 

air defenses should have priority in timing and weight of effort, so as to 

reduce the cost and increase the effectiveness of the rest of the strikes. 

This aspect of the campaign also would constitute in itself “a highly 

important part of the impression we intend to create on the North 

Vietnamese leadership.” Abrams urged as well that “since the price of 

admission for resumption of action against NVN is high whatever the 

specific U.S. action involved,” if Pruning Knife were executed, it should 

be with maximum force against “the vital sectors and targets which 

offer a significant military and political gain rather than . . . merely 

renewed efforts at signals and reprisals.”28

Pruning Knife in fact never was executed. When Nixon, Laird, and 

Kissinger reviewed the plan as presented by General Wheeler, they 

found fundamental objections to it. The military planners themselves 

noted a major one: the fact that during the next several months, the 

26 Msg, Abrams MAC 12219 to Wheeler and McCain, 18 Sep 69, Abrams Papers, CMH.

27 Msg, Bardshar MAC 12508 to Wheeler info McCain, Abrams, 24 Sep 69, box 123; Memo, 

Moorer JCSM–600–69 for Sec Def, 1 Oct 69 (as revised 7 Oct 69), sub: Air and Naval Operations 

against North Vietnam, box 245. Both in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, Abrams MAC 

12219 to Wheeler and McCain, 18 Sep 69; Bardshar MAC 12441 to Wheeler info McCain, Abrams, 

23 Sep 69; Bardshar MAC 12562 to Wheeler info McCain, Abrams, 25 Sep 69; Abrams MAC 13121 

to McCain, 8 Oct 69; McCain to Abrams et al., 13 Oct 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 28 Msg, Abrams MAC 12696 to Wheeler and McCain, 28 Sep 69, Abrams Papers, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

292

late autumn and winter, the northeast monsoon would limit the days 

of good flying weather over North Vietnam, making a rapid, sustained 

attack all but impossible. The five-day first phase alone might take up 

to three weeks to carry out. Although he strongly favored the Duck

Hook approach, Kissinger expressed dissatisfaction with the plan for 

implementing it, claiming that the military in fact was offering nothing but an open-ended, indecisive campaign reminiscent of Rolling

Thunder. He and Laird both concluded that the operation as proposed 

was unlikely to achieve military or diplomatic results commensurate 

with the probable American aircraft losses and domestic and international political costs it would entail. Agreeing with the civilian officials, 

General Wheeler declared the plan “militarily unsound” because the 

time it allowed for the raids was too short.29

On 11 October, after a conference with Kissinger, Laird, Attorney 

General John N. Mitchell, and all the Joint Chiefs, President Nixon indefinitely postponed action. Instead, he directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to 

revise Pruning Knife so as to target more directly North Vietnam’s economy. The staffs in Saigon and Honolulu accordingly produced a new version, Pruning Knife Alpha; but it had the same inherent problems as the 

initial plan. In submitting the revised plan to Wheeler, Admiral McCain 

declared forthrightly that there was “little probability” of achieving the 

stated objectives of Pruning Knife Alpha, “destruction of NVN’s economy 

and reduction of NVN’s capability to function as a viable entity,” during 

the northeast monsoon season. “To achieve the desired results would 

require relentless heavy attack for an extended period of time.”30

During the summer and autumn, the White House emitted a number 

of hints that it might take drastic action on Vietnam after 1 November, 

the anniversary of the bombing halt. However, no bombs fell on 

North Vietnam. In his major Vietnam policy speech on 3 November, 

Nixon concentrated on negotiation and Vietnamization. Meanwhile, 

the Pacific commands produced an endless series of refinements and 

variations of Pruning Knife, including plans for both the all-out strike 

and lesser retaliatory campaigns. Nevertheless, while Duck Hook and 

Pruning Knife were not implemented, the fundamental concept—a 

maximum offer to Hanoi backed by a massive assault—remained in 

Nixon’s mind, awaiting a propitious moment for revival.31

29 Memo, Kissinger for the President, sub: JCS Concept for Air and Naval Operations against 

North Vietnam. Laird’s comments are in Memo, Laird for the President, 8 Oct 69, sub: Air and Naval 

Operations against North Vietnam. Both documents are in box 245, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 

Wheeler quotation is from MFR, Moorer, 13 Oct 69, sub: JCS Meeting with the President . . . , 11 

October 1969, box 1008, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 30 MFR, Moorer, 13 Oct 69, sub: JCS Meeting with the President . . . , 11 October 1969, box 

1008, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, McCain to Abrams et al., 19 Oct 69; Msg, McCain to 

Nazzaro and Hyland, 25 Oct 69; McCain to Westmoreland (Acting CJCS) info Abrams et al., 26 Oct 

69; McCain to Wheeler info Abrams et al., 26 Oct 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. McCain quotation 

is from last-cited message. 31

 For examples of the continuing planning, see three Msgs, McCain to Wheeler info Abrams et 

al., 10 Mar 70, Abrams Papers, CMH. Kissinger, White House Years, p. 308, in retrospect expresses 
293

Across the Borders: Cambodia

Into Cambodia

The next major escalation came in Cambodia, which remained 

a focus of MACV scrutiny and planning. Even as Menu proceeded, 

General Abrams kept a few staff officers at work on plans for air and 

ground raids on the enemy’s border bases. Abrams, Admiral McCain, 

and the Joint Chiefs persisted in advocating such operations. The Joint 

Chiefs, at Dr. Kissinger’s request, developed a proposal for an air and 

sea quarantine of Sihanoukville to cut the Cambodian supply line 

at its source. Admiral McCain recommended that the United States 

conduct covert operations inside Cambodia for the same purpose. 

President Nixon himself expressed interest in “another crack or two” 

at Cambodia. However, during the rest of 1969 and the first months of 

1970, he postponed decisions on the military’s recommendations.32

A political upheaval in Cambodia made American action both possible and necessary. In January 1970, Prince Sihanouk, who throughout the previous year had seemed to be tilting against the Vietnamese 

occupiers of his borderlands, left Phnom Penh for Paris on a combined 

vacation and diplomatic junket. In charge in his absence were Prime 

Minister Lon Nol and Deputy Prime Minister Sirik Matak, both of whom 

Sihanouk had installed in office but with whom he subsequently had 

quarreled over economic policy. Early in March, anti-Vietnamese demonstrations, probably government organized, erupted in provincial 

towns and in Phnom Penh. On 12 March, Lon Nol officially demanded 

that all Vietnamese forces leave Cambodia within seventy-two hours. 

On the eighteenth, the National Assembly by unanimous vote deposed 

Sihanouk as head of state. Sihanouk’s overthrow plunged his country 

into war. In response to the coup, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong 

forces in Cambodia began an offensive to secure the border region and 

isolate Phnom Penh while simultaneously starting to organize and 

arm local Communist insurgents, the Khmer Rouge. By mid-April, the 

Vietnamese occupied three of Cambodia’s seventeen provinces and 

were operating in strength in five others. Sihanouk, then in Beijing, 

called for the overthrow of the Phnom Penh regime and publicly associated himself with the Laotian and Vietnamese Communists. They, 

along with the Chinese, declared their support for his restoration. Lon 

Nol in response appealed to the United States and other countries for 

assistance against North Vietnamese aggression.33

regret that the administration did not implement the Duck Hook concept in 1969. 32 Nixon words are from handwritten comment on Memo, Kissinger for the President, 25 Mar 

69, sub: Quarantine of Cambodia. See also Memo, Kissinger for Laird, 8 Apr 69, sub: Quarantine 

of Cambodia; and Memo, Moorer for Kissinger, 1 Jun 69. All in box 505, NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA. Msgs, Abrams MAC 3850 to Wheeler and McCain, 26 Mar 69; Abrams MAC 3910 to 

Wheeler and McCain, 27 Mar 69; McCain to Wheeler, 15 Feb 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 33 Msg, Abrams MAC 2439 to Wheeler and McCain, 24 Feb 70, box 143, NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA, reviews Sihanouk’s anti-Vietnamese actions. Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 

457–75. Brig. Gen. Tran Dinh Tho, The Cambodian Incursion, Indochina Monographs (Washington, 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

294

The Nixon administration reacted uncertainly to the Cambodian 

upheaval, which it had neither engineered nor anticipated. With only 

a chargé d’affaires, a political officer, and a three-man defense attaché 

office in its Phnom Penh embassy, the American government had difficulty securing up-to-date information. The president was at first suspicious of the new regime, headed as it was by former Sihanouk loyalists who had facilitated and profited from the Communist arms traffic 

through Sihanoukville. Nevertheless, Nixon soon decided that he had 

no choice but to uphold the Lon Nol government, since Sihanouk’s 

return under Communist auspices would eliminate any chance of 

disrupting the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong logistical system in 

Cambodia. Divisions quickly developed, however, among Nixon’s advisers. Secretaries Laird and Rogers, concerned with domestic political reaction and convinced the war would be won or lost in South Vietnam, 

strove to limit American involvement in the new conflict. Over their 

opposition, Nixon and Kissinger maneuvered the administration step 

by step, first to provide military assistance to Phnom Penh and then to 

a direct invasion of Cambodia aimed at destroying the base areas and 

reducing enemy pressure on Lon Nol.34

D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1979), pp. 29–32. Abrams assesses enemy intentions in 

Cambodia in Msg, Abrams MAC 7583 to Wheeler and McCain, 4 Jun 70, box 147, NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA. 34

 For embassy size, see Tho, Cambodian Incursion, pp. 196–98, 209–10. Administration diviLon Nol and Sirik Matak in Cambodia
295

Across the Borders: Cambodia

The initial American military response reflected the administration’s 

uncertainty. General Abrams on 18 March informed his field force and 

component commanders that a coup might be occurring in Phnom Penh. 

“The precise nature is unknown.” He directed them to adhere strictly 

to the established rules of engagement for the Cambodian border and 

to report to MACV headquarters at once any overtures by Cambodians 

for military assistance. On the twenty-first, Secretary Laird temporarily suspended the Menu bombing in view of the uncertain situation, 

expressing concern that some faction in Phnom Penh might publicize 

the attacks. General Wheeler asked Abrams and McCain to consider 

possible reactions to a wide range of Cambodian contingencies.35

General Abrams’ command gradually became involved in the 

Cambodian fighting. Late in March, South Vietnamese commanders 

along the frontier, under local arrangements with Cambodian counterparts, began providing artillery support to beleaguered Cambodian 

Army (FANK—Forces Armées Nationales Khmères) units and also launched 

battalion and smaller-size cross-border incursions of their own. At 

General Abrams’ direction, U.S. forces withheld support from these 

operations, and unit advisers remained in South Vietnam. The Nixon 

administration, after initially halting the South Vietnamese Army 

forays for fear of American domestic opinion, gave its assent to them 

provided the Saigon government kept them small in scale, conducted 

them only after consulting with Cambodian authorities, and explained 

them as “protective reaction” for their forces in South Vietnam. With 

Ambassador Bunker, General Abrams transmitted this guidance to 

President Thieu and General Vien. Abrams instructed his own forces 

not to assist the South Vietnamese incursions in any way and to reject 

artillery fire requests from the FANK. He and the commanders of II 

Field Force and the Delta Military Assistance Command closely monitored the South Vietnamese activities and worked to keep them low in 

visibility and within President Nixon’s guidelines.36

The Military Assistance Command during April took other steps 

to assist the Cambodians, whose poorly equipped and ill-trained 

32,000-man army was little match for the Vietnamese Communist 

forces moving against it. At the administration’s direction, Bunker and 

Abrams arranged with President Thieu for the South Vietnamese air 

sions are discussed in Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 487–98. Msg, Moorer JCS 05634 to McCain 

and Abrams, 23 Apr 70, Abrams Papers, CMH, informs the field commanders of “strong dissenting 

opinions” on Cambodia in “high levels of our government.” 35 Msgs, Abrams MAC 3574 to Field Force and Component Cdrs, 18 Mar 70; Wheeler JCS 

03958 to McCain info Abrams, 20 Mar 70; Wheeler JCS 03993 to Abrams and McCain, 21 Mar 70. 

All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 36 Msg, Rosson MAC 3838 to McCain info Wheeler, 23 Mar 70, box 506; Haig WHS 0011 to 

Bunker, 27 Mar 70, box 410; Haig to Bunker, 28 Mar 70, box 101; Haig WH 0012 to Bunker, 31 

Mar 70, box 410. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, Wheeler JCS 04424 to McCain 

and Abrams, 1 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 4276 to Field Force and Component Cdrs, 1 Apr 70; Abrams 

MAC 4390 to Wheeler and McCain, 3 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 4587 to McCain and Moorer, 8 Apr 70; 

Moorer JCS 04851 to Abrams info McCain, 9 Apr 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

296

force to ship AK47 rifles, ammunition, and other Communist materiel 

captured in South Vietnam to the largely Soviet-equipped Cambodians. 

MACV also organized and trained battalions of ethnic Cambodians 

recruited from CIDG units in South Vietnam for transport to Phnom 

Penh to reinforce the FANK.

37

General Abrams conducted a growing American air campaign in 

Cambodia. After the initial suspension, the administration quickly 

resumed Menu operations. Abrams selected targets for the B–52s that 

would assist the Cambodians and also prepare the way for largescale ground attacks under consideration. Since B–52 strikes were of 

little effect against maneuvering troops, General Abrams on 18 April 

requested, and the administration two days later granted, authority to 

use tactical aircraft throughout the Salem House reconnaissance zone in 

northeastern Cambodia. On 25 April, the administration expanded this 

authority to a thirty-kilometer-deep strip along the entire VietnameseCambodian border. MACV conducted these strikes, code-named Patio, 

under secrecy arrangements similar to those of Menu, using cover targets in Laos and special mission request and reporting channels. In 

addition to these air operations, the United States on 23 April established naval surveillance of the port of Sihanoukville.38

Paralleling these steps, the Military Assistance Command made 

contingency plans for division-size American and South Vietnamese 

assaults on the enemy’s Cambodian base areas. President Nixon set this 

planning in motion on 25 March for “potential execution in the event 

the Communists attack Phnom Penh.” During the following month, 

small groups of officers from MACV and the I and II Field Forces, 

working with representatives of the Joint General Staff and the South 

Vietnamese III and IV Corps, developed plans for both unilateral and 

combined cross-border offensives. By late April, two of these operations 

had moved from contingency to preparation for execution status. The 

first, code-named Shoemaker, called for a combined drive into COSVN’s 

Fishhook hideout aimed at destroying the elusive headquarters and 

other installations. The second, Toan Thang 42, was an all–South 

Vietnamese converging attack on bases in the Parrot’s Beak region of 

the border, an operation that the Vietnamese thought would eliminate 

37 Msgs, Wheeler JCS 05037 to Abrams info McCain, 11 Apr 70; Kearney JCS 05161 to McCain 

and Abrams, 15 Apr 70; Wheeler JCS 05160 to Abrams info McCain, 15 Apr 70; Wheeler CJCS/JCS 

05285 to Abrams info McCain, 17 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 5365 to McCain and Wheeler, 22 Apr 70; 

Abrams MAC 5559 to Wheeler and McCain, 26 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 5879 to Wheeler and McCain, 

1 May 70; Abrams MAC 6085 to Wheeler and McCain, 6 May 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Msg, 

Bunker Saigon 6574 to Sec State, 30 Apr 70, box 589, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA; MACV 

History, 1970, Supp., p. 36. 38 Msg, Wheeler JCS 04447 to McCain and Abrams, 1 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 4297 to Wheeler 

and McCain, 2 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 5472 to Moorer and McCain, 24 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 6240 

to Wheeler and McCain, 8 May 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. DoD, “Report on Selected Air and 

Ground Operations,” pp. 21–23.
297

Across the Borders: Cambodia

the most immediate threat to Saigon and that Abrams considered well 

within South Vietnamese capabilities.39

As enemy forces advanced in Cambodia and Nixon and his advisers debated over the U.S. response, General Abrams and Ambassador 

Bunker weighed in on the side of aggressive action. In joint assessments during April, the two men warned that the fall of Lon Nol, and 

the installation of a pro-Communist regime, would have dire military 

and political consequences in South Vietnam and also in Thailand and 

Laos. In South Vietnam, it likely would mean intensification of the 

war in III and IV Corps and “force a reexamination of the speed of 

the Vietnamization process by both the GVN and the US.” To assist 

Lon Nol, Bunker and Abrams recommended, besides the efforts already 

under way, provision of American air and artillery support to South 

Vietnamese cross-border raids and the launching of “selective and 

carefully targeted combined US/GVN military operations against high 

payoff targets in Cambodia,” including COSVN headquarters. The general and the ambassador strongly endorsed the Fishhook and Parrot’s 

Beak operations, which Abrams characterized as “the military move 

to make at this time in support of our mission in South Vietnam both 

in terms of security of our own forces and for advancement of the 

Vietnamization program.”40 (Map 3)

On 28 April, Nixon finally overrode Laird and Rogers and put the 

offensive in motion. He directed the execution, as nearly simultaneously as possible, of Toan Thang 42 and Shoemaker, with the latter to 

jump off on 1 May. Nixon gave general authorization for other unilateral and combined operations penetrating up to thirty kilometers 

into Cambodia, but he required MACV to submit combined attack 

proposals that involved American troops for his case-by-case approval. 

Separately, the president permitted Abrams to send American advisers 

into the Parrot’s Beak on the ground with their South Vietnamese units, 

an action that Abrams considered essential to ensuring effective coordination and aggressive conduct of the South Vietnamese attack.41

39 Msgs, Wheeler JCS 04182 to Abrams info McCain, 26 Mar 70; Wheeler JCS 04213 to McCain 

and Abrams, 26 Mar 70; Wheeler JCS 04217 to Abrams info McCain, 26 Mar 70; Abrams MAC 

4159 to McCain info Wheeler, 30 Mar 70; Abrams MAC 5307 to McCain info Wheeler, 21 Apr 70; 

Abrams MAC 5336 to McCain info Wheeler, 22 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 5419 to McCain and Moorer, 

23 Apr 70; Moorer JCS 05623 to McCain and Abrams, 23 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 5558 to Wheeler 

and McCain, 26 Apr 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Msg, Rosson MAC 3999 to Wheeler and 

McCain, 26 Mar 70, box 101, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 40

 First quotations are from Msg, Bunker Saigon 169 to Kissinger, 22 Apr 70; Abrams quotations 

are from Msg, Bunker Saigon 251 to the President, 27 Apr 70; see also Msg, Kissinger WHS 0033 to 

Bunker, 27 Apr 70. All in box 410, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 41 Memo, Kissinger for the President, 26 Apr 70, sub: Meeting on Cambodia . . . ; National 

Security Decision Memo 58, 28 Apr 70, sub: Actions to Protect U.S. Forces in South Vietnam, box 

507, NSC files, Nixon Papers. Msgs, Wheeler JCS 05730 to Abrams, 27 Apr 70; Wheeler JCS 05750 

to Abrams, 27 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 5610 to Wheeler, 27 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 5618 to Wheeler, 

27 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 5675 to Wheeler, 28 Apr 70; Wheeler JCS 05807 to Abrams, 28 Apr 70; 

Wheeler JCS 05812 to McCain and Abrams, 28 Apr 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

298

On 29 April, the South Vietnamese Army began its offensive. The 

following evening, President Nixon announced the incursions to the 

American people in a televised address. He declared that the attacks 

were necessary to protect allied forces in South Vietnam, ensure the 

continuation of Vietnamization, and assist Cambodia against North 

Vietnamese aggression. At about the time he was speaking, 1 May in 

Vietnam, allied forces entered the Fishhook in Operation Toan Thang

43, as Shoemaker had been retitled at the request of Lt. Gen. Do Cao Tri, 

the South Vietnamese III Corps commander.42

Once committed, President Nixon rapidly expanded the offensive. 

On 1 May, General Wheeler, at Nixon’s direction, ordered Abrams to 

submit plans for additional attacks on the enemy’s Cambodian bases. 

The president authorized Abrams to make full use of American and 

South Vietnamese ground and air forces in these operations, but 

American ground troops were not to penetrate more than thirty kilometers into Cambodia. In subsequent public statements and directives, 

the administration required U.S. forces to be out of Cambodia by 30 

June. Wheeler told Abrams that Nixon considered the Cambodian 

offensive his “number one priority” among Southeast Asia operations 

and desired “a hard hitting campaign . . . carried out using imagination and boldness,” so as to deliver “the hardest blow we are capable 

of inflicting” to the enemy’s cross-border sanctuaries. In response, 

Abrams proposed, and the administration through mid-May approved, 

six additional base area attacks and a riverine operation to reopen the 

Mekong for Cambodian government traffic.43

As the offensive expanded, so did the Military Assistance Command’s 

authority to use American airpower in Cambodia. Within the thirty-kilometer limit, MACV carried on the full range of fixed-wing and helicopter support of allied forces. In addition, President Nixon on 23 May, on 

General Abrams’ recommendation, authorized the MACV commander 

to conduct tactical air and B–52 strikes beyond the thirty-kilometer line 

against enemy logistical targets in a large North Vietnamese-controlled 

section of northeastern Cambodia, essentially as an extension of the 

Steel Tiger campaign against the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Nixon also gave 

Abrams permission to send B–52s up to sixty kilometers into Cambodia 

in pursuit of the still-elusive COSVN headquarters. As allied forces over-

42

 Msgs, Abrams MAC 5692 to Wheeler and McCain, 29 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 5798 to Wheeler 

and McCain, 30 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 5824 to Wheeler and McCain, 1 May 70. All in Abrams 

Papers, CMH. Nixon’s speech is analyzed in Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 

303–05. 43

 Quotations are from Msg, Moorer JCS 06037 to McCain and Abrams, 1 May 70, Abrams 

Papers, CMH. Msgs, Abrams MAC 5906 to Moorer and McCain, 2 May 70; Abrams MAC 5996 to 

Wheeler and McCain, 4 May 70; Wheeler JCS 06214 to McCain and Abrams, 5 May 70; Wheeler 

JCS 06224 to Abrams, 5 May 70; Abrams MAC 6128 to Wheeler, 6 May 70; Wheeler JCS 06370 to 

McCain and Abrams, 7 May 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Memo, Kissinger for the President, 5 

May 70, sub: Proposal for Attacks on Additional Base Areas in Cambodia, box 507; Memo, Winston 

Lord for Kissinger, 2 Jun 70, sub: Chronology of June 30 Deadline, box 509. Both in NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA.
299

Across the Borders: Cambodia

ran the Menu target areas, the Joint Chiefs on 27 May discontinued 

that operation and placed Arc Light strikes in Cambodia under the 

normal request and reporting procedures. MACV, however, kept the 

aerial photography, damage assessments, and other documentation of 

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I V C T Z 

Parrot's Beak

Fishhook 

I I I C T Z 

Tonle 

Sap 

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T h a i l a n d 

Mekong R

Mekong R

Mekong R

T H A I L A N D 

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C A M B O D I A 

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Kontum 

Phan 

 Thiet

Da Lat

Ban Me 

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PHNOM PENH 

Kompong 

Cham Chup 

Prey Veng 

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Svay Rieng 

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Axis of Attack

Operational Area

May–June 1970 

CAMBODIAN INCURSION 

Miles 

Kilometers 

0 

0 

75 

75 

Map 3
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

300

the earlier Menu bombings under tight control, to prevent revelation 

that they had occurred.44

Command arrangements for the operations, which involved elements of the South Vietnamese II, III, and IV Corps and the U.S. I and 

II Field Forces, followed the established principle of coordination and 

cooperation. The Military Assistance Command and the Joint General 

Staff each issued their own Cambodia rules of engagement. Those of 

the South Vietnamese Army, based on an agreement Vice President 

Nguyen Cao Ky negotiated with the Cambodian government and general staff, authorized corps commanders to conduct operations, unilaterally or with American and Khmer forces, in a strip of Cambodian 

territory extending forty to sixty kilometers from the border. Unlike 

the Americans, the South Vietnamese set no terminal date for their 

44 Memo, Laird for the President, 22 May 70, sub: Use of U.S. Tactical Air in Cambodia; Memo, 

Kissinger for Sec Def, 23 May 70, U.S. Air Operations in Cambodia. Both in box 509, NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA. DoD, “Report on Selected Air and Ground Operations,” pp. 3, 14, 23–25. 

Msgs, Abrams MAC 7164 to Wheeler, McCain, et al., 26 May 70; Abrams MAC 7275 to Wheeler 

and McCain, 29 May 70; Abrams MAC 7371 to Field Force and Component Cdrs, 31 May 70; 

Moorer JCS 07869 to McCain and Abrams, 6 Jun 70; Moorer JCS 09365 to Holloway, Abrams, and 

McCain, 9 Jul 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH.

Armored personnel carriers and M48 battle tanks blast away with

.50-caliber machine guns during the allied sweep into Cambodia.
301

Across the Borders: Cambodia

incursions. Ambassador Bunker 

and General Abrams, however, 

through regular contacts with 

President Thieu, ensured that 

South Vietnamese Army activities during the combined offensive conformed to American time 

and territorial limits, with the 

understanding that the South 

Vietnamese retained the right to 

continue operating in Cambodia 

by themselves after U.S. forces 

withdrew on 30 June.45

General Abrams and General 

Vien delegated most of the 

detailed planning, as well as the 

conduct, of the Cambodia offensive to their respective corps-level 

commanders, who maintained 

direct liaison among themselves. 

Abrams gave his I and II Field 

Force commanders, Lt. Gens. 

Arthur S. Collins and Michael 

S. Davison, the freest possible hand to run their campaigns. Abrams 

heard advance briefings on their plans, visited their headquarters and 

troops in the field during the operation, conferred with them regularly, and devoted at least one commanders’ meeting, on 19 May, to 

discussion of their progress. At the administration’s direction, Abrams 

required Collins and Davison to submit special twice-daily situation 

reports and weekly summaries while their attacks were in progress, as 

feeders for his own reports to McCain and Wheeler. Aside from this 

requirement, however, Abrams successfully shielded his subordinates 

from the constant stream of inquiries and suggestions that reached 

MACV from Washington. “In no instance,” Davison recalled, “did he 

allow any of that to penetrate down to me.”46

Much of the message traffic from Washington, reflecting continued 

divisions within the administration, concerned pressure on General 

Abrams to limit the scope and duration of the offensive, or at least 

American participation in it. In the United States, Nixon’s announcement of the incursion set off widespread, intense antiwar agitation in 

the streets, on the campuses, and in Congress. Literally besieged in the 

45

 Tho, Cambodian Incursion, pp. 36–39. Msgs, Abrams MAC 6403 to Wheeler and McCain, 11

May 70; Abrams MAC 7175 to Wheeler and McCain, 26 May 70. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. 46

 Tho, Cambodian Incursion, pp. 36, 40–43. Msgs, Wheeler JCS 05958 to McCain and Abrams, 

30 Apr 70; Abrams MAC 5867, 6060, and 6765 to Field Force and Component Cdrs, 1, 5, and 

18 May 70; Abrams MAC 6210 to Wheeler and McCain, 7 May 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 

Quotation is from Davison Interv, 20 Feb 76, pp. 23–25; see also pp. 19–22.

General Collins

(Photograph taken in 1974.)
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

302

White House by thousands of antiwar demonstrators, President Nixon 

himself publicly promised allied forces would leave Cambodia by 30 

June. On 7 May, Laird, seeking to shorten the campaign and reduce 

the domestic unrest it was causing, informed Abrams that all operations involving American support must be “essentially completed” by 

31 May and “terminated in toto” by 15 June. In effect, Nixon countermanded this instruction. Through Kissinger’s military assistant, 

General Haig, the president late in May made clear to Abrams that he 

wanted “maximum effort in [the] sanctuaries consistent with weather 

and actions of [the] enemy not artificial restrictions imposed by OSD.” 

Nixon later told Abrams in person: “Do not withdraw for domestic reasons but only for military reasons. We have taken all the heat on this 

one.” Abrams accordingly avoided setting exact withdrawal timetables 

for his forces while assuring the administration that he would have his 

troops out of Cambodia by the 30 June deadline.47

Before the offensive ended on the scheduled date, a total of 32,000 

U.S. and 48,000 South Vietnamese soldiers had participated in unilateral and combined operations that overran all but one of the enemy’s 

border base areas. While no large-scale battles occurred, the Americans 

and South Vietnamese claimed to have killed more than 11,000 North 

Vietnamese and Viet Cong in smaller fights and rounded up 2,300 prisoners and defectors. Allied forces lost 976 killed and 4,534 wounded, of 

which 338 of the dead and 1,525 of the injured were Americans.48

General Abrams and his superiors considered the incursion a major 

success. As early as 26 May, Abrams declared that the cross-border 

attacks had “disrupted enemy operations, preempted enemy planned 

activities and removed pressure from the pacification program in the 

COSVN area.” The South Vietnamese, in the view of Abrams and other 

American commanders, in the main performed competently in planning and carrying out large-scale mobile operations, though they still 

required much American advice and support. The participating South 

Vietnamese troops displayed improved morale and enhanced self-confidence and aggressiveness. The incursion yielded a bountiful harvest 

of captured weapons and equipment—more than 22,800 individual 

and 2,500 crew-served weapons and more than 1,700 tons of ammunition and 6,800 tons of rice, as well as quantities of miscellaneous 

supplies. Agencies differed in their estimates of how many battalions 

the captured arms could equip and how many troops the captured rice 

could feed for how long, but all the estimates were expansive. American 

47 First quotation is from Msg, Haig Saigon 572 to Kissinger, 21 May 70, box 1010; second is 

from Memo of Conversation, San Clemente, 31 May 70, box 146; NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 

Msg, Laird OSD 06398 to Abrams, 7 May 70; Abrams MAC 8069 to Moorer and McCain, 15 Jun 70. 

All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 315–19. 48

 Operations are summarized in MACV History, 1970, vol. 3, an. C. Statistics are from Memo, 

Lt Col Watha J. Eddins, Jr, for Cdr Jonathan Howe, 26 Jun 70, sub: Request for Information, box 

510, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA; and Tho, Cambodian Incursion, pp. 193–94. Memo of 

Conversation, San Clemente, 31 May 70, box 146, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 
303

Across the Borders: Cambodia

newsmen and some officials noted, however, that most of the captured 

small arms were older Soviet models long ago replaced in enemy units 

with the AK47, and that the lost rice easily could be replenished from 

subsequent harvests. General Abrams believed that the attacks, while 

they did not capture COSVN headquarters, had forced it to make a 

series of hasty relocations, thereby disrupting the other side’s command structure. Enemy activity in South Vietnam remained at a low 

level during the offensive. Abrams expected that the Communists’ loss 

of supplies in Cambodia and the disruption of their headquarters and 

personnel infiltration routes would limit their offensive operations for 

some time to come.49

The incursion, and the change of government in Phnom Penh 

that preceded it, had the side effect of resolving the Sihanoukville dispute in MACV’s favor. With Cambodian help, American intelligence 

officers documented the fact that, between December 1966 and April 

1969, Chinese vessels had delivered at least 21,600 tons of military 

and 5,300 tons of nonmilitary cargo to Sihanoukville, from where it 

went by truck convoy to North Vietnamese and Viet Cong depots on 

49

 MACV History, 1970, vol. 3, an. C, pp. 103–08. Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 7134

to Wheeler and McCain, 26 May 70; Msgs, Abrams MAC 6571 to Moorer and McCain, 14 May 

70; Abrams MAC 7581 to Wheeler and McCain, 4 Jun 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Memo 

of Conversation, San Clemente, 31 May 70, box 146, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. South 

Vietnamese performance is evaluated in Clarke, Final Years, pp. 418–25. Dissenting views are summarized in Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 327–36. 

Cambodian war booty
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

304

the border. The military stores included some 222,000 individual and 

16,000 crew-served weapons, enough to equip 600 enemy battalions, 

as well as more than 100 million rounds of ammunition and over half 

a million mines and hand grenades. After reviewing the documents, 

the CIA concluded, as MACV long had asserted, that Sihanoukville had 

been “a primary route for logistic support of the VC/NVA forces in 

southern South Vietnam, while the Laos route was used primarily to 

resupply the forces in the northern half of the country.”50

Aiding the Cambodians 

As the 30 June deadline approached, the Nixon administration 

faced the question of continuing allied operations in Cambodia and 

finding means to shore up the hard-pressed Lon Nol regime. While the 

May–June offensive benefited the allies in South Vietnam, it in many 

respects worsened the threat to Cambodia. The North Vietnamese and 

Viet Cong, even as they were pushed away from the border, continued 

advancing westward toward Phnom Penh. Employing relatively small 

units, they cut lines of communication, captured key towns, and seized 

nearly complete control of the northeastern half of the country. In 

preparation for a protracted war, they pushed government forces out of 

the countryside, thereby opening the way for expansion of the indigenous Khmer Rouge. In order to replace Sihanoukville with a southward 

extension of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the North Vietnamese strengthened their hold on the southern Laotian panhandle by capturing the 

strategic towns of Attopeu and Saravane.51

Nixon established his long-term Cambodia policy well before the 

end of the offensive. Determined to keep Cambodia independent and 

non-Communist, the president nevertheless realized that an advisory 

and assistance effort even remotely comparable in scale to that in South 

Vietnam was politically out of the question. Within the limits, he did 

as much as he could. While ruling out further U.S. ground activity in 

Cambodia, Nixon directed Admiral McCain and General Abrams to 

continue American air operations there. They also were to encourage 

the South Vietnamese to carry out additional cross-border attacks, both 

to prevent reestablishment of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong 

bases and to maintain the threat of deeper intervention if the enemy 

launched a direct assault on Phnom Penh. Nixon continued the program, already under way, of shipping captured Communist weapons 

and equipment to the Cambodian armed forces. Under the principles 

of the Nixon Doctrine, he sought money and arms for Cambodia 

50 Memo, Richard Helms, Dir CIA, for Kissinger, 22 Feb 71, sub: The Sihanoukville Route, 

with attached paper, sub: The Sihanoukville Route, from which quotation is taken, box 512; Memo, 

Holdridge for Kissinger, 21 Sep 70, sub: A New Estimate of Communist Supplies Delivered through 

Sihanoukville, box 511. Both in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 51

 Msg, Abrams MAC 11614 to McCain, 26 Aug 70, Abrams Papers, CMH. North Vietnamese 

attacks in southern Laos are described in Vongsavanh, Laotian Panhandle, pp. 53–58.
305

Across the Borders: Cambodia

from friendly Asian countries, notably Indonesia and Thailand. As 

Cambodia’s need for direct U.S. assistance became apparent, Nixon 

instituted a Military Assistance Program (MAP) for Phnom Penh. He 

initially diverted MAP funds from other countries to the program 

and eventually secured a regular congressional appropriation for it, 

although on terms that prohibited introduction of U.S. ground troops 

and military advisers into Cambodia.52

For the Military Assistance Command, Nixon’s decisions amounted 

to the opening of a permanent new front in the war. After 30 June, 

General Abrams closely monitored the continuing cross-border activity of the South Vietnamese Army. Conferring weekly on the subject 

with General Vien, he sought to dissuade the South Vietnamese from 

diverting too many troops from their own country and ensure that 

their Cambodian efforts centered on the border region. Abrams’ U.S. 

ground forces, including advisers and leaders of Salem House reconnaissance teams, stayed out of Cambodia. American units in South 

Vietnam furnished combat, logistical, and advisory assistance to the 

South Vietnamese up to the border. They fired artillery into Cambodia 

in support of the South Vietnamese, and they shifted forces within 

South Vietnam to fill in for Vietnamese units absent on cross-border 

incursions. At the end of 1970, by General Abrams’ count, the South 

Vietnamese had the equivalent of seventeen battalions operating in 

Cambodia, as well as elements of their air force and navy.53

While American ground activity was restricted, U.S. tactical aircraft 

and B–52s after 30 June continued bombing enemy troops and logistical facilities in a steadily expanding area of northeastern Cambodia 

code-named Freedom Deal. These operations were intended to destroy 

forces and supplies that threatened the allies in South Vietnam. Publicly 

and in formal instructions, President Nixon forbade American tactical 

air support of South Vietnamese cross-border attacks; and the South 

Vietnamese in Cambodia accordingly relied whenever possible on their 

own fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. Privately, Nixon instructed 

Abrams to interpret “interdiction” broadly and to provide tactical air 

support to the South Vietnamese if their own resources proved insufficient. By late 1970, U.S. fixed-wing aircraft were directly assisting 

52 Nixon’s domestic problems are described in Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, 

pp. 322–46; and Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 509–19. Memo of Conversation, San Clemente, 

31 May 70, box 146; Memo, Col Richard T. Kennedy for U. Alexis Johnson, Under Secretary of State 

for Political Affairs, 21 May 70, sub: Guidance on GVN Military Activities Relating to Cambodia, 

box 508. Both in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, Wheeler JCS 07308 to McCain and Abrams, 

26 May 70; Moorer JCS 08495 to McCain and Abrams, 15 Jun 70; McCain to Abrams info Wheeler, 

18 Jun 70; Moorer JCS 14205 to McCain info Abrams et al., 21 Oct 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 

Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 310–14. 53 MACV History, 1970, vol. 1, ch. 2, p. 11; Supp., pp. 2–3, 22; an. B, app. 3, pp. 37–39. Msgs, 

Abrams MAC 8540 to McCain info Moorer, 24 Jun 70; Abrams MAC 15447 to McCain, 2 Dec 70; 

Abrams MAC 15809 to McCain info Moorer, 12 Dec 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

306

South Vietnamese and FANK units outside the Freedom Deal area, and 

they were joined in January 1971 by helicopter gunships.54

Besides directing American operations in Cambodia and assisting 

and influencing those of the South Vietnamese, the Military Assistance 

Command became heavily involved in building up Phnom Penh’s 

armed forces. Lon Nol’s government began expanding its military establishment soon after Sihanouk’s overthrow, although it lacked every 

resource but manpower. Under the U.S. Military Assistance Program, 

which attempted to rationalize the process, the FANK was to reach a 

strength of about 220,000 by mid-1972. Composed of a light infantry 

army and a small navy and air force, the Cambodian military, as the 

Americans envisioned it, was to be capable of protecting the capital 

and major populated areas, keeping open principal lines of communication, and conducting limited offensive operations with American 

and South Vietnamese assistance.55

MACV and the South Vietnamese armed forces, from April 1970 on, 

provided indispensable help to the Cambodian buildup. In addition to 

furnishing Phnom Penh with captured Communist arms and battalions 

of ethnic Khmers from South Vietnam, the South Vietnamese in July, 

at Phnom Penh’s request, began training Cambodian infantry units 

and military specialists. During 1970, their training centers instructed 

over 13,000 Cambodian troops, including 80 infantry companies. 

MACV’s U.S. forces also took part in the effort. Special Forces personnel 

by the end of the year were training 30 infantry battalions and 3,000 

small-unit leaders. The Seventh Air Force and Naval Forces, Vietnam, 

also instructed elements of their Cambodian counterpart services. The 

allies planned to continue and enlarge these programs during 1971.56

To coordinate military assistance to Cambodia in the absence of a 

regular advisory group, the administration established a civilian political-military counselor, a retired Army officer holding high Foreign 

Service rank, in its Phnom Penh embassy. Backing up the counselor 

and his four-man team in Phnom Penh, General Abrams and his MACV 

54

 MACV History, 1970, vol. 1, ch. 6, pp. 70–79, and DoD, “Report on Selected Air and Ground 

Operations,” pp. 23–24, summarize air operations. Msgs, Abrams MAC 11389 to McCain info Brown, 

21 Aug 70; Abrams MAC 12574 to Amb Emory C. Swank info Clay, 18 Sep 70; Abrams MAC 12627 

to McCain info Clay, 20 Sep 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Memo of Conversation, San Clemente, 

31 May 70, box 146; Memo, Kissinger for the President, sub: U.S. Tactical Air Support in Cambodia, 

box 587; Memo, Kissinger for the President, 28 Jan 71, sub: U.S. Tactical Air Strikes in Cambodia, 

box 587. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 55 Msgs, McCain to Abrams, 24 Oct 70; Moorer JCS 14429 to McCain info Abrams, 27 Oct 7. All 

in Abrams Papers, CMH. Details of the Military Assistance Program (MAP) are in MACV History, 

1970, Supp., pp. 40–51; ibid., 1971, vol. 2, app. 1, pp. 4–6. 56 Msgs, Abrams MAC 7729 to Wheeler and McCain, 8 Jun 70; Abrams MAC 7945 to Moorer 

and McCain, 12 Jun 70; Abrams MAC 8038 to McCain, 14 Jun 70; Abrams MAC 8570 to Wheeler 

and McCain, 24 Jun 70; Abrams MAC 8571 to McCain info Moorer, 24 Jun 70; Abrams MAC 

11206 to McCain info Jonathan F. Ladd, 18 Aug 70; Abrams MAC 11531 to McCain info Moorer, 

24 Aug 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. MACV History, 1970, vol. 2, ch. 7, pp. 59–60; and Supp., 

pp. 30–31, 51.
307

Across the Borders: Cambodia

staff assumed much of the burden of planning, managing, and coordinating the military aid effort. Admiral McCain delegated to MACV the 

preparation of the annual Military Assistance Program for Cambodia, 

including development of the FANK force structure. Most of the personnel for the political-military counselor’s office and for expansion of 

that of the Phnom Penh defense attaché came from MACV. In addition, 

the command provided technical specialists on twenty-four-hour temporary assignments to augment the embassy’s resources while keeping 

within overall manpower ceilings.57

As the incursions began early in May, General Abrams dispatched 

a MACV liaison officer to Phnom Penh. On 24 May, he established 

a new MACV staff element, the Special Support Group, under the 

J–4 to manage military assistance to Cambodia. Eventually including 

nine officers and six enlisted men in Saigon and two men in Phnom 

Penh as well as representatives from the Joint General Staff and the 

U.S. Military Assistance Command in Thailand, the support group 

handled the details of MAP planning, supply deliveries, and training 

assistance. It drew on other MACV staff elements as required. By late 

August, General Abrams estimated that thirty-seven MACV staff members were working full time and one hundred part time on assistance 

to Cambodia.58

While Abrams avoided personal contact with Cambodian officials 

and never visited Phnom Penh, he devoted much time and attention 

to coordinating help to the Khmer Republic. He developed a close personal and official relationship with the political-military counselor, 

Col. Jonathan F. Ladd, a former commander of the 5th Special Forces 

Group. Through weekly conferences in Saigon, Ladd kept Abrams 

informed about Cambodian events. Abrams in turn ensured Ladd’s 

access to the senior MACV staff. Through informal contact with the 

Joint General Staff, Abrams smoothed out rough spots in the cooperation between the South Vietnamese and their new Cambodian allies. 

He also maintained contact with the U.S. Embassy and military command in Thailand, since that country was providing limited tactical 

air support and other assistance to the Khmer forces. In December, 

General Abrams arranged for establishment of a tripartite group of 

senior American, South Vietnamese, and Cambodian officers, each 

57 Msg, State and Defense Depts 86887 to Am Emb Phnom Penh, 5 Jun 70, box 589; Memo, 

Col Kennedy for Kissinger, 22 Jun 70, sub: Strengthening the Defense Attaché Office in Phnom 

Penh, box 510; Msg Swank Phnom Penh 3282 to Marshall Green, 4 Dec 70, and Msg, Sec State 

166459 to Am Emb Phnom Penh, 8 Oct 70, box 511. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, 

Abrams MAC 8315 to McCain info Moorer, 19 Jun 70; McCain to Moorer et al., 19 Sep 70; McCain 

to Moorer and Abrams, 25 Oct 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Tho, Cambodian Incursion, pp. 

223–31; Interv, Abrams Project with Col Jonathan F. Ladd, 26 Feb 77, pp. 3–4, 30–33, MHI (hereafter cited as Ladd Interv). 58 Msgs, Wheeler JCS 06287 to Abrams info McCain, 6 May 70; Abrams MAC 6287 to Wheeler, 

9 May 70; Abrams MAC 7068 to McCain info Wheeler, 24 May 70; Seith BNK 1233 to Abrams info 

McCain et al., 25 May 70; Abrams MAC 11481 to McCain, 23 Aug 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 

MACV History, 1970, Supp., pp. 71–72. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

308

supported by a small staff, who met monthly in Saigon and Phnom 

Penh in rotation to work out day-to-day operational and logistical 

problems. Abrams assigned his deputy, General Weyand, as the MACV 

member of this group and at the same time placed Weyand in overall 

charge of the Military Assistance Command’s Cambodian efforts.59

As U.S. military aid to Cambodia expanded, Admiral McCain and 

General Abrams repeatedly recommended to the Joint Chiefs that the 

Defense Department establish at least a small military assistance group 

in Phnom Penh. They argued that only a military assistance group or 

its equivalent could discharge properly the defense secretary’s statutory 

responsibilities for managing the Military Assistance Program and furnish MACV and CINCPAC with adequate information on Cambodian 

military affairs. These functions simply were beyond the capacity of 

the political-military counselor’s small staff. The Joint Chiefs endorsed 

McCain’s and Abrams’ proposal, but it met opposition from the State 

Department, which insisted on minimizing the American military 

presence in Phnom Penh.60

On 29 December, after considerable interdepartmental jockeying 

for position, Secretary Laird, at the president’s direction, established a 

Military Equipment Delivery Team for Cambodia. The team, headed by 

an Army brigadier general provided by MACV, consisted of sixty officers and men, most of them located in Saigon. As Abrams had recommended, the team chief administered the Military Assistance Program 

under the supervision of the ambassador and Colonel Ladd. He was 

under the military command of Admiral McCain and worked in coordination with General Abrams. Activated in January 1971, the team, its 

strength gradually increased to more than one hundred, relieved the 

Military Assistance Command staff of most details of administering the 

Cambodia Military Assistance Program. However, the State and Defense 

Departments engaged in a prolonged wrangle over the authority of the 

team chief, Brig. Gen. Theodore C. Mataxis, in relation to Ambassador 

Emory C. Swank and Colonel Ladd. President Nixon finally resolved 

the issue by reaffirming the political-military counselor’s primacy in 

the embassy on defense matters. General Abrams continued to conduct his own dealings with the Phnom Penh embassy through Ladd. 

General Weyand’s tripartite group, supported by a small element of the 

MACV J–3 staff, retained its role in coordinating allied operations.61

59 Msg, Haig Saigon 994 to Kissinger, 15 Dec 70, box 410; Msgs, Swank Phnom Penh 80 to 

Sec State, 8 Jan 71, box 511. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, Abrams MAC 7166 to 

Wheeler, McCain, Bunker, 26 May 70; McCain to Wheeler info Abrams et al., 22 Jun 70; Abrams 

MAC 8786 to McCain, 29 Jun 70; Abrams MAC 12129 to McCain, 7 Sep 70; Abrams MAC 13385 

to Ladd, 9 Oct 70; Abrams MAC 15448 to McCain, 2 Dec 70; Abrams MAC 15581 to McCain, 6 Dec 

70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Ladd Interv, 26 Feb 77, pp. 4–5, 33–37, 44–46, 56–57, 60–61. 60 Msgs, McCain to Abrams, 23 Aug 70; Abrams MAC 11568 to McCain, 25 Aug 70; Abrams 

MAC 14998 to McCain, 21 Nov 70; McCain to Moorer info Abrams et al., 22 Dec 70. All in Abrams 

Papers, CMH. MACV History, 1970, Supp., pp. 71, 73. 61

 Memo, Laird for CJCS, 28 Dec 70, sub: Cambodian Military Equipment Delivery Team . . . and 
309

Across the Borders: Cambodia

Cambodia Balance Sheet

American aid to Cambodia ensured the survival of Lon Nol’s regime. 

Although the North Vietnamese by late 1970 occupied nearly half of 

Cambodia’s land area, the government held the cities, the major towns, 

and the regions containing most of the people. The regime benefited 

from an initial wave of popular patriotic enthusiasm. Its rapidly expanding armed forces, with American and South Vietnamese help, halted 

the enemy’s territorial gains and even achieved occasional modest 

offensive successes. Yet the Communists were held back as much by 

their own small numbers, disorganization, and lack of supplies as by 

the FANK. They seemed more concerned with building a Cambodian 

guerrilla and political infrastructure and repairing their line of communication to South Vietnam than with immediate overthrow of the 

Phnom Penh government.62

The Lon Nol regime and its armed forces suffered from fundamental weaknesses similar to those which continued to undermine 

South Vietnamese effectiveness. Cambodia’s military establishment 

had expanded too rapidly for the available trained leadership, which 

was weak to begin with. At the end of 1970, General Abrams considered the FANK “marginally effective at best.” The Lon Nol government lacked competent officials at all levels. Lon Nol himself proved 

an erratic leader, authoritarian in style and tolerant of corruption. He 

suffered a stroke early in 1971 but clung to power even though physically impaired. Given the regime’s limitations and the restrictions on 

American advice and assistance, the war in Cambodia clearly was at 

best a holding action, its outcome ultimately dependent on what happened in South Vietnam.63

From the viewpoint of the Military Assistance Command and the 

Saigon government, the Cambodian upheaval and the allied offensive brought significant strategic benefits. The enemy had lost his 

border base areas, thousands of troops, and huge materiel stockpiles, 

not to mention his secure, efficient Sihanoukville supply route. The 

enemy had shifted much of his remaining strength opposite III and IV 

Corps westward to establish his new Cambodian war front and would 

have to expend time and resources building a logistical corridor from 

Msg, Sec State 003780 to Am Emb Phnom Penh et al., 8 Jan 71, box 511; Memo, Haig for Kissinger, 

31 May 71, sub: Cambodia, box 512; Msg, Haig to Ladd, 24 Jul 71, box 430. All in NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA. Ladd Interv, 26 Feb 77, pp. 46–49; MACV History, 1971, vol. 2, an. I, pp. 1–3. 62 Typical assessments of the situation are Memo, Thomas Karamessines for Haig, 16 Nov 70, 

quoting Msg from Ladd, box 430, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA; and Msg, Abrams MAC 15447 

to McCain, 2 Dec 70, Abrams Papers, CMH. Ladd Interv, 26 Feb 77, pp. 35–36, emphasizes enemy 

confusion. 63 Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 15447 to McCain, 2 Dec 70, Abrams Papers, CMH. 

Cambodia’s governmental weaknesses are emphasized in Interv, Foreign Affairs Oral History 

Program with Swank in Charles S. Kennedy, comp., A Cambodian Reader (Washington, D.C.: 

Association for Diplomatic Studies, Aug 1993), passim.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

310

southern Laos into northeastern Cambodia. South Vietnamese forces 

in III and IV Corps could count on a lengthy period of relief from 

major enemy attack, a period the allies could use to advance pacification and Vietnamization. Partially offsetting these gains were the 

allies’ own need to extend their forces over a new battlefield and the 

political damage the Nixon administration had suffered in the United 

States. Nevertheless, the advantages appeared to American officials 

in Saigon and Washington to outweigh the disadvantages. As 1970 

ended, they were making plans for additional, even more ambitious, 

cross-border offensives.64

64

 The MACV assessment is summarized in Msg, Rosson MAC 10929 to Moorer and McCain, 11

Aug 70, box 511, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA; in same box, see Memo, Smyser for Kissinger, 

10 Sep 70, sub: Attached Report from Gen Rosson, for a critique of the MACV analysis by a NSC 

staff member who emphasizes the negative consequences. See also MACV History, 1970, vol. 1, ch. 

1, p. 2.
10

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

Even as the Nixon administration opened a new war front in Cambodia, it continued and expanded air operations in the Laotian 

panhandle and the Plain of Jars. It also incrementally renewed the air 

war against North Vietnam, both to protect American aircraft engaged 

in Laos and to warn Hanoi that it was not immune from punishment 

for its persistent intransigence in the Paris negotiations. In the wake of 

the apparent success of the Cambodian incursions, the administration 

began considering large-scale ground operations in Laos to disrupt the 

flow of supplies down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Military Assistance 

Command was an influential advocate of all these efforts, as well as a 

major participant in them.

More Bombs over Laos, 1969–1970

During the first two years of the Nixon administration, MACV and 

the Seventh Air Force enlarged and refined their bombing offensive 

against the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the Steel Tiger operating area of southern Laos. As combat diminished in South Vietnam, General Abrams 

shifted the weight of his airpower to the interdiction campaign, which 

he and Admiral McCain considered essential to preventing enemy 

offensives and buying time for pacification and Vietnamization. At its 

seasonal peak, the effort absorbed well over half of MACV’s available 

tactical air and B–52 sorties. On the basis of intelligence from sensor 

arrays, Prairie Fire teams, and other sources, the Seventh Air Force 

used fighter-bombers, B–52s, and fixed-wing gunships in a series of 

integrated annual campaigns, code-named Commando Hunt, aimed 

at disrupting the enemy’s push of supplies through the trail network 

during the Laotian dry season, which extended from October through 

the end of April. Continually enhanced and refined, each campaign 

began with concentrated attacks on the mountain passes leading from 

North Vietnam into Laos, then followed the traffic along the Ho Chi 

Minh Trail’s many branches with night and day strikes on way stations, 

storage areas, and moving trucks. According to Seventh Air Force estimates, the successive Commando Hunts destroyed tens of thousands of 

vehicles and reduced the amount of supplies reaching South Vietnam 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

312

to less than one-fourth of the 

tonnage that entered the Ho 

Chi Minh Trail’s northern end. 

The accuracy of these figures, 

especially the number of trucks 

destroyed, is open to question. 

However, at minimum, the interdiction campaign made the enemy’s movement of supplies more 

costly in men and materiel than 

it otherwise would have been 

and diminished the flow.1 

Beginning in early 1969, the 

Military Assistance Command 

had to respond to increasingly 

urgent demands from the U.S. 

Embassy in Vientiane for air support in the Barrel Roll area of 

northern Laos. These demands 

were the result of two developments. Ambassador William 

H. Sullivan, who had sought to 

keep military activity in Laos at 

the lowest possible level, was replaced in mid-July by G. McMurtrie 

Godley, a cigar-smoking, pistol-packing veteran of covert operations 

in the Congo. Although Godley, like Sullivan, jealously guarded his 

authority over military operations in Laos, he was much more inclined 

than his predecessor to unleash American airpower against the North 

Vietnamese and Pathet Lao.2

Enemy pressure provided Godley with reason to do so. During the 

spring and summer, the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao, breaking 

their normal seasonal pattern of operations, launched a sustained 

offensive that went beyond the annual ebb and flow across the Plain of 

Jars. They seemed intent on isolating the royal capital, Luang Prabang, 

and destroying the principal strongholds of Maj. Gen. Vang Pao’s 

CIA-supported Meo irregulars, the allies’ most effective Laotian fighting force. As the offensive continued into the Laotian rainy season, 



 Thompson, “Rolling Thunder to Linebacker,” ch. 6, pp. 18, 36–37. Msgs, Abrams MAC 3656 

to Zais, 20 Mar 70; Abrams MAC 12864 to McCain, 26 Sep 70; Abrams MAC 12929 to Field Cdrs, 

29 Sep 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Commando Hunt results are summarized in MACV History, 

1971, vol. 1, ch. 6, pp. 28–31. Earl H. Tilford, Jr, Setup: What the Air Force Did in Vietnam and 

Why (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Air University Press, 1991), pp. 180–85, challenges Air Force 

statistical claims. 

 Godley is characterized in Charles A. Stevenson, End of Nowhere: American Policy Toward 

Laos since 1954 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), p. 225; and in Interv, Foreign Affairs Oral History 

Program with Nicolas A. Veliotes, in Charles S. Kennedy, comp., “A Laotian Reader: Selections from 

Oral Histories of the Foreign Affairs Oral History Program” (MS, Washington, D.C., 1993), p. 8.

Ambassador Godley
313

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

Ambassadors Bunker and Godley, along with Admiral McCain, became 

convinced that the North Vietnamese were escalating their operations 

in Laos to compel Premier Souvanna Phouma to call for a halt to all 

U.S. bombing in his country, including the interdiction campaign—a 

request the United States would find embarrassing to refuse and disastrous to accept.3

To counter the North Vietnamese offensive, the embassy in 

Vientiane called for additional U.S. tactical air support. It also, for the 

first time in the Laotian war, requested B–52 strikes against enemy 

troop concentrations and supply lines on and around the Plain of Jars. 

The latter request became the subject of a lengthy debate within the 

Nixon administration. Secretary of Defense Laird and Secretary of State 

Rogers opposed the use of the heavy bombers in northern Laos. They 

contended that suitable targets for the B–52s had not been identified in 

the area and that it was politically undesirable to escalate the Laotian 

conflict. On the other side, Ambassadors Bunker and Godley, supported 

by Admiral McCain, pressed hard for the B–52s and warned that without such reinforcement Souvanna’s army and regime might collapse.4

From General Abrams’ viewpoint, Vientiane’s demands threatened 

to divert airpower from the interdiction campaign, which Abrams 

considered more important to the struggle in South Vietnam. Abrams 

accordingly tried to limit the number of tactical air sorties allotted 

to Barrel Roll and initially expressed reluctance to use B–52s there. 

In early April, he recommended that requests for Arc Light strikes in 

northern Laos “not be favorably considered” because the area contained 

few worthwhile targets and the bombers could be used more profitably 

in Commando Hunt and within South Vietnam. As the offensive continued, however, and the rains slowed traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, 

Abrams shifted more tactical sorties to the north. He also sent officers 

to Thailand to assist the U.S. Air Attaché in Vientiane in developing 

targets and planning a campaign to isolate enemy forces on the Plain 

of Jars. On 29 July, he declared that the allies must “do what is necessary” to prevent further deterioration of the situation in northern Laos, 

which otherwise might have “wide-spread impact including the loss 

of US authority for bombing in Laos.” He put the Seventh Air Force to 

work identifying possible B–52 targets around the Plain of Jars and recommended to Admiral McCain that preparations be made to conduct 

Arc Light strikes there on short notice. Early in August, he informed 

McCain that, due to a lower level of combat in South Vietnam and the 

 Msgs, McCain to McConnell info Abrams et al., 8 May 69; McCain to Wheeler info Abrams 

et al., 13 Jul 69; Abrams Papers. Msg, Bunker Saigon 16371 to Sec State, 14 Aug 69, box 138, NSC 

files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 

 Memo, Laird for CJCS and Asst Sec Def (International Security Affairs), 29 Jul 69, box 099; 

Msg, McCain to Wheeler info White House et al., 30 Jul 69, box 545; Msg, Haig WH 91684 to Tony 

Lake, 30 Jul 69, box 102; Msg, Haig WH 91698 to Kissinger, 31 Jul 69, box 099. All in NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

314

seasonal decline in traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, he could spare 

some Arc Light missions for Barrel Roll.

5

Despite these deliberations, the B–52s did not intervene in northern 

Laos during 1969. President Nixon in late July personally ordered the 

conduct of reconnaissance flights to select aiming points for Arc Light

missions. After the reconnaissance missions were flown during the first 

days of August, MACV and Seventh Air Force, in consultation with the 

U.S. Embassy in Vientiane, nominated a list of targets. However, in the 

end, no Arc Light strikes were launched. During August, Vang Pao’s 

forces, with heavy American tactical air support, counterattacked and 

retook much of the Plain of Jars. The State and Defense Departments 

continued to argue that the military results of escalation in northern 

Laos would not be worth the political and diplomatic costs. In midSeptember, General Abrams concluded that none of the proposed 

targets were any longer suitable for B–52s. After considering several 

measures for strengthening Souvanna’s regime, Nixon eventually 

authorized only the dispatch of additional M16 rifles and T–28 aircraft 

for the royal Laotian forces and the limited, covert introduction of Thai

artillery units to reinforce threatened government positions.6

The B–52 question arose again the following January. On the 

twenty-fourth, Ambassador Godley reported that North Vietnamese 

and Pathet Lao troops were massing to assault the Plain of Jars. With 

the support of Admiral McCain and General Abrams, Godley asked for 

a preemptive Arc Light strike on the enemy concentrations. Secretary 

Laird this time favored the operation, but Secretary Rogers again argued 

that B–52 strikes were unlikely to be militarily decisive and would have 

adverse international and domestic political consequences. The administration temporized until mid-February, by which time the offensive 

was under way and the Laotian and Meo forces were in full retreat. 

After Souvanna Phouma formally requested B–52 strikes to save his 

position, and in response to increasingly urgent representations from 

Ambassador Godley, President Nixon finally authorized a strike, which 

took place on 17 February 1970.7

 Msgs, Abrams MAC 4153 to McCain and Wheeler, 2 Apr 69; Abrams MAC 9754 to McCain, 29 

Jul 69; Abrams MAC 9969 to McCain info Wheeler et al., 2 Aug 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH.

 Memos, Haig for the Sec Def, 31 Jul 69 and 1 Aug 69, box 102; Memos, Laird for the Assistant 

to the President for National Security Affairs, 31 Jul 69, sub: CINCPAC Proposal for B–52 Strikes 

in Laos; and Kissinger for the Sec Def, 15 Sep 69, box 545. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 

Msgs, Abrams MAC 9869 to McCain info Wheeler et al., 31 Jul 69; Abrams MAC 9919 to McCain 

info Wheeler et al., 1 Aug 69; Abrams MAC 10072 to McCain info Wheeler et al., 4 Aug 69; Abrams 

MAC 12267 to McCain and Amb G. McMutrie Godley, 19 Sep 69. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. The 

Meo counterattack is described in Stevenson, End of Nowhere, pp. 224–26. 

 Msgs, McCain to Wheeler info Godley et al., 24 Jan 70; Abrams SPECAT to McCain info 

Wheeler, 24 Jan 70, Memo, Kissinger for the President, sub: B–52s in Laos, box 102; Memo, Laird 

for the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 26 Jan 70, sub: Request for B–52 

Strikes in North Laos; Memo, Rogers for the President, 26 Jan 70, sub: B–52 Strikes in the Plain 

of Jars . . . , box 123; NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. DoD, “Report on Selected Air and Ground 

Operations,” p. 19.
315

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

Once the barrier was broken, B–52 strikes in Barrel Roll soon became 

a matter of routine. Under procedures prescribed by the administration, the U.S. Embassy in Vientiane nominated targets for each mission, which General Abrams reviewed and passed to the Joint Chiefs 

through Admiral McCain, using secure backchannel communications. The Joint Chiefs then recommended the operations to Secretary 

Laird, who regularly approved them. Ambassador Godley considered 

the raids of great value, both in checking the enemy onslaught and 

psychologically shoring up Souvanna’s government. Assisted by the 

B–52s, American tactical aircraft, and battalions of Thai “volunteers,” 

the anti-Communist forces maintained the balance of power in Laos 

throughout 1970. The cost of the intensified fighting to the Laotian 

people, however, was high. Besides the daily toll of civilian and military dead and wounded, according to some estimates, the lengthy war 

had turned one-fourth of the small nation’s population of three million into refugees.8

Following a policy in effect since the mid-1960s, the Nixon administration, in order to protect Souvanna Phouma’s facade of neutrality, 

made no public announcement of the first B–52 strikes in northern 

Laos. Nevertheless, reports of the attacks soon appeared in the American 

press. They helped bring to a head a debate within the administration 

over information policy toward the Laotian war. Since Nixon’s inauguration, Defense Department public information officers had urged 

that the government openly announce and explain its military activities in Laos, which were common knowledge within Congress and the 

executive branch, not to mention the large, aggressive Saigon press 

corps. State Department officials in Washington and Vientiane, however, insisted on maintaining official silence. They warned that open 

discussion of U.S. operations would render Souvanna’s position untenable and possibly provoke damaging Communist-bloc diplomatic and 

military reactions.

With the intensification of the Laotian war during 1969 and 1970, 

the official policy became steadily less credible. Press coverage of 

American operations increased, as did congressional demands for a true 

account of the scale of the effort and opposition to its expansion. Late 

in December 1969, a bipartisan majority attached a rider to a defense 

appropriation bill that forbade American ground combat operations 

in Laos and Thailand although it allowed continuation of the air war. 

President Nixon, in a December news conference, for the first time 

admitted that the United States was waging an interdiction campaign 

in the Laotian panhandle. In late February 1970, Ambassador Bunker 

 DoD, “Report on Selected Air and Ground Operations,” pp. 19–20. Msgs, Abrams MAC 2249 

to Godley info McCain et al., 18 Feb 70; McCain to Wheeler info Abrams, 27 Feb 70; Godley to 

McCain and Abrams, 28 Mar 70; Abrams MAC 5100 to Lt Gen Alvan C. Gillem, II, USAF, Cdr 8th 

AF, 17 Apr 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Statistics on Lao casualties are in Stevenson, End of 

Nowhere, p. 1.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

316

and General Abrams declared that, given the scale and visibility of the 

operations, the existing information policy could not be implemented 

“in a meaningful manner and serves only to lessen our overall credibility with the press, the Congress and the American people. . . .” Their 

declaration drove one of the final nails into the coffin of the official 

policy of silence.9

In March 1970, over continuing objections from the State 

Department and Ambassador Godley, the administration adopted a 

new information approach to Laos. President Nixon issued a statement 

outlining the entire scope of the American effort in that country. On 

13 March, the Defense Department instructed MACV to include air 

operations and losses in Steel Tiger and Barrel Roll in its daily military communiqués. However, the command continued to incorporate 

American personnel casualties in Prairie Fire into its figures for South 

Vietnam. General Abrams transmitted this guidance to his subordinate 

commanders, with instructions to withhold details of operations in 

Laos until they were released in Saigon. When implemented, the new 

policy produced no adverse diplomatic consequences. By adopting 

it, the administration reduced at least one source of friction between 

MACV and the news media.10

“Protective Reaction” over North Vietnam

Although President Nixon declined to execute Pruning Knife, he 

kept the Commander in Chief, Pacific, and his subordinates at work 

on contingency plans for large-scale air attacks on North Vietnam. In 

addition, during 1970 the president with increasing frequency permitted Admiral McCain and General Abrams to launch actual limited, 

short-duration air raids against North Vietnam. The administration 

announced these publicly as “protective reaction” strikes to neutralize 

North Vietnamese air defenses that attacked or threatened U.S. aircraft 

over North Vietnam and Laos, but it gradually expanded them into 

brief but intense blows at Hanoi’s logistics system.

Throughout 1970, the headquarters in Honolulu and Saigon developed and revised a series of attack plans, all subsumed under the codename Pruning Knife Alpha. Repeatedly, the staffs altered target lists and 

force assignments in response to administration demands, new intelligence, and American redeployments. By late 1970, the Pruning Knife

Alpha series included a seven-day all-out air and naval offensive with 

options for mining Haiphong and other ports, a three-day campaign 

concentrating on the Haiphong complex, and briefer retaliatory raids 

on less important targets. In addition, CINCPAC and MACV main-

 This discussion is based on Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 261–72. 

Quotation is from Msg, Bunker and Abrams Saigon 2764 to Sec State, 24 Feb 70, box 143, NSC 

files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 10

 Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 272–79.
317

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

tained plans for limited invasions of North Vietnam and other overt 

and covert operations.11

For Pruning Knife Alpha, Admiral McCain kept in effect the route 

package command system used in Rolling Thunder. Under it, MACV 

and Seventh Air Force planned the strikes in Route Package 1, the 

southernmost part of North Vietnam; and Admiral McCain designated 

General Abrams as coordinating authority for operations in that area. 

Late in 1970, McCain extended Abrams’ authority beyond the old 

Route Package 1, to include most of North Vietnam up to the 19th 

11 Msgs, McCain to Nazzaro and Hyland info Abrams et al., 7 Feb 70; McCain to Nazzaro et al., 

18 Feb 70; McCain to Abrams info Wheeler, 4 May 70; McCain to Wheeler info Abrams, 11 May 70; 

McCain to Nazzaro and Hyland info Abrams et al., 10 Sep 70; McCain to Nazzaro and Hyland info 

Abrams et al., 10 Sep 70; Abrams MAC 12713 to McCain info Nazzaro et al., 22 Sep 70; McCain to 

Moorer info Abrams, 5 Dec 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Memo, Haig for Kissinger, 13 Jul 70, 

sub: Contingency Plans for Air Strikes against North Vietnam, box 148, NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA. 

An F–4 Phantom prepares to land aboard the U.S.S. Midway

off the coast of North Vietnam.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

318

Parallel. He thereby placed under Abrams’ jurisdiction all the mountain passes leading to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. As in Rolling Thunder, 

McCain directed air operations over the rest of North Vietnam through 

his air and naval component commanders. These arrangements assured 

Abrams, who disliked the route package system’s division of authority 

and resources, control of air activity in the regions of most interest to 

him. By informal understanding with Admiral McCain, Abrams exercised something close to a veto on strikes in the other route packages if 

they conflicted with more urgent requirements in South Vietnam and 

Laos.12

While they prepared contingency plans, Abrams and McCain, supported by the Joint Chiefs, campaigned continuously for expanded 

authority to attack enemy air defenses, principally surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites, in southern North Vietnam. Since November 1968, 

MACV had possessed, and periodically exercised, the right to engage 

and destroy enemy missile and antiaircraft batteries below the 19th 

Parallel that fired on reconnaissance planes over North Vietnam or 

tactical aircraft and B–52s over Laos. In August 1969, Abrams, citing 

a buildup of North Vietnamese air defenses and the prospect of B–52 

operations over the Plain of Jars, made the first of many requests 

for extension of his retaliatory authority at least to the 20th Parallel. 

Admiral McCain declined to transmit this request to the Joint Chiefs, 

since the B–52s were not yet flying over northern Laos and he considered the political atmosphere in Washington at the moment unfavorable to proposals for escalation. However, on 19 December 1969, 

a SAM battery in North Vietnam fired at and missed a formation of 

B–52s over the Laotian panhandle south of the 19-degree line, the 

first such enemy attack on the heavy bombers. This event imparted a 

new urgency to the issue.13

On 5 February 1970, with the season’s Commando Hunt campaign 

under way and the North Vietnamese air defense threat continuing 

to increase, Abrams requested still more expansive attack authority. 

He asked the Joint Chiefs, through Admiral McCain, for standby permission to strike North Vietnamese missile and antiaircraft installations within twenty-five nautical miles of the Laotian border and the 

Demilitarized Zone “without regard to firing initiatives by the enemy.” 

With such discretionary authority, Abrams argued, he could launch 

preplanned strikes against North Vietnam’s air defenses in response 

to current intelligence and in combination with other air operations. 

12

 Abrams’ dislike of the route packages is noted in Cowles Interv, 20 Dec 75, pp. 33–34; see also 

Corcoran Interv, 1975, pp. 40–41. Msgs, McCain to Abrams info Nazzaro et al., 28 Oct 69; McCain 

to Nazzaro, Hyland, and Abrams, 24 Nov 70; Abrams MAC 15136 to McCain, 25 Nov 70; McCain 

to Abrams, 26 Nov 70; McCain to Nazzaro, Hyland, and Abrams info Moorer, 26 Nov 70; McCain 

to PACOM Cdrs, 19 Dec 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 13

 Msgs, Abrams MAC 7598 to McCain info Wheeler et al., 14 Jun 69; Abrams MAC 10987 to 

McCain info Brown, 23 Aug 69; McCain to Abrams info Brown, 3 Sep 69. All in Abrams Papers, 

CMH. Thompson, “Rolling Thunder to Linebacker,” ch. 6, pp. 37–40.
319

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

Such attacks would disrupt a developing “SAM offensive against our 

interdiction operations,” thereby denying to the enemy “advantages 

he now possesses and is rapidly increasing.”14

During several weeks of exchanges with Admiral McCain, General 

Wheeler, and Secretary Laird, Abrams gained only part of the authority he wanted. On 9 February, the administration altered the rules of 

engagement to permit MACV to strike at will any SAM and antiaircraft 

installations in southern North Vietnam that posed a threat to American 

aircraft. However, it almost immediately rescinded that authority for 

fear of disrupting a diplomatic initiative then in progress. A month 

later, after additional urgent representations from Abrams and McCain 

and more SAM firings, President Nixon authorized destruction of any 

North Vietnamese batteries south of the 20th Parallel that engaged 

American aircraft over Laos. These attacks could be made at any time 

within seventy-two hours of the triggering incident. While keeping 

this retaliatory authority in effect throughout the year, Secretary Laird, 

on behalf of the administration, regularly turned down requests from 

Abrams and McCain for standby permission to conduct preemptive 

strikes. Laird insisted that existing authorities were sufficient to protect 

U.S. aircraft and that unprovoked attacks would arouse public and congressional opposition in the United States and give the other side justification for discarding the 1968 bombing halt understandings, perhaps 

by renewing bombardment of South Vietnam’s cities.15

Although the administration withheld general permission for preplanned strikes in North Vietnam, during 1970 it authorized several 

one-time air raids on both antiaircraft installations and the logistical network that fed the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a network the North 

Vietnamese had been repairing and expanding unmolested since the 

end of Rolling Thunder. President Nixon intended these strikes to reinforce the interdiction campaign in Laos and as signals to Hanoi that its 

sanctuaries were not inviolable. Publicly, the administration explained 

the attacks as “protective reaction” in defense of U.S. airmen. The president tried to time the raids to coincide with other escalatory actions, 

such as the Cambodian incursion, so as to gain the maximum military 

benefit from each period of intensified domestic political furor.16

At Abrams’ and McCain’s recommendation, Nixon authorized oneday raids in March and again in April, hitting both air defense and 

logistical targets on the North Vietnamese side of the mountain passes 

14 Msg, Abrams MAC 1692 to McCain info Wheeler, 5 Feb 70, Abrams Papers, CMH.

15 Memo, Nixon for the Sec Def, 21 Mar 70, sub: Air Operations in Southeast Asia, box 123, NSC 

files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, Wheeler JCS 01970 to McCain and Abrams, 9 Feb 70; Abrams 

MAC 2247 to Brown, 18 Feb 70; Abrams MAC 2419 to McCain info Wheeler et al., 28 Feb 70; 

McCain to Wheeler info Abrams et al., 28 Feb 70; Abrams MAC 2993 to Brown, 7 Mar 70; Moorer 

JCS 14354 to McCain info Abrams, 24 Oct 70; Abrams MAC 14844 to McCain info Moorer et al., 18 

Nov 70; Moorer JCS 16306 to McCain info Abrams, 8 Dec 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 16

 Thompson, “Rolling Thunder to Linebacker,” ch. 6, pp. 2–4, 40–43, ch. 7, pp. 40–44; Historical 

Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–1970,” pp. 352–56, 360–62.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

320

into Laos. From 1 to 4 May, as the Cambodian incursion got under 

way, MACV and CINCPAC conducted four days of similar air strikes. 

Admiral McCain claimed that the 700 sorties flown destroyed more than 

10,000 tons of supplies that had been awaiting movement into the Ho 

Chi Minh Trail complex and “may be among the most successful ever 

conducted against forward elements of the NVN [North Vietnamese]

logistics system.” Another large attack on air defense installations and 

supply facilities, code-named Freedom Bait, went in on 21 November, 

in conjunction with an unsuccessful commando raid to free American 

prisoners of war in North Vietnam. Since these attacks were concentrated in Route Package 1 and the area of the passes into Laos, General 

Abrams, in cooperation with the commanders of the Seventh Air Force 

and the Navy’s Task Force 77, planned and conducted the operations. 

Abrams strongly endorsed the raids. Nevertheless, he and Admiral 

McCain considered them an inadequate substitute for the standby 

anti-SAM strike authority they continued to request. The limitations 

notwithstanding, as 1970 ended, MACV once again was engaged in an 

incrementally expanding air war against North Vietnam.17

The 1971 Dry Season Offensive

By late 1970, the focus of the cross-border war was shifting from 

Cambodia to Laos. After the loss of the Sihanoukville route and the disruption of their Cambodian bases, the North Vietnamese increased the 

volume of traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, their sole remaining supply 

conduit to the south, and extended the trail from Laos into northeastern Cambodia. Air attacks and commando operations by themselves 

could reduce but not stop the flow of North Vietnamese men and supplies through southern Laos. Accordingly, General Abrams and Admiral 

McCain considered ways and means of attacking the supply route with 

ground forces. As early as March 1969, General Abrams suggested the 

conduct of brief incursions into the enemy’s Laotian base areas. During 

1970, as the Cambodian offensive unfolded, Abrams and McCain were 

especially interested in preventing the enemy from extending his logistical network into northeastern Cambodia to replace Sihanoukville. 

Their options, however, were limited by the congressional ban on 

using American ground troops in Laos. McCain suggested expanding 

the Prairie Fire zone of operations westward to Tchepone, a key Ho Chi 

Minh Trail nexus opposite northern I Corps. Abrams declared this plan 

impractical because enemy ground and antiaircraft defenses in the area 

17

 Message traffic for these raids is in Abrams message files, Abrams Papers, CMH. Quotation 

is from Msg, McCain to Moorer info Abrams et al., 13 May 70, Abrams Papers, CMH. The following illustrate command relationships: Msgs, Abrams MAC 4581 to McCain info Wheeler, 8 Apr 70; 

McCain to Wheeler info Abrams, 7 May 70; McCain to Abrams et al., info Moorer et al., 15 Nov 70; 

McCain to Abrams info Moorer et al., 20 Nov 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Msg, Abrams MAC 

13883 to McCain info Clay, 22 Oct 70, Abrams Papers, CMH, reiterates the need for preemptive 

strikes on SAM sites.
321

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

were too strong. He and Ambassador Godley also considered unworkable a proposal by McCain to use South Vietnamese, Thai, and Laotian 

troops to occupy the strategic Bolovens Plateau in southern Laos, 

arguing that the available allied forces were insufficient for the task. 

McCain and Abrams continued their exchanges through late autumn, 

but reached no conclusion other than to continue with Commando

Hunt and Prairie Fire.

18

President Nixon and Dr. Kissinger meanwhile were contemplating new cross-border attacks. Nixon and his national security adviser 

anticipated that the North Vietnamese would launch a major offensive 

sometime in 1971 or 1972, to disrupt pacification and Vietnamization, 

improve Hanoi’s negotiating position, and influence the South 

Vietnamese and American presidential elections. They believed that 

the attack most probably would come in northern Military Region 1, 

where North Vietnamese supply lines were short and where American 

troop withdrawals were shifting the balance of strength in the enemy’s favor. Increasing their apprehension, intelligence reports during 

October and November indicated that the North Vietnamese were preparing for a southward movement of men and supplies comparable 

in scale to that before Tet 1968 and that they were assembling troops, 

including a new corps-level headquarters, just above the Demilitarized 

Zone for a possible multidivision offensive in Military Region 1 early 

in the new year. 19

In the light of this information, Nixon decided to preempt the North 

Vietnamese by launching offensives of his own in Laos and Cambodia. 

Employing South Vietnamese ground forces with all-out U.S. air support, the attacks would have the objective of disrupting the enemy’s 

timetable and preventing major North Vietnamese offensives during 

the rest of 1971 and even into 1972. Nixon and Kissinger considered 

early 1971 to be the last feasible time for such operations, since strong 

American combat forces would still be available to support the South 

Vietnamese and fill in behind them in South Vietnam.20

On 6 December 1970, Admiral Moorer set the offensive planning in 

motion. He informed McCain and Abrams that the president desired 

concepts for multidivision South Vietnamese offensives in Cambodia 

and the Laotian panhandle, to be conducted early in the new year with 

full U.S. air support. General Abrams was to consult with Ambassador 

18

 Msgs, Abrams MAC 3066 to McCain, 10 Mar 69; Abrams MAC 5709 to McCain, 29 Apr 70; 

McCain to Abrams et al., 23 May 70; Abrams MAC 7111 to McCain info Seith et al., 25 May 70; 

Godley CCF 042 to McCain info Abrams et al., 1 Jun 70; McCain to Moorer info Abrams et al., 16 

Aug 70; McCain to Moorer info Abrams, 24 Oct 70. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. 19

 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 986–89. For intelligence background, see Memo, Holdridge 

for Kissinger, 17 Dec 70, sub: North Vietnamese Strength in Laos, box 548, NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA; and Msg, Sutherland QTR 0446 to Abrams, 21 Mar 71, Abrams Papers, CMH. Msgs, McCain 

to Abrams, 7 Nov 70; Abrams MAC 14507 to McCain, 9 Nov 70; Abrams Papers, CMH, also reflect 

official concern about an enemy offensive. 20 Kissinger, White House Years, p. 990. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

322

Bunker and President Thieu on the operations and obtain Thieu’s support for them. Ordering McCain and Abrams to inform only their most 

senior subordinates of the administration’s intentions, Moorer advised 

them to expect a visit within a week from General Haig, Kissinger’s 

military assistant, who would receive the commanders’ initial proposals. Nixon, in a direct follow-up message to Abrams, called upon the 

MACV commander for “bold and aggressive allied counteractions” 

to the expected enemy offensive and demanded plans to “carry the 

battle to the enemy to the greatest extent possible.” Both Nixon and 

Moorer placed primary emphasis on Cambodia, where they wanted 

to prevent the enemy from reestablishing his border bases. For Laos, 

they initially envisioned an operation in the lower panhandle, perhaps 

in the Bolovens Plateau, which would complement the Cambodian 

offensive.21

General Abrams already had in hand a plan for the attack in 

Cambodia. By early December, MACV and the Joint General Staff were 

completing a concept for a drive by the South Vietnamese III Corps, 

with American air support, into the area of the Chup Plantation, about 

sixty miles northeast of Phnom Penh. The operation, which eventually might involve up to twenty-eight South Vietnamese battalions and 

last from January through July, would open a key route, Highway 7, 

from the Vietnamese border to the Mekong River, clear out a base area 

the enemy was developing, and disrupt any North Vietnamese offensives planned for Military Region 3. Essentially an expansion on what 

the South Vietnamese already were doing in Cambodia, this proposal 

met with quick administration acceptance. On 24 December, Abrams 

received permission to plan on using American tactical aircraft, B–52s, 

and helicopters in the operation to whatever extent was necessary 

for its success. On 6 January 1971, Admiral Moorer on behalf of the 

administration authorized MACV to commit its forces to the attack, 

which actually began early in February.22

Abrams’ plan for Laos was the product of more extensive deliberation. Two days after he received Moorer’s request for offensive plans, 

Abrams conferred at MACV headquarters with General Weyand, his 

deputy; General Sutherland, commander of XXIV Corps; General 

Davison, commander of II Field Force; and the MACV chiefs of operations and intelligence. After reviewing various alternatives, Abrams 

directed Sutherland and Davison, without consulting their staffs, 

to draw up general concepts for drives into Laos, respectively from 

Military Regions 1 and 3. At a subsequent meeting, Abrams reviewed 

21

 Msgs, McCain to Abrams, 6 Dec 70; Moorer JCS 16390 to Abrams, 10 Dec 70. Both in Abrams 

Papers, CMH. Quotation is from latter message. Msg, Kissinger WHS 0064 to Bunker, 10 Dec 70; 

Msg, Kennedy WHS 0065 to Haig, 15 Dec 70. Both in box 1011, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 

The latter message indicates the administration’s interest in a Bolovens operation. 22 Msgs, Abrams MAC 15447 to McCain, 2 Dec 70; Moorer to McCain info Abrams, 24 Dec 

70; Abrams Papers. Msg, Abrams SPECAT 68644 to McCain info Moorer, 30 Dec 70; JCS 9395 to 

CINCPAC info COMUSMACV, 6 Jan 71, box 511, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.
323

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

their proposals and adopted Sutherland’s plan for a South Vietnamese 

attack with XXIV Corps support to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail near 

Tchepone. He considered that blocking the trail opposite Military 

Region 1 would have more decisive effect than any other operation, 

both in stemming the flow of supplies and preempting enemy attacks 

during 1971. Abrams then reviewed the concept with Ambassador 

Bunker, President Thieu, and General Vien, all of whom endorsed it. 

Later in December, Vien broached the idea to the I Corps/Military 

Region 1 commander, General Lam, who in turn informed the commander of the South Vietnamese 1st Division, which would constitute 

a major element of the attack force. The Vietnamese at once began 

their own planning for the operation.23

Abrams’ concept, which he transmitted to McCain on 12 December, 

called for an attack by a South Vietnamese armored brigade and the 

equivalent of two infantry divisions, with support troops, from northern 

23 These meetings are described in Sutherland Interv, n.d., pp. 24–26; and Maj. Gen. Nguyen 

Duy Hinh, Lam Son 719, Indochina Monographs (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 1979), pp. 33–35. The latter account dates the start of discussions as early January 1971, 

but Sutherland’s interview and other American records indicate that Thieu, Vien, and Lam were consulted or learned of the operation in December.

General Lam (left) with President Thieu
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

324

Quang Tri Province to Tchepone to “sever” the Ho Chi Minh Trail at a 

major junction point and destroy enemy forces and supply stockpiles. 

The advance, to be supported with “maximum” U.S. airpower, would 

follow the trace of Highway 9, an east–west highway that roughly paralleled the Demilitarized Zone in South Vietnam and extended into Laos 

to and beyond Tchepone.

The operation was to develop in four phases. In the first phase, 

a reinforced U.S. brigade would open and secure Highway 9 to the 

Laotian border and establish a forward operating base, airfield, 

and artillery firebases within South Vietnam to support the South 

Vietnamese advance. American forces also would take position to 

block enemy counterattacks across the Demilitarized Zone. In the 

second phase, the South Vietnamese armor, its flanks protected 

by heliborne air assaulting infantry, would advance rapidly along 

Highway 9 and seize Tchepone. In the third phase, the South 

Vietnamese would improve Tchepone’s airfield for resupply operations, secure their lines of communications along Highway 9, and fan 

out to block the Ho Chi Minh Trail and destroy North Vietnamese 

forces and supplies in the surrounding area, known as Base Area 604. 

In the fourth phase, the South Vietnamese were to withdraw from 

Tchepone, either directly eastward along Highway 9 or southeastward 

through another base area, 611, which they would destroy as they 

went. Starting in late January or early February, the operation was to 

last about three months, until the onset of the Laotian rainy season 

late in April. Abrams told McCain that the operation would deny 

to the North Vietnamese “the logistic corridor vital for continued 

prosecution of the war in RVN [Republic of Vietnam], Cambodia and 

. . . southern Laos” during the peak period of supply movement. It 

would “significantly disrupt” their timetable for 1971, and restrict 

their efforts in 1972 by forcing them to laboriously restore their lines 

of communication and supply stockpiles before they could launch a 

major offensive.24 (Map 4)

Abrams’ concept for the Tchepone operation was hardly new. 

Throughout America’s military engagement in Vietnam, U.S. commanders had proposed incursions into the Laos panhandle to cut the 

umbilical cord that connected the enemy’s “Great Front Line” in South 

Vietnam with their “Great Rear Area” in the north. In 1965, for example, General Johnson had proposed establishing a permanent cordon of 

American and allied troops across Laos. On the Vietnamese side, General 

Vien also advocated the cordon project. General Westmoreland had his 

staff draw up numerous plans for temporary incursions against the trail, 

using both American and South Vietnamese forces. Several of these 

plans included advances from northern I Corps along Highway 9 to and 

beyond Tchepone. However, Ambassador Sullivan in Vientiane objected 

to any large operations; and neither Westmoreland nor Admiral Sharp 

24

 Msg, Abrams MAC 15808 to McCain, 12 Dec 70, Abrams Papers, CMH.
325

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

campaigned for them with any real urgency. Indeed, in early 1968, 

Sharp, in what turned out to be a prescient assessment, predicted that 

any such operation would run into heavy North Vietnamese resistance 

and afford the enemy, fighting on favorable ground, a good chance to 

inflict “abnormally high” allied casualties and thereby gain “a major 

propaganda victory detrimental to US and Vietnamese morale.”25

By late 1970, Admiral Sharp’s forebodings appear to have been 

forgotten. Sharp’s successor, Admiral McCain, “wholeheartedly” concurred in Abrams’ concept, which he forwarded to Admiral Moorer 

on 15 December. When General Haig reached Saigon in mid-month, 

he found Bunker, Abrams, Thieu, and Vien unanimous in preferring 

the Tchepone operation over the proposals Haig had brought from 

Washington for incursions farther south in the panhandle. According to 

Haig, “all here are extremely enthusiastic about this operation,” which 

Abrams characterized as “the most significant . . . of the war thus far” 

25 For American proposals, see Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, pp. 378–79. Vien’s 

concept is summarized in Hinh, Lam Son 719, pp. 32–33. Quotation is from Msg, Sharp to Wheeler, 

14 Jan 68; see also Msgs, Sharp to Wheeler info Westmoreland et al., 6 Jan 68; and Sharp to Wheeler 

info Westmoreland, 21 Jan 68. All in Westmoreland Message files, Jan 68, CMH. Sullivan continued 

to oppose large ground incursions into Laos after returning to Washington; see Memo, Sullivan for 

Kissinger, 10 Jun 69, sub: Laos, box 545, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.

�

�

9 

9 

BASE AREA 604 

BASE AREA 611 

SOPHIA 

HOPE 

LIZ 

SOPHIA E 

BROWN LOLO 

31 

A LUOI

RANGER N 

RANGER S 

30

SOUTH 

VIETNAMESE 

FORCES 

HOTEL

YELLOW 

BLUE 

BRICK 

DELTA 1 

DELTA

DON 

HOTEL II 

GREEN 

GRASS 

Se Pone

Se Pone

S O U T H 

V I E T N A M 

L A O S 

Tchepone 

Lao Bao Khe Sanh 

Muong Nông 

LAM SON 719 

Axis of Advance 

Firebase 

Landing Zone 

February 1971 

0 10 

Miles 

MAP 4
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

326

and “potentially decisive.” Ambassador Godley from Vientiane added 

his endorsement and told Haig that Premier Souvanna Phouma would 

not object. When he returned to Washington, Haig briefed President 

Nixon, Dr. Kissinger, Secretary Laird, and Admiral Moorer on the plan; 

all tentatively approved it. On 7 January 1971, Admiral Moorer authorized Abrams to proceed with planning in conjunction with the South 

Vietnamese.26

During January, XXIV Corps and I Corps, and their subordinate 

commands, drafted detailed plans and orders for the offensive, which 

Abrams and Vien reviewed and approved. The final plan for the operation, to be called Dewey Canyon II in its American first phase and Lam

Son 719 in its remaining three South Vietnamese phases, closely followed Abrams’ original concept. The forward operating base in South 

Vietnam was to be at Khe Sanh, site of the 1968 siege, which XXIV 

Corps would secure and reopen during Phase I. Besides the armored 

brigade, a Ranger group, and two regiments of the 1st Infantry Division 

from I Corps, President Thieu committed the airborne and marine 

divisions of his national reserve to the offensive under General Lam’s 

operational control. Generals Sutherland and Lam were to direct the 

battle through cooperation and coordination from forward command 

posts, respectively at Quang Tri and Dong Ha. Under the legislative 

ban on American ground troops in Laos, the American advisers to 

South Vietnamese units would remain in South Vietnam. However, 

the operation depended entirely on massive American air support in 

all its forms, from B–52 strikes to helicopter lift of troops, artillery, 

and supplies; and U.S. ground forces would be engaged on the South 

Vietnamese side of the border.27

As they planned Lam Son 719, the Americans and South Vietnamese 

knew that the enemy had strong forces in the target area––at least three 

infantry regiments, eight regimental-size binh trams, or military way 

stations, and several hundred antiaircraft weapons of various types—

and that they could reinforce with additional infantry and artillery 

from North Vietnam. Generals Sutherland and Abrams also were aware 

by late January that the North Vietnamese probably had learned of 

their plans from South Vietnamese security lapses. Nevertheless, the 

allied commanders and staffs did not seem to have expected a pitched 

battle early in the operation. In conversations with President Thieu on 

29 and 30 January, as Dewey Canyon II was getting under way, General 

26 First quotation is from Msg, McCain to Moorer info Abrams, 15 Dec 70, box 1012; remaining 

quotations are from Msg, Haig Saigon 993 to the White House (Kissinger), 15 Dec 70, box 1011. 

Both in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Godley’s endorsement is recounted in Msg, Haig Saigon 

035 to White House (Kissinger), 17 Dec 70, box 1011, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Kissinger, 

White House Years, pp. 994–95; Sutherland Interv, n.d., pp. 25–26; Hinh, Lam Son 719, pp. 33–35. 27 The final plan is summarized conveniently in Hinh, Lam Son 719, pp. 35–52. The change 

of name in the first phase was designed to divert enemy attention to the Da Krong Valley in South 

Vietnam, since Dewey Canyon was the name of a large Marine operation conducted there in 1969. 

Msg, Sutherland DNG 0251 to Abrams, 30 Jan 71, Abrams Papers, CMH. 
327

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

Abrams told Thieu that the attack force should cover the thirty-odd 

miles from the border to Tchepone in one or two days and that the 

North Vietnamese would not be able to move major forces in to contest 

the area during the operation’s first three weeks. The subordinate commands also assumed light opposition at the outset. Given only a short 

time to plan, they made few provisions for any other contingency.28

By contrast, during December and January, the Central Intelligence 

Agency, in analyses done in Langley, concluded that the North 

Vietnamese clearly anticipated an allied ground attack on their infiltration routes, were moving reinforcements into the area with a heavy 

concentration around Tchepone, and were “in a good posture” to resist 

an offensive “vigorously and promptly.” An agency memorandum, 

prepared on 21 January at Kissinger’s request, concluded that Hanoi 

would be likely to “do whatever it could to make the position of the 

South Vietnamese in Laos untenable and . . . be prepared to accept the 

heavy manpower losses this might entail.”29

The possibility of fierce North Vietnamese resistance, and questions about whether the South Vietnamese, even with American air 

support, could overcome it surfaced during the Nixon administration’s 

month-long deliberations over Lam Son 719. Involving the president, 

Kissinger, and members of the cabinet as well as the national security 

adviser’s Washington Special Actions Group, these discussions went 

on throughout January even as forces moved into position in Military 

Region 1 and Dewey Canyon II began. Nixon’s objective throughout 

was to ensure that all his principal advisers and the bureaucracy were 

unified behind the decision to go ahead, which he already had made, 

so that his government could present a solid front to the expected 

press, congressional, and public opposition.

After a mid-January visit to Saigon, Defense Secretary Laird fully 

endorsed the operation. On the other hand, Secretary of State Rogers 

and CIA Director Richard Helms, reflecting the views of their subordinates, expressed doubts. Both men anticipated that the offensive would 

meet strong North Vietnamese opposition and questioned whether the 

South Vietnamese Army, fighting without its American advisers, would 

be able to prevail even with U.S. air support. Rogers also warned that 

a severe South Vietnamese military defeat in Laos could bring down 

President Thieu, who faced an election in September. Raising the 

usual fears of compromising Laotian neutrality, the State Department 

28 Abrams’ comments to Thieu are reported in Msgs, Bunker Saigon 1375 to Sec State, 29 Jan 71, 

box 083; and Bunker Saigon 1401 to Sec State, 30 Jan 71, box 080; NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 

Sutherland Interv, n.d., pp. 25–26, describes lax South Vietnamese security. Hinh, Lam Son 719, pp. 

53–57, notes the short time available and the general expectation of light opposition as well as other 

deficiencies in the planning. 29 The CIA assessment is quoted in Memo, Tom Latimer for Kissinger, 12 Apr 71, sub: CIA and 

Lam Son Intelligence Failures, box 154, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. The same points are made 

in Memo, Kissinger for the President, 26 Jan 71, sub: CIA Analysis of Probable Reactions of Various 

Concerned Parties to Operations in Laos, box 083, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

328

attempted to block the operation by inducing the president to seek 

Premier Souvanna Phouma’s approval before proceeding. Souvanna, 

however, as Godley had predicted he would, privately agreed to the 

attack although he made a pro forma public protest. The military 

authorities in Saigon and Washington repeatedly reaffirmed that the 

offensive would succeed. President Nixon finally steeled himself to 

go ahead. Dewey Canyon II jumped off on 30 January. On 2 February, 

Nixon agreed to the launching of Phase II, the actual beginning of 

Lam Son 719, and authorized Abrams to commit MACV’s airpower to 

the battle. The South Vietnamese crossed the border into Laos on 8 

February.30

By the time the South Vietnamese entered Laos, the media and 

congressional uproar Nixon anticipated was already under way. An 

action by General Abrams did much to intensify the furor. Abrams 

and McCain realized that the North Vietnamese, after the Cambodian 

incursion, almost certainly would expect and prepare to meet a similar 

attack on their sanctuary in Laos even without the forewarning that 

they probably had received. Therefore, the American commanders 

carried out a number of diversionary operations, including a feigned 

amphibious raid on Vinh in North Vietnam, designed to keep their 

adversaries uncertain of the actual objective of the buildup in far 

northwestern Military Region 1.31

On 30 January, as part of this effort, MACV ordered newsmen in 

Saigon not to file stories on the progress of Dewey Canyon II and the 

South Vietnamese movement toward the border until permitted to 

do so by the military command. Although the MACV chief of public 

affairs, Col. Robert Leonard, briefed the Saigon reporters in background 

on the impending offensive and the reasons for the embargo, the correspondents, whose relationship with MACV already was deteriorating, 

reacted with suspicion and indignation. The embargo proved quite 

porous, both in Vietnam and in Washington. During the first days of 

February, reports and speculation on the coming invasion of Laos were 

widespread, as was editorial denunciation of the military’s attempt 

to muzzle the news media. As controversy mounted, Abrams grimly 

held the embargo in place, insisting that it was protecting the lives of 

American and South Vietnamese soldiers. Nevertheless, on 4 February, 

with the floodgates clearly collapsing, Admiral Moorer directed Abrams 

to lift the restriction. By that time, the damage was done. The media 

approached Lam Son 719 in a hostile frame of mind, aggravated still fur30 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 994–1002, recounts Nixon’s decision-making process. 

Memo, Howe for Haig, 9 Feb 71, box 084, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA, lists the meetings by 

dates, times, and participants. Memoranda of many of the meetings, which give the flavor of the arguments, are in Special Operations file, box 083; authorization for Phase II is issued in Msg, Sec State 

019640 to Embassy Saigon info Embassy Vientiane, 4 Feb 71, box 080. Both in NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA. 31

 The diversion off Vinh is described in Cosmas and Murray, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1970–

1971, pp. 207–09.
329

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

ther by inept South Vietnamese 

management of news coverage 

of the operation. MACV and the 

administration could expect critical scrutiny of their every statement and action and maximum 

press attention to any setbacks.32

Setbacks there were in abundance. From the start, Lam Son

719 ran into major difficulties. 

Highway 9, the South Vietnamese 

Army’s sole ground avenue 

of advance through the heavily forested mountains of the 

operational area, was little more 

than a trail, cut by innumerable 

streams and heavily cratered by 

past bombings, which ran along 

a narrow river valley flanked 

by steep escarpments. Instead 

of dashing to Tchepone, the 

armored column moved along 

the road at a slow crawl. On the flanks, the Rangers and the airborne 

division north of the highway and the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry 

Division south of it met a high volume of North Vietnamese antiaircraft 

fire as they air assaulted into their planned firebases. American helicopter losses mounted rapidly, straining MACV’s replacement and repair 

capabilities and limiting the available airlift for supply, reinforcement, 

and medical evacuation. Well prepared to meet the attack, the North 

Vietnamese ringed the firebases with antiaircraft guns and infantry and 

constantly pounded them with mortars and 130-mm. and 152-mm. 

heavy artillery, which outranged the South Vietnamese 105-mm. and 

155-mm. pieces. Most ominous, the North Vietnamese moved infantry 

and armor into the operational area much more rapidly than American 

and South Vietnamese commanders had anticipated and attacked persistently and aggressively. Disregarding severe casualties from tactical 

air and B–52 strikes, the North Vietnamese seemed intent on destroying the South Vietnamese force as well as protecting their trail complex 

and supply depots.33

In fact, the South Vietnamese were facing an enemy that desired a 

decisive battle and had made extensive preparations for it. As early as 

32 The embargo, news coverage of the operation, and media reaction are covered in detail in 

Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, chs. 17, 18, and 19. 33 Aircraft losses and unexpectedly rapid enemy reinforcement are discussed in Msgs, Sutherland 

DNG 0448 to Abrams, 14 Feb 71; and Sutherland QTR 0135 to Abrams, 23 Feb 71. Both in Abrams 

Papers, CMH.

Colonel Leonard
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

330

mid-summer 1970, the North Vietnamese General Staff, anticipating 

that the Americans would follow up the Cambodian offensive with one 

in Laos, had directed the concentration of forces and preparation of the 

battlefield in the Lam Son 719 area of operations—a critical nexus of 

the Ho Chi Minh Trail. During the ensuing months, the enemy secretly 

redeployed a main force division from Quang Nam Province in South 

Vietnam to the front. To control that division and four others brought 

down from North Vietnam, the enemy created a provisional corps 

headquarters (the one American intelligence had noted in November) 

capable of directing a large-scale combined arms battle. As the troops 

assembled, Group 559, the headquarters that operated, maintained, 

and guarded the Ho Chi Minh Trail, prepared its own units for defense, 

built fortifications, constructed additional truck routes in the area for 

movement of supplies, and set up depots and a medical evacuation 

network. Because of allied security breaches, the North Vietnamese 

learned many details of the Lam Son 719 plan and intensified their 

preparations.

By the time the South Vietnamese crossed the Laotian border on 

8 February, the North Vietnamese, by their own account, had massed 

some 60,000 troops on what they called the “Route 9–Southern Laos 

A 175-mm. self-propelled gun fires at enemy targets

in Laos during Operation Lam Son 719.
331

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

front,” about double the strength of the South Vietnamese attack force

and well above what allied commanders had expected. Waiting for 

General Lam’s troops were five divisions, two separate infantry regiments, eight artillery regiments, three engineer regiments, three tank 

battalions, six antiaircraft regiments, and eight sapper battalions, plus 

logistic and transportation units. North Vietnamese historians called 

this “our army’s greatest concentration of combined-arms forces . . . up 

to that point.” In and within easy reach of the battle area, Group 559

had stockpiled supplies sufficient to support the force in combat for as 

long as four or five months.

The North Vietnamese had massed this combat power for more 

than simple defense of their vital supply route. The leaders in Hanoi 

saw an opportunity to fight a battle of annihilation on advantageous 

terms, destroy some of Saigon’s best units, and thoroughly disrupt and 

discredit Vietnamization. Indicating the importance Hanoi assigned 

to the campaign, Col. Gen. Van Tien Dung, deputy chairman of the 

Politburo’s Central Military Party Committee and chief of the General 

Staff, journeyed to the front to oversee operations. In a prebattle address 

to the troops, the Communist Party Central Committee declared: “The 

coming engagement will be a strategically decisive battle. We will 

fight not only to retain control of the strategic transportation corridor, but also to annihilate a number of units of the enemy’s strategic 

reserve forces, [and] to . . . deal a significant defeat to a portion of their 

‘Vietnamization’ plot. . . .”34

As their search-and-destroy operation turned into a sustained conventional battle, the South Vietnamese soldiers in the main fought 

well; but weaknesses in the South Vietnamese Army leadership and 

command control quickly developed. Without their unit advisers, the 

South Vietnamese had difficulty coordinating their air and artillery 

support. Their division commanders and staffs lacked experience in 

managing a large-scale engagement; indeed the marines and airborne 

had never previously operated as divisions. General Lam, while adequate as a military region commander in low-intensity warfare, was 

beyond his depth when required to fight a corps-size pitched battle. 

Compounding his problems, as the campaign’s difficulties mounted, 

the commanders of the airborne and marine divisions, who as part of 

the national reserve considered themselves responsible directly to the 

Joint General Staff, often ignored Lam’s orders. Adding still further to 

the confusion, President Thieu personally intervened in key tactical 

decisions.35

34

 Enemy preparations and objectives are described in the Military History Institute of Vietnam, 

Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975. Trans. by 

Merle L. Pribbenow (Lawrence, Kans.: University Press of Kansas, 2002), pp. 272–75. 35 The course of combat is described in Hinh, Lam Son 719, ch. 4; and Dale Andrade, “U.S. Army 

Combat Operations in Vietnam, 1968–1973” (Draft MS, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History), chs. 10 and 11. Msg, Abrams MAC 15103 to McCown, 24 Nov 70, Abrams Papers, 

CMH, describes the Vietnamese Marine division headquarters as “strictly administrative” with no 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

332

Faced with unexpectedly severe resistance and losses, the South 

Vietnamese, with Thieu taking the lead, began reshaping the campaign 

in the direction of hesitancy and caution. On 12 February, Thieu visited 

Lam’s headquarters and directed the corps commander to halt his westward advance, which had reached a point about halfway to Tchepone. 

Lam was to shift forces to the flanks to suppress the antiaircraft defenses, 

contain the developing North Vietnamese counterattack, and secure 

the Highway 9 line of communications. Thieu reiterated this guidance 

during a second visit to Lam on the twenty-first. The South Vietnamese 

accordingly halted in place while enemy pressure increased. On the 

northern flank, tank-supported North Vietnamese infantry drove the 

Rangers and airborne division out of four firebases. Overrunning one 

base on 25 February, the enemy captured the commander and staff of 

the airborne division’s 3d Brigade.36

General Abrams had been the principal initiator of the Laos offensive, but once it began he could influence events only through advice 

and assistance to the South Vietnamese. Abrams closely watched the 

progress of the attack. He received daily reports from General Sutherland 

by both message and secure telephone. Abrams and General Weyand 

frequently visited Sutherland’s and Lam’s headquarters. In Saigon, 

Abrams spoke almost daily with General Vien; and he and Ambassador 

Bunker regularly exchanged views with President Thieu. To improve 

the speed and responsiveness of American air and artillery support 

for the operation, Abrams secured the establishment on 1 March of a 

U.S. Joint Coordinating Group at Lam’s advance command post at Khe 

Sanh. Headed by the commander of the U.S. 108th Artillery Group and 

composed of representatives of the 101st Airborne Division, the XXIV 

Corps G–3, and the Seventh Air Force, the group assisted Lam and his 

staff in planning and using all forms of American airpower and fire 

support.37

As the Vietnamese hesitated, Abrams and General Sutherland 

worked to keep Lam Son 719 on its planned track. They reluctantly 

acknowledged the validity of Thieu’s reasons for halting the advance 

on 12 February; but they urged him and Lam to resume the movement 

to Tchepone as soon as possible so as to retain the initiative and be sure 

of cutting the enemy’s main supply routes, which ran to the west of 

the town. Abrams repeatedly urged upon Thieu and Vien the military 

and psychological importance of keeping their troops in Laos through 

the end of the rainy season, and he pointed out that the battle offered 

an unprecedented opportunity to destroy major enemy forces and 

capability to control tactical operations in the field. 36 Msgs, Abrams MAC 01554 to Sutherland, 13 Feb 71; Sutherland DNG 0443 to Abrams, 14 Feb 

71. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. Andrade, “Combat Operations, 1968–1973,” ch. 11, pp. 11–32. 37 Msg, Abrams MAC 02193 to Davison and Sutherland, 2 Mar 71, Abrams Papers, CMH; 

Sutherland Interv, n.d., pp. 26, 30. Coordinating group: Msgs, Abrams MAC 02079 to Sutherland, 

27 Feb 71; Sutherland QTR 0172 to Abrams, 28 Feb 71. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. Hinh, Lam 

Son 719, pp. 147–48.
333

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

gain a decisive victory. On 6 March, Abrams suggested to General Vien 

that he reinforce the attack with elements of the South Vietnamese 

2d Division from southern Military Region 1, where U.S. troops of the 

Americal Division were available to take over the South Vietnamese 2d 

Division’s territorial security responsibilities.38

By the time Abrams made this suggestion, the South Vietnamese 

had had enough. Their troops had been engaged in nearly a month 

of continuous hard combat, and their army lacked a system for rapidly replacing losses or rotating units. In early March, President Thieu, 

apprehensive of the political effect within South Vietnam of heavy 

casualties and fearing that his elite marine and airborne forces might 

be surrounded and destroyed, decided to cut Lam Son 719 short. Two 

battalions of the South Vietnamese 1st Division air assaulted into the 

abandoned ruins of Tchepone for a symbolic three-day occupation. 

That accomplished, Thieu, Vien, and Lam on 9 March agreed to begin 

pulling out of Laos within the next ten days. They told Abrams that 

their forces, after rest and refitting in South Vietnam, would attack into 

the A Shau Valley and Base Area 611. Informed of this decision, Abrams 

urged General Vien to hold on in Laos for at least another month and 

again suggested reinforcing with the South Vietnamese 2d Division. 

Vien declared that the Vietnamese would do so only if Abrams would 

send American brigades into Laos, to which Abrams could only respond 

that “under no circumstances would U.S. ground forces be inserted in 

Laos.”39

The South Vietnamese withdrawal began with a pullout from 

Tchepone on 11 March and then rapidly accelerated. Rather than 

coming out to the southeastward through Base Area 611, as contemplated in the original plan, the South Vietnamese Army fell back along 

the axis of Highway 9. Their withdrawal was well planned in General 

Sutherland’s estimation but poorly executed due in no small part to 

General Lam’s deteriorating relationship with the airborne and marine 

division commanders. Under North Vietnamese attack on both their 

northern and southern flanks, the South Vietnamese units managed 

to extricate themselves from the battle, but at a high cost in men and 

equipment. The armored brigade, particularly hard hit, lost more than 

half its tanks and armored personnel carriers during its retreat along 

the highway. By 25 March, all the South Vietnamese troops had left 

38 Msgs, Abrams MAC 01554 to Sutherland, 13 Feb 71; Sutherland DNG 0443 to Abrams, 14 

Feb 71; Abrams MAC 02372 to Sutherland info Moorer et al., 6 Mar 71; Sutherland QTR 0251 

to Abrams, 6 Mar 71; Lt Gen Donn J. Robertson, USMC, QTR 0287 to Abrams, 8 Mar 71. All in 

Abrams Papers, CMH. Msg, Abrams SPECAT to Moorer and McCain, 16 Feb 71, box 084, NSC 

files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 39 Msgs, Robertson QTR 0282 to Abrams, 8 Mar 71; Abrams MAC 02455 to Sutherland, 9 Mar 

71. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. Quotation is from the latter message. Secretary Laird claimed 

that Thieu had told him in January that the operation would only last five to eight weeks and that 

Thieu was simply following his own original timetable. See Odeen, MFR, Odeen, 25 Mar 71, sub: 

Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, folder 77, Thayer Papers, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

334

Laos, ending Lam Son 719. The follow-up operations of which Thieu 

and Vien had spoken did not materialize.40

As these events unfolded, the White House bombarded General 

Abrams with increasingly urgent requests for assessments of how Lam

Son 719 was going. Abrams and Ambassador Bunker responded with 

daily messages, and Abrams conferred frequently by telephone with 

Admiral Moorer. Throughout their reporting, the Ambassador and 

the MACV commander maintained an optimistic tone. They took the 

position that, while unexpected developments had forced changes in 

movements and time schedules, Lam Son 719 was achieving its purpose 

of blocking the Ho Chi Minh Trail and destroying enemy forces and 

supplies. Typically, Abrams admitted on 16 February that the operation 

was “proceeding to the west more slowly than planned” because of 

heavy antiaircraft fire, poor flying weather, difficulty resupplying the 

base at Khe Sanh, and the fact that the enemy “has reinforced faster 

and is stronger north of Route 9 than anticipated.” Nevertheless, he 

promised that the South Vietnamese would reach and block the main 

supply routes west of Tchepone and expressed confidence that “the 

task that was initially laid out will be done.” Abrams gave similar reassurances to Admiral Moorer on 4 March and also declared that General 

Lam was “in good shape––he is tough, determined, careful and his 

spirits are good.” Ambassador Bunker, for his part, in mid-March was 

still “enthusiastic and confident” about the course of the cross-border 

operations in both Laos and Cambodia.41

Nixon and Kissinger were not reassured. They had been led to 

expect that the South Vietnamese would move rapidly to Tchepone 

and remain in Laos through most of the dry season. When the operation deviated from those expectations, and when the press, with what 

the administration considered almost treasonable relish, began portraying Lam Son 719 as an outright South Vietnamese defeat, Nixon’s 

and Kissinger’s consternation and anger mounted daily. The South 

Vietnamese failure to reach Tchepone early and stay there in force was 

especially galling, since intelligence reports indicated that the enemy 

had shifted his main supply effort to routes west of that town and that 

materiel was continuing to flow southward even as the fighting raged. 

Thieu’s decision to cut the operation short also disappointed Nixon 

and Kissinger, who vainly urged Bunker and Abrams to secure its rever-

40

 The operations are summarized in Hinh, Lam Son 719, ch. 5; and in Andrade, “Combat 

Operations, 1968–1973,” ch. 12, pp. 1–30. Sutherland’s evaluation is in Msg, Sutherland QTR 0521 

to Abrams, 25 Mar 71, Abrams Papers, CMH. 41 Abrams quotations are from Msg, Abrams SPECAT to Moorer and McCain, 16 Feb 71, and 

Memo, Kissinger for the President, 4 Mar 71, sub: Situation Report from General Abrams. Both in 

box 084, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Bunker is quoted in Msg, Haig to Kissinger, 16 Mar 71, 

box 1013, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msg, Moorer SPECAT to McCain and Abrams, 13 Feb 

71, box 080, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA, is an example of administration demands for information and assessments.
335

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

sal. “We never would have approved the plan,” Kissinger complained, 

“if we thought they were only going to stay for a short time.”42

Although Abrams and Bunker sent regular assessments, and Kissinger 

was briefed daily by an officer from the Joint Staff, the president and 

his national security adviser became convinced that they were receiving late, incomplete, inaccurate information on what was happening 

in Lam Son 719. Administration statements to the press based on this 

information repeatedly were contradicted by events, increasing the 

skepticism of the news media. Seeking more reliable data, Kissinger sent 

General Haig to Vietnam in mid-March to evaluate the operation. Haig 

reported that MACV had “badly underestimated” the enemy’s ability 

and willingness to reinforce and fight in the Lam Son 719 area, but he 

also stated that the South Vietnamese had accomplished as much as 

could be expected and that the operation should be closed out as soon 

as possible.43

For the allies, Lam Son 719 was costly in men and materiel. Out of 

about 17,000 South Vietnamese troops committed, more than 1,700 

were killed, over 6,600 wounded, and about 680 missing or captured. 

Materiel losses included 96 artillery pieces, 54 tanks, 87 combat vehicles, and quantities of small arms, radios, trucks, and other equipment, 

much of it abandoned during the withdrawal. Of the major South 

Vietnamese units engaged, U.S. advisers rated the armored brigade 

ineffective for combat after the incursion. They considered the Ranger 

group and airborne division marginally effective, while the 1st Division 

and the marine division came out of Laos still in condition to fight. 

American casualties in the campaign amounted to 215 killed, 1,100 

wounded, and 38 missing. The Army reported 82 helicopters destroyed 

in Laos and more than 600 damaged and recovered, but these statistics 

obscured the fact that at several points during Lam Son 719 the number 

of flyable helicopters was barely adequate to support South Vietnamese 

operations. The U.S. Air Force lost seven tactical aircraft.44

42

 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 1003–08, recounts the growing concern in the White House. 

The quotation is from Memo, [sub:] Briefing of Dr Kissinger by Lt Col Martin on 11 Mar 71, box 433, 

NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Memo, Holdridge for Kissinger, 16 Feb 71, sub: North Vietnamese 

Effort to Shift Logistical Effort Westward in Lao Panhandle, box 153; Msgs, Kissinger to Bunker 

via CAS Backchannel, 9 Mar 71, and Kissinger WHS 1018 to Haig, 17 Mar 71, box 084. All in NSC 

files, Nixon Papers, NARA. The latter two messages reflect the president’s desire that the South 

Vietnamese remain in Laos as long as possible. 43

 Memo, Howe for Kissinger, 24 Mar 71, sub: White House View of Laotian Planning (February 

8–March 20), box 1077, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA, concludes that the president did not receive timely information on the many changes in the operation. See also Stephen E. Ambrose, ed., 

The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (New York: Putnam, 1994), pp. 250, 256. 

Quotation is from Memo, Haig for Kissinger, 21 Mar 71, sub: Lam Son 719, box 085, NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA. Haig endorsed an early closeout in the latter memo and expressed the same 

view to the II Field Force commander. See Msg, Davison HOA 0552 to Abrams, 19 Mar 71, Abrams 

Papers, CMH. 44 Allied losses are summarized in Hinh, Lam Son 719, pp. 127–36. Adviser assessments are 

recounted in Msg, Weyand SPECAT to McCain, 13 Apr 71, sub: Lam Son 719 Final Report and 

Assessment, box 080, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

336

Over against these costs, Generals Abrams, Weyand, and Sutherland, 

as well as Ambassador Bunker and Admiral McCain, counted many 

gains. The North Vietnamese, according to allied estimates, had lost at 

least 13,000 dead, most of them from first-line combat units or essential logistical organizations, as well as 88 tanks, 2,000 other vehicles, 

possibly half their antiaircraft guns, thousands of individual and crewserved weapons, and hundreds of tons of ammunition, rice, and petroleum products. Of thirty-three enemy infantry battalions engaged, the 

American commanders claimed that at least sixteen had been rendered 

ineffective for combat. Although they acknowledged failure to completely block the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the commanders insisted that 

they had drastically reduced the flow of North Vietnamese supplies 

through the operation area, if only by forcing the enemy to consume 

them in the fighting. Thereby, they had ensured lean logistical times 

for North Vietnamese and Viet Cong units in Cambodia and lower 

South Vietnam.45

Even more important in the view of Abrams, Weyand, and 

Sutherland, Lam Son 719 had forestalled any major enemy offensive 

in Military Region 1 during the rest of 1971. It had forced the North 

Vietnamese to remove at least one division from South Vietnam and 

caused them to use up the corps-size force that had threatened to 

invade Military Region 1. As Weyand put it, “In 1971, RVNAF units 

fought in Laos against elements of the same enemy divisions that 

allied forces drove out of Hue and Da Nang during Tet [1968].” As to 

Vietnamization, the commanders acknowledged South Vietnamese 

deficiencies in command control, fire-support coordination, and communications security, as well as the disappointing combat performance 

of the armored brigade. Nevertheless, they concluded that the South 

Vietnamese, fighting without American advisers on the ground, had 

acquitted themselves creditably, both in combat and in logistical support, in the largest, most complex, and most heavily opposed operation they had yet attempted. In MACV’s view then, Lam Son 719, while 

not a complete success, had achieved its minimum objectives and had 

been as well an encouraging demonstration of the South Vietnamese 

progress toward the ability to stand on its own.46

Defense Secretary Laird, who early had endorsed Lam Son 719, 

accepted the military view of its results, although with some reserva-

45

 Enemy losses are tabulated in Hinh, Lam Son 719, pp. 128, 131–32; and Msg, Weyand SPECAT 

to McCain, 13 Apr 71, sub: Lam Son 719 Final Report and Assessment, box 080, NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA. Abrams estimates enemy battalion losses in Msg to McCain and Moorer, 22 Mar 71, 

attached to Memo, Kissinger for the President, 22 Mar 71, sub: Assessment by General Abrams, box 

978, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 46

 Quotation is from Msg, Weyand SPECAT to McCain, 13 Apr 71, sub: Lam Son 719 Final 

Report and Assessment, box 080; Memo, Kissinger for the President, 22 Mar 71, sub: Assessment by 

General Abrams, box 978. Both in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, Sutherland QTR 0443 to 

Abrams, 21 Mar 71, and Sutherland QTR 0446 to Abrams, 21 Mar 71. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. 

Sutherland in retrospect was less expansive; see Sutherland Interv, n.d., pp. 32–34. 
337

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

tions. Unlike Nixon and Kissinger, Laird was not disappointed by the 

reduced duration of the operation. He claimed that when he conferred 

with President Thieu during his January visit to Saigon, Thieu had predicted that the incursion would last no more than five to eight weeks; 

hence, Lam Son 719 in fact had ended about on schedule. Laird believed 

that Lam Son 719 would “prove to be a success, after a period of several 

months” because the North Vietnamese “had taken heavy casualties 

and their logistics flow had been hampered.” Nevertheless, “it may 

be some time before the impact will be clear.” In the meantime, Laird 

was concerned that the adverse media coverage would create a “bad 

image” of the South Vietnamese Army among the American people. 

Later, he expressed annoyance at the apparent casualness of the South 

Vietnamese in abandoning expensive equipment that the United States 

had to replace out of dwindling resources, characterizing that aspect of 

the operation as a “fiasco.”47

Publicly, the Nixon administration echoed the Military Assistance 

Command’s assertions that Lam Son 719 had set back the enemy’s 

timetable and inflicted major damage upon his forces and supply network. Administration spokesmen castigated the press and the television networks for their negative reporting of the offensive. Privately, 

Nixon and Kissinger were less sanguine. They concluded that, while 

the operation had achieved useful results, it had not been as decisive 

as it should have been and probably had not been worth the domestic political controversy it had stirred up. They also concluded that 

they had been “misled by Abrams on the original evaluation of what 

might be accomplished.” According to the president’s chief of staff, 

H. R. Haldeman, on 23 March Nixon and Kissinger decided that “they 

should pull Abrams out” but then relented after the president “made 

the point that this is the end of the military operations anyway, so 

what difference does it make.” Abrams thus retained his command, but 

he no longer enjoyed the president’s full confidence.48

Admiral Moorer’s confidence in Abrams also was shaken. The Joint 

Chiefs of Staff chairman had faithfully transmitted Abrams’ optimistic 

assessments of the progress of Lam Son 719 to Nixon and Kissinger, and 

he had borne the brunt of their angry questions when events belied 

the assessments. As time went on, he concluded that Abrams and the 

47

 Quotations are from MFR, Odeen, 25 Mar 71, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary 

Laird; see also memos of 9 Mar 71 and 15 Jun 71. All in folder 77, Thayer Papers, CMH. Laird, like 

other administration officials, tried to correct what they considered erroneous news coverage. See 

Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, p. 485. 48

 The administration’s public response is described in Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–

1973, pp. 479–92. Examples of internal assessments are Memo, Kissinger for the President, 22 Mar 

71, sub: Implications of the Laos Operation for South and North Vietnam and for the U.S., box 549; 

and MFR of Meeting at Western White House, 1 Apr 71, box 153. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA. Quotations are from Ambrose, ed., Haldeman Diaries, p. 259. Abrams continued to have 

Laird’s full support. See MFR, Odeen, 15 Jun 71, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, 

folder 77, Thayer Papers, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

338

other Army generals who had planned the operation and sold it to 

the administration had misled him on critical aspects. In retrospect, 

Moorer declared that he was “appalled” that his field commanders, 

who included “two full generals and four [lieutenant generals],” had 

given him no reason to believe that General Lam might not be able to 

“hack it.” If Abrams and his subordinates had accurately appraised the 

“limited” competence of Lam and the South Vietnamese in Military 

Region 1 to conduct such an ambitious offensive, “they never should 

have let this operation be approved.” In the crises to come, Moorer 

would receive Abrams’ reports at less than face value, and he would 

seek alternative appraisals of the situation from other officers.49

The South Vietnamese Army’s Cambodian offensive, code-named 

Toan Thang 01/71, also produced mixed results. The operation started 

well on 4 February. Soon after it began, however, General Tri, the capable 

III Corps commander, was killed in a helicopter crash. His replacement, 

Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van Minh, while he received positive initial evaluations from Generals Abrams and Davison, failed to keep up the offensive’s momentum. His forces, like Lam’s, moved slowly and cautiously 

and gradually surrendered the initiative to the enemy. Nevertheless, the 

South Vietnamese stayed in the field through May, suffering a gradual 

decline in unit strengths and morale due to the same deficient replacement system and inability to rotate units that hampered the northern 

operation. General Abrams found encouraging the fact that, in contrast 

to Lam Son 719, in Toan Thang 01/71 the South Vietnamese Air Force 

provided the bulk of both combat and logistical support for the offensive, requiring supplementation only by U.S. air cavalry troops and 

B–52s. This relative self-sufficiency was possible because in Cambodia 

the attack force largely could move and supply itself by road.50

The North Vietnamese, although they did not react on the scale 

that they did in Laos, harassed the South Vietnamese task forces with 

frequent small ambushes and mortar and rocket bombardments; and 

they launched occasional battalion and regimental-size counterattacks. Most of these failed with what the South Vietnamese claimed 

were heavy enemy losses. Late in May, however, in the campaign’s 

most severe action, the North Vietnamese routed a task force of the 

South Vietnamese 5th Division near Snuol in a battle that rendered 

that division combat ineffective in the estimation of its American 

49

 Walter S. Poole, “Lam Son 719: The ‘Moment of Truth’ ” (Draft Paper, Washington, D.C.: 

Joint History Office, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2001), pp. 28–29. 50 The course of the operation is summarized in MACV History, 1971, vol. 2, an. E, pp. 5–11. 

General Tri’s death is reported in Msg, Bunker Saigon 172 to Kissinger, 23 Feb 71, box 412, NSC 

files, Nixon Papers, NARA. For evaluation of Minh, see Msg, Davison HOA 0347 to Abrams, 24 

Feb 71, Abrams Papers, CMH. Also Msgs, Davison HOA 0568 to Abrams, 21 Mar 71; HOA 0648 

to Abrams, 1 Apr 71; HOA 0761 to Abrams, 15 Apr 71; HOA 1046 to Abrams, 24 May 71. All in 

Abrams Papers, CMH. The South Vietnamese Air Force role is discussed in Msg, Abrams to McCain 

info Moorer, 22 Mar 71, attached to Memo, Kissinger for the President, 22 Mar 71, sub: Assessment 

by General Abrams, box 978, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.
339

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

advisers. When Toan Thang 01/71 ended early in June, Maj. Gen. 

Jack J. Wagstaff, Davison’s replacement as senior U.S. adviser to III 

Corps/Military Region 3, declared that it had failed to attain two of its 

objectives––stopping enemy supply movement across Highway 7 and 

cleaning out the caches around the Chup Plantation––but had accomplished the third, keeping three Viet Cong divisions out of Military 

Region 3 during the dry season and inflicting significant casualties 

upon them.51

The 1971 dry season offensives revealed both American and South 

Vietnamese deficiencies in planning and execution. In Lam Son 719, 

senior American and South Vietnamese commanders did not anticipate 

the rapidity and violence of the North Vietnamese response and were 

caught off balance when the enemy engaged allied forces in a sustained 

combined arms battle. Although many South Vietnamese units fought 

hard, the South Vietnamese Army suffered from command failures, 

performed with uneven effectiveness under attack by armor and artillery, and in some instances fell into panic and confusion during the 

withdrawal from Tchepone and the battle of Snuol. For the American 

public, the defining image of Lam Son 719 was that of desperate South 

Vietnamese soldiers clinging to the skids of evacuation helicopters. 

South Vietnamese armor and artillery needed strengthening if the 

South Vietnamese were to engage North Vietnamese heavy divisions 

without American air support. Still, the offensives could not be considered a definitive test of Saigon’s military capacity to stand alone. Lam

Son 719 and Toan Thang 01/71 were predicated upon full-scale U.S. 

combat and logistical support; no one expected the South Vietnamese 

Army on its own to conduct cross-border offensives on that scale. The 

jury thus was still out on the ultimate results of Vietnamization.

General Abrams chose to play down these negatives and ambiguities. 

Instead, he claimed overall success for the two dry season offensives. 

Acknowledging that “disappointments and failures” had occurred in 

both, he nevertheless asserted that the operations had “gone well militarily” and produced “the maximum practical benefits.” He noted that 

the South Vietnamese had planned and executed two simultaneous 

multidivision offensives, without accompanying American advisers, 

and “in the main” achieved their goals. This fact, he said, “speaks for 

the success of the Vietnamization program.” Most important, Abrams 

believed that the operations had forestalled enemy offensives in both 

South Vietnam and Cambodia and thus helped keep Vietnamization 

and pacification on schedule. The low level of combat within South 

Vietnam throughout 1971 appeared to validate his claim.52

51

 Msgs, Wagstaff HOA 1069 to Abrams, 27 May 71; Wagstaff HOA 1089 to Abrams, 31 May 71; 

Wagstaff HOA 1093 to Abrams, 31 May 71; Wagstaff HOA 1135 to Abrams, 7 Jun 71. All in Abrams 

Papers, CMH. Memo, Col Edward F. Astarita for Lt Gen Joseph M. Heiser, Dep CofS Logistics, 

Dept of the Army, 20 Aug 71, sub: Information on Future Redeployments beyond Dec 71 . . . , in 

Notebook, Briefing of Future Redeployments beyond Dec 71, MACV files, MHI. 52 Quotations are from Memo, Kissinger for the President, 22 Mar 71, sub: Assessment by General 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

340

Cross-Border Operations Continue

After the dry season offensives, the fighting outside South Vietnam’s 

borders settled back into its established patterns. The North Vietnamese 

and their allies continued to wage war in Laos and Cambodia in order 

to control vital base areas and lines of communication and gain political power. Maintaining the threat of a large-scale offensive in northern 

Military Region 1, the North Vietnamese moved additional SAM batteries into their southernmost provinces and built up forces and supplies 

just above the Demilitarized Zone and in Laos. In response, MACV 

kept up its air campaigns over Laos and North Vietnam and supported 

South Vietnamese and Khmer ground forces fighting in Cambodia.53

In southern Laos, MACV and the Seventh Air Force completed 

Commando Hunt V on 30 April 1971 and followed it with Commando

Hunts VI and VII. The former covered the summer rainy season in Laos 

and the latter, which began in November, was aimed at disrupting the 

enemy’s 1971–72 dry season supply effort. As part of the Vietnamization 

program, the Vietnamese Air Force began flying interdiction missions 

in the far southern panhandle. In conjunction with the air campaigns, 

the Studies and Observations Group continued Prairie Fire operations. 

These incursions received a new code-name, Phu Dung, during the year 

to denote the fact that, after Lam Son 719, at the direction of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, no Americans accompanied the reconnaissance teams 

and reaction forces into Laos. However, MACV continued to furnish 

fixed-wing and helicopter air support to the teams.54

To the north, the ebb and flow of battle continued around the Plain 

of Jars. The U.S. Embassy in Vientiane regularly requested tactical air 

and B–52 support, and MACV furnished it. During July and August 

alone, Vientiane asked for nineteen B–52 strikes in aid of Vang Pao’s 

army. MACV concurred in fourteen of the requests but turned down 

the other five because it did not consider the targets lucrative enough 

to warrant diverting aircraft from more important missions. Admiral 

McCain and the Joint Chiefs seconded the MACV recommendations, 

and Secretary Laird regularly approved them. As 1971 came to an end, 

the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao again were pushing the Meo 

back; and Ambassador Godley was calling for bombers to stop them.55

Abrams, box 978, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 53 Enemy strategy is assessed in MACV J–3–06 Command Briefing, 28 Nov 71, MACV files, 

MHI. 54Commando Hunt operations are summarized in MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 6, pp. 31–33. 

The change from Prairie Fire to Phu Dung is described in MACV History, 1971–72, an. B, pp. 23–26. 

In the same period, the Salem House program, which had used only indigenous personnel on the 

ground since 1 July 1970, was renamed Thot Not; ibid., pp. 18–22. South Vietnamese Air Force interdiction operations are discussed in Msgs, Godley Vientiane 09044 to Sec State, 13 Dec 71; and Rogers 

State 226081 to Embassy Vientiane, 16 Dec 71. Both in box 549, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 55 MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 6, pp. 27–28. Msgs, Deputy Chief of Mission Stearns LAO 

413 to Abrams info McCain et al., 16 May 71; Godley LAO 0989 to Abrams info Moorer et al., 

18 Dec 71; Godley LAO 0998 to Abrams, 19 Dec 71; Godley LAO 1004 to Abrams info Moorer 
341

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

In Cambodia, the South Vietnamese continued their cross-border 

operations, although on a reduced scale, throughout the summer 

and fall. Their troops helped Khmer forces keep open their Mekong 

River supply line to Phnom Penh, sought to prevent the North 

Vietnamese from reestablishing their border bases, and attempted to 

tie down enemy divisions that threatened Military Region 3. MACV 

supported its South Vietnamese and Cambodian allies with tactical 

airpower and B–52s, which ranged throughout the Khmer Republic; 

and it provided helicopter assistance to the South Vietnamese when 

necessary to supplement the resources of the South Vietnamese Air 

Force.56 

In April, General Abrams, taking advantage of the experience of 

Lam Son 719, set up an ad hoc group of MACV staff officers and representatives of XXIV Corps and the field forces to study ways to improve 

American air and artillery support for South Vietnamese units engaged 

in cross-border operations or other “high intensity contacts” requiring “timely, concentrated assistance.” On the basis of this study, each 

U.S. corps area command organized a joint support group patterned on 

the one XXIV Corps had established during the Tchepone offensive. 

Working closely with the South Vietnamese corps and division staffs, 

these groups helped the South Vietnamese use U.S. tactical aircraft, 

B–52s, helicopter gunships, and artillery fire to the best advantage in 

engagements. In the view of the corps senior advisers, they both ensured 

more rapid American response to South Vietnamese fire requests and 

brought about improvements in South Vietnamese management of 

their own and American supporting arms. During heavy fighting along 

Highway 7 in Cambodia in September and October, one of these coordination groups helped the South Vietnamese win a substantial victory 

that at least partially avenged the South Vietnamese Army’s earlier rout 

at Snuol.57

Throughout 1971, General Abrams and Admiral McCain, supported 

by the Joint Chiefs, pressed their campaign for authority to make preemptive attacks on the SAM batteries, airfields, and fighter direction 

centers of the enemy’s expanding air defense complex in southern 

North Vietnam. They insisted that the increasing number of missile firings at American aircraft over Laos, as well as the aggressiveness of the 

et al., 21 Dec 71; Lavelle to Abrams, 2 Jan 72. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Memo, Welander for 

Haig, 2 Sep 71, sub: Arc light Support of Vang Pao’s Operations, box 549, NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA. 56 Msgs, Wagstaff HOA 1196 to Abrams, 19 Jun 71; Wagstaff HOA 1209 to Abrams, 21 Jun 71; 

Wagstaff HOA 1819 to Abrams, 13 Sep 71; Abrams MAC 10910 to John P. Vann, 18 Nov 71; Abrams 

MAC 10924 to Swank, 18 Nov 71. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Air operations are summarized in 

MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 6, pp. 23–27. 57 Memo, Dolvin for Deputy Asst CofS J–3 MACV, 22 Apr 71, sub: LOI to Chairman, Support 

Coordination Project Group, in folder, same sub, MACV files, MHI; Msg, Abrams MAC 03942 

to Component and Field Force Cdrs, 18 Apr 71; Msg, McCown CTO 0433 to Abrams, 21 Apr 71; 

Wagstaff HOA 1209 to Abrams, 21 Jun 71; Dolvin DNG 1904 to Abrams, 6 Jul 71. All in Abrams 

Papers, CMH. The autumn battles are described in MACV History, 1971, vol. 2, an. E, p. 11. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

342

enemy’s MiG jet fighters, which twice tried unsuccessfully to intercept 

B–52s, must be countered by a systematic air offensive. Just as consistently, Secretary Laird rejected their requests. He claimed that existing 

retaliatory authorities were sufficient to protect American aircraft and 

that escalation would have undesirable political consequences. Laird 

did not object, however, when Abrams in August construed “protective reaction” as permitting attacks on any portion of a missile defense 

complex that fired on American planes rather than simply the offending battery.58

After the end of Lam Son 719, the North Vietnamese assembled 

troops, artillery, and supplies above the Demilitarized Zone and in Laos. 

They also began moving men and materiel through the Demilitarized 

Zone for attacks on South Vietnamese positions in northern Military 

Region 1. Under the established rules of engagement, General Abrams 

could respond to this threat only with squad-size patrols, artillery fire, 

and air strikes in the southern half of the zone––a response he considered inadequate. Accordingly, during the summer, Abrams, McCain, 

and the Joint Chiefs sought permission for MACV to conduct tactical 

air and B–52 strikes against air defense and logistical targets throughout the Demilitarized Zone and in the southernmost part of North 

Vietnam, either on a regular basis or in a more limited three- to tenday campaign. Laird responded as he had on the protective reaction 

issue. He declared that MACV’s existing authorities were adequate to 

safeguard American and South Vietnamese forces and that the enemy 

threat had not increased sufficiently to justify incurring the political 

costs of further escalation. Laird also reminded his field commanders 

that “the key to the military situation in the Republic of Vietnam” was 

“the complex of will, desire, and determination of the South Vietnamese 

people,” not expanded air operations in North Vietnam.59

While the administration thus withheld any permanent enlargement of COMUSMACV’s and CINCPAC’s authority to strike the north, 

it continued the pattern of occasional preplanned two- to four-day 

raids against North Vietnamese air defenses and supply facilities under 

the “protective reaction” rubric. Since the attacks were concentrated in 

southern North Vietnam, MACV and Seventh Air Force planned and 

directed them. The first two of these operations—Louisville Slugger

on 20, 21, and 28 February, and Fracture Cross Alpha on 21 and 22 

58 Thompson, “Rolling Thunder to Linebacker,” ch. 8, pp. 5–6, 12. Memo, Kissinger for the 

President, 27 Feb 71, sub: Strikes in North Vietnam, box 153, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 

Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pt. 1, pp. 254–71. 59 Memos, Moorer CM–995–71 for the Sec Def, 23 Jun 71, sub: Actions which Could Reduce the 

Risks to MRs 1 and 2 . . . ; Moorer CM 1012–71 for the Sec Def, 27 Jun 71, sub: DMZ Authorities; 

Laird for the CJCS, 29 Jun 71, sub: Actions which Would Reduce the Risks to MRs 1 and 2 . . . 

(quotation is from this memo); Laird for the CJCS, 1 Jul 71, sub: DMZ Authorities; Moorer CM 

1060–71 for the Sec Def, 19 Jul 71, sub: Air Campaign, DMZ North; Laird for the CJCS, 24 Jul 71, 

sub: Bombing Campaign, DMZ North; and Haig for Kissinger, 28 Jul 71, sub: Air Campaign against 

North Vietnam. All in box 155, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.
343

Across the Borders: Laos and North Vietnam

March––actually were enlarged protective reaction strikes at SAM batteries and supporting facilities, timed to coincide with Lam Son 719. 

After the summer rainy season in Laos, which reduced both U.S. air 

activity and enemy harassment, Nixon sent the bombers north against 

a wider range of targets. In Prize Bull, on 21 September, the Seventh Air 

Force concentrated entirely on three petroleum storage areas. Finally, 

in Proud Deep Alpha, the largest raid on North Vietnam since 1968, Air 

Force and Navy planes flew more than 1,000 sorties between 26 and 30 

December, against airfields, oil tank farms, barracks, and transportation 

networks, some no more than 120 kilometers from Hanoi. To minimize 

domestic protest, Nixon timed this raid to take place after Congress 

adjourned and during the university Christmas vacation season, when 

the campuses would be deserted.60

From the viewpoint of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, 

three years of cross-border operations kept the enemy at bay and won 

time in South Vietnam for Vietnamization and pacification to run their 

course. The change of government in Cambodia, and South Vietnamese 

operations there, cut an important North Vietnamese supply line and 

diverted enemy divisions that otherwise would have threatened Saigon 

and the Mekong Delta. In Laos, air and ground interdiction reduced 

the flow of men and supplies down the Ho Chi Minh Trail and possibly 

forestalled a major North Vietnamese offensive in Military Region 1. In 

northern Laos, MACV’s airpower was instrumental in keeping the nonCommunist forces in being. Although General Abrams did not obtain 

the attack authority he wanted in the Demilitarized Zone and southern 

North Vietnam, the Nixon administration was cautiously escalating 

the northern air war along the lines Abrams advocated. 

As 1971 came to an end, the overall effectiveness of the cross-border 

campaigns in weakening the enemy seemed likely soon to be put to the 

test. The heavy December bombing was only one indication that events 

in Southeast Asia might be approaching a climax. With the North 

Vietnamese preparing for a new offensive, with the Nixon administration engaged in complex diplomatic maneuvers with the Russians and 

Chinese as well as secret talks with Hanoi’s representatives at Paris, 

with a U.S. presidential election in the offing, and with the American 

military withdrawal from South Vietnam nearing completion, the year 

1972 held the likelihood of decisive developments on all of the war’s 

multiple military and political fronts.

60 Strikes are summarized in MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 6, pp. 33–34, and Thompson, 

“Rolling Thunder to Linebacker,” ch. 8, pp. 7–11. Administration political considerations are illustrated in Memos, Kissinger for the President, 10 Dec 71, sub: Your Meeting with Deputy Secretary 

of Defense Packard and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff . . . ; and Kissinger for the President, 

n.d., sub: Strikes against North Vietnam. Both in box 123, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msg, 

Abrams MAC 09104 to McCain, 21 Sep 71, Abrams Papers, CMH, emphasizes Abrams’ command 

role in the raids.

11

The Easter Offensive

During 1972, the Vietnam War reached a military and diplomatic climax. The North Vietnamese launched a massive main force 

offensive against South Vietnam. In response, President Nixon threw 

American air and naval power into the battle to defend his ally even as 

he continued U.S. troop withdrawals. Seizing the opportunity to force 

a diplomatic end game, Nixon renewed the bombing of North Vietnam 

with unprecedented intensity and mined North Vietnamese harbors. 

Simultaneously, he pursued the secret Paris negotiations and engaged 

in new initiatives with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of 

China. These events and decisions confronted the Military Assistance 

Command, Vietnam, with conflicting demands and challenges. The 

command used its remaining American military assets to influence 

the fighting in South Vietnam and vied for control of the renewed air 

campaign in the north. At the same time, it reorganized itself and continued redeploying American troops. As the enemy offensive played 

itself out, MACV, under a new commander, looked forward to the real 

possibility of a conclusion of the long war.

A War in the Balance

As 1972 began, the outcome of President Nixon’s policies, and indeed 

of the entire American effort in South Vietnam, seemed to be hanging in a delicate balance. In a typical official assessment, Ambassador 

Bunker told Nixon on 26 January: “The consequences of our endeavors for many years in Vietnam will be on trial this year and next.” 

Washington and Saigon, Bunker said, would be “navigating a narrow 

and dangerous strait between the enemy’s still-formidable capabilities 

and the political pressures in the United States.” The administration’s 

major task would be “to stay the course and continue providing the 

essential support that will enable the Vietnamese to survive the coming 

tests.”1



 Msg, Bunker Saigon 1175 to the President, 26 Jan 72, box 158, NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

346

In South Vietnam, the allies’ position appeared to be strong and 

stable, despite the less-than-triumphant outcome of Lam Son 719. 

The level of military activity had remained low throughout 1971. The 

enemy’s main forces, mostly pushed back into their Cambodian and 

Laotian bases, were struggling to repair the logistical damage caused by 

the loss of the Sihanoukville route and the South Vietnamese attack on 

Tchepone. MACV and the mission reported steady South Vietnamese 

progress in pacification, economic stabilization, and political development. American disengagement from the conflict had entered its final 

stage. MACV’s troop strength was down to 139,000 men at the beginning 

of 1972, with additional withdrawals already planned, and American 

ground combat operations had ceased. South Vietnam’s forces had 

replaced the Americans without any noticeable diminution in security. Redeployments seemed to be alleviating the Military Assistance 

Command’s internal difficulties. In February, General Abrams told the 

press that U.S. troop morale in South Vietnam had improved and that 

hard drug use, racial violence, and assaults on officers and noncommissioned officers all were declining in frequency.2

The balance’s delicacy lay in the political and diplomatic situation 

outside South Vietnam. Nixon’s troop withdrawals, by diminishing the 

human and material costs of the war, had won him time and political maneuvering room in the United States; but the steady progress of 

the withdrawals diminished their value as a bargaining counter with 

Hanoi. Although the American antiwar movement had lost some of 

its intensity as U.S. casualties diminished and troops came home, the 

cause remained alive on campuses and in the streets. In Congress, the 

administration had to beat back, by ever narrowing margins, repeated 

attempts to legislate firm deadlines for American disengagement from 

South Vietnam and an end to U.S. military activity in Southeast Asia. 

Despite military setbacks, the North Vietnamese remained inflexible 

in Paris and determined to outlast the United States on the battlefield.

During 1971, for both diplomatic and domestic political reasons, 

the administration offered additional concessions to Hanoi. By the end 

of the year, it had abandoned its long-standing demand that North 

Vietnamese troops withdraw from the South as a condition for an 

armistice. Instead, the administration expressed willingness to set a 

firm date for removal of all remaining American forces in return for 

North Vietnam’s agreement not to reinforce its units already in the 

South. The administration also proposed an in-place cease-fire, to be 

followed by all-party elections under international supervision; and it 

extracted from Thieu a promise that he would resign the presidency 

 Typical assessments are MACV J–3–06 Command Briefing, 28 Nov 71, in folder, same title, 

MACV Collection, MHI; Msg, Bunker Saigon 1175 to the President, 26 Jan 72, and Memo, Odeen 

for Kissinger, 25 Feb 72, sub: Vietnam Control Indicators for 1971, box 158, NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA. Abrams’ comments on morale and discipline are in New York Times, 26 Feb 72, p. 1, 

Newspaper Clippings, Biography, and Miscellaneous box, Abrams Papers, MHI.
347

The Easter Offensive

of South Vietnam a month before the elections. Nixon and Kissinger 

viewed these terms as the maximum that they could offer to North 

Vietnam short of outright abandonment of their Saigon ally. Seeking 

to change the context of the dialogue with Hanoi as well as to create a 

new international constellation of forces, Nixon pursued his diplomatic 

courtship of the People’s Republic of China, which would culminate in 

February 1972 in the president’s visit to Beijing; and he and Kissinger 

prepared for a possible summit meeting in Moscow. With the U.S. presidential election fast approaching, Nixon and Kissinger sought some 

means of forcing a diplomatic settlement before troop withdrawals or 

congressional action deprived them of all their bargaining power.3

The North Vietnamese also confronted strategic problems. Their 

return to protracted small-unit warfare had neither produced significant military gains nor materially hindered the advance of pacification. 

The insurgency in South Vietnam was declining in strength, and the 

upheaval in Cambodia had compounded the Communists’ logistical 

and operational difficulties throughout the theater of war. American 

troop withdrawals were depriving Hanoi of a major source of political 

and diplomatic leverage against the United States as well as strengthening the reelection prospects of President Nixon, North Vietnam’s most 

stubborn adversary. The intensifying hostility between the Soviet Union 

and China, and China’s movement toward a new relationship with 

the United States, threatened North Vietnam’s major foreign sources of 

military and diplomatic support. Clearly, the North Vietnamese needed 

to do something to reverse the unfavorable trends and if possible force 

a settlement before reelection strengthened Nixon’s domestic position. 

Aware of their own and the enemy’s difficulties, American officials 

anticipated that the North Vietnamese would attempt a major military 

offensive sometime in 1972, to discredit Vietnamization and revive 

opposition to the war in the United States. Exemplifying a growing 

official consensus, Ambassador Bunker told Defense Secretary Laird in 

June 1971 that 1972 would be a “very critical year,” featuring a powerful North Vietnamese military effort “in order to influence the U.S. 

election.” For both sides, the established policies seemed to be at the 

point of diminishing returns. The time for new and risky initiatives 

was at hand.4

Bracing for the Blow

American expectations of a large-scale North Vietnamese attack in 

1972 were on the mark. During May and June 1971, the collective 

 The administration’s domestic problems and the development of negotiations are summarized 

in Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 1016–46, 1488–90. 

 Paper [1971], “Assessment of Military Situation in Indochina,” box 1004; CIA Intelligence 

Memorandum, 26 Apr 71, box 154; NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Bunker quotation is from 

Memo, Phil Odeen, 15 Jun 71, sub: Vietnamization Meeting with Secretary Laird, folder 77, Thayer 

Papers, CMH.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

348

leadership in Hanoi decided to launch a general military offensive 

early the following year to “win a decisive victory . . . and force the 

U.S. imperialists to end the war by negotiating from a position of 

defeat.” Reminiscent of 1968, party directives called for a combination 

of main force attacks, intensified guerrilla activity, and urban uprisings. However, in this assault, the North Vietnamese in fact would rely 

primarily on conventional regular divisions using concentrated armor 

and large amounts of heavy artillery. Their objectives were to destroy as 

much of South Vietnam’s army as possible, seize territory, and support 

guerrillas and local forces in rolling back pacification. The enemy anticipated that President Nixon, preoccupied with his reelection campaign, 

would be unable to make a decisive military response. With his South 

Vietnamese allies defeated and Vietnamization discredited, Nixon 

would be compelled to negotiate a settlement on North Vietnam’s 

terms. Late in 1971, after preliminary offensives in the Plain of Jars 

and the Laotian panhandle to secure their lines of communication, the 

North Vietnamese began moving men, tanks, guns, and supplies into 

position for strikes into Military Regions 1, 2, and 3. They committed 

ten of their thirteen army divisions to this all-out military gamble. The 

enemy reinforced his air defenses in southern North Vietnam and Laos 

with surface-to-air missile and antiaircraft gun batteries and shifted his 

MiG jet fighters toward the south. This growing air defense complex 

threatened American aircraft flying missions over Laos, and its reach 

extended over the northern part of Military Region 1.5

 War Experiences Recapitulation Committee, Resistance War, pp. 138–44; quotation is from 

North Vietnamese artillery
349

The Easter Offensive

The Military Assistance Command J–2 and other U.S. intelligence 

agencies quickly picked up evidence of these preparations. They noted 

as well that official North Vietnamese publications and captured documents were calling for a renewed general offensive–general uprising 

in South Vietnam and asserting the necessity for decisive main force 

warfare. By late January 1972, the question for American officials in 

Saigon, Honolulu, and Washington was not whether an enemy offensive would occur but when, where, and on how large a scale. In the 

light of the accumulating indications, General Abrams expected the 

coming offensive to “evolve into the maximum military effort the 

North is capable of making in the next few months.”6

As the offensive threat developed, President Nixon responded 

along a number of lines. While continuing troop redeployments from 

South Vietnam, he began building up American air and naval forces in 

Southeast Asia. He also intensified his diplomatic effort to separate North 

Vietnam from its Chinese and Soviet backers and establish a record of 

U.S. reasonableness and peaceable intentions in contrast to Hanoi’s 

military preparations. Seeking to avoid a repetition of the public relations disaster of 1968, the president and his associates made sure that 

the news media were fully briefed on the expected enemy offensive. 

As one of the principal executors of American policy, General Abrams 

prepared to defend South Vietnam against the coming onslaught while 

simultaneously drawing down and reorganizing his own command.7 

The Military Assistance Command could do little to strengthen 

South Vietnam’s forces beyond continuing the improvement and modernization programs already under way. In the wake of the Laotian 

incursion and after a late-1971 force structure review, MACV and the 

Joint General Staff made some incremental additions to Saigon’s military establishment. These included a new 3d Division and an armor 

battalion with M48 tanks for northern Military Region 1, a substantial increase in fixed-wing gunships, and the establishment of Ranger 

groups and battalions. However, General Abrams continued to turn 

down South Vietnamese requests for large numbers of new tank and 

artillery units. On the basis of recommendations from his corps area 

advisers, Abrams urged President Thieu to replace weak commanders, notably those of the two infantry divisions in Military Region 2. 

Abrams and his regional commanders encouraged and assisted South 

p. 138. Dale Andrade, Trial by Fire: The 1972 Easter Offensive, America’s Last Vietnam Battle

(New York: Hippocrene Books, 1995), pp. 34–42; Msg Abrams SPECAT to Moorer and McCain, 

8 Mar 72, Abrams Microfilm, MHI; MACV History, 1971, vol. 1, ch. 3, pp. 2–3. 

 Quotation is from Msg, Abrams SPECAT to McCain info Moorer, 17 Jan 72, Abrams Microfilm, 

MHI. Msgs, Abrams MAC 0948 to Moorer and McCain, 1 Feb 72; Abrams MAC 1609 to Moorer, 

McCain, et al., 22 Feb 72; Abrams Papers, CMH; CIA Information Report, 24 Jan 72; Memo, Laird 

for the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 26 Jan 72, sub: The Current Situation 

in SVN. All in box 158, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.

 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 1099–1108; Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, 

pp. 534–37.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

350

Vietnamese efforts to shift units to the most threatened areas and supported preemptive attacks on enemy forces and bases. Abrams directed 

his field advisers to prepare their South Vietnamese units to undergo 

heavy artillery bombardment, which most of the South Vietnamese 

Army outside northern Military Region 1 had not previously faced; and 

he directed the advisers to report promptly and accurately to MACV 

on the course of the battle when it began. He rearranged withdrawal 

schedules to retain U.S. combat support units, such as helicopter companies and a 175-mm. gun battalion, to fill in for South Vietnamese 

units programmed but not yet operational. Through White House and 

State Department channels, Abrams tried, with only limited success, to 

persuade the South Koreans to commit elements of their two divisions 

to reinforce the Central Highlands if that became necessary.8

To disrupt enemy offensive preparations, Abrams relied primarily 

on his American airpower. During January and February, the administration augmented MACV’s air force with eighteen F–4 fighter-bombers stationed at Da Nang and in Thailand, dispatched eight additional 

B–52s to Thailand and twenty-nine to Guam, increased the number 

of carriers on station off Vietnam from three to four, and lifted all 

budget-based limits on aircraft sorties. Abrams used these forces in a 

systematic, continuous effort to disrupt North Vietnamese supply lines 

and destroy troop and artillery concentrations. He directed his fighterbombers mainly against the Ho Chi Minh Trail and his B–52s against 

the enemy forces gathering along the Demilitarized Zone and the 

borders. On occasion, he massed the bulk of his air strength for brief 

periods against particular enemy concentrations, for example those 

menacing Kontum and Pleiku in Military Region 2.9

With the support of Ambassador Bunker, Admiral McCain, and 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Abrams renewed his campaign for expanded 

authority to attack targets in the Demilitarized Zone and southern 

North Vietnam. In late January, he requested and the administration 

granted permission to plant sensors throughout the Demilitarized Zone, 

use U.S. fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft to support South Vietnamese 

operations in Laos and Cambodia, and fire antiradar missiles at fighter 

ground control facilities everywhere in North Vietnam outside the 

Hanoi-Haiphong area whenever MiGs were airborne and appeared to 

MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 1, an. C, p. 12; Briefing for Gen Clay, 21 Jan 72, sub: United 

States Redeployment Status, tab D, MAC J–303 Briefing Book no. 4, MACV Collection, MHI. 

Msgs, Abrams MAC 1082 to John P. Vann, 4 Feb 72; Abrams MAC 1156 to Dolvin et al., 7 Feb 72; 

Abrams MAC 1261 to Component and Regional Cdrs, 11 Feb 72. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Msg, 

Bunker Saigon 0011 to Kissinger, 13 Jan 72, box 414, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.

MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 1, an. B, pp. 2–4. Memos, Laird for the Assistant to the President 

for National Security Affairs, 7 Feb 72, sub: Daily Report on Southeast Asia Situation, box 158; Laird 

for the President, 8 Mar 72, sub: Actions Relative to the North Vietnamese Dry Season Offensive; 

box 159. Both in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Msgs, Abrams MAC 0925 to Lavelle et al., 31 Jan 

72; Dolvin DNG 0272 to Abrams, 1 Feb 72. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Msg, Cowles MAC 1114 

to Vann, 6 Feb 72, box V, Abrams Papers, MHI.
351

The Easter Offensive

threaten American aircraft. The administration authorized Abrams to 

conduct tactical air strikes in the upper half of the Demilitarized Zone 

and bomb artillery and rocket sites north of the zone within range 

of friendly forces whenever he determined that the North Vietnamese 

were preparing to attack southward from those areas. It also gave 

him complete freedom to attack airborne MiGs anywhere over North 

Vietnam south of the 18th Parallel once the ground battle began.10

However, until the offensive started, President Nixon, at the recommendation of both Laird and Kissinger, turned down Abrams’ and 

the Joint Chiefs’ requests for general permission to attack enemy air 

defenses, troops, supply dumps, and lines of communication in southern North Vietnam. In rare agreement, Laird and Kissinger argued that 

such attacks would amount to a full-scale resumption of the northern 

bombing campaign. In the absence of an actual attack, such an escalation would stir up political opposition at home and abroad and possibly 

disrupt Nixon’s diplomatic maneuvers with the Chinese and Russians. 

Hence, the administration withheld this authority, although it directed 

the military commands to refine and update their contingency plans 

for bombing North Vietnam. Through informal channels, Laird and 

Moorer also encouraged MACV and the Seventh Air Force to take maximum advantage of the authority, which remained in effect, to conduct 

protective reaction strikes against antiaircraft units in North Vietnam 

that fired on American planes.11

The Seventh Air Force commander, General John D. Lavelle, interpreted the protective reaction rules so liberally as to violate them 

in both letter and spirit. Between November 1971 and early March 

1972, Lavelle’s forces conducted twenty-eight preplanned raids on air 

defense and logistical targets in North Vietnam. Lavelle’s headquarters falsely reported these strikes through channels as responses to 

hostile fire. The general himself informed Abrams that the attacks 

had occurred but not that they were unprovoked. Since the raids took 

place in areas of heavy enemy antiaircraft activity, Abrams claimed 

later, he had no reason to doubt that they were genuine cases of protective reaction. These operations were in addition to the occasional 

raids on the North directed by President Nixon and were minor in 

scale. All told, they amounted to less than 150 sorties compared to the 

10

 Memos, Laird for the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 26 Jan 72, sub: 

The Current Situation in SVN; Nixon for the Sec Def, 1 Feb 72, sub: Vietnam Authorities; Kissinger 

for the President, 8 Feb 72, sub: Secretary Laird’s Daily Report on Southeast Asia Situation; and 

Kissinger for the President, 16 Feb 72, sub: Efforts in Southeast Asia. All in box 158, NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA. 11 Msg, Abrams SPECAT to Moorer and McCain, 8 Mar 72, Abrams Microfilm, MHI. Memo, 

Moorer CM–1625–72 for the Sec Def, 9 Mar 72, sub: Urgent Request for Air Authorities; Memo, 

Laird for the President, 14 Mar 72, sub: Request for Operating Authorities . . . , box 159; Memo, 

Kissinger for the President, 18 Mar 72, sub: Request for Operating Authorities . . . ; Memo, Nixon 

for the Sec Def, 18 Mar 72, box 097. Both in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. On expansive interpretations of protective reaction, see Interv, USAF Oral History Program with Gen John W. Vogt, Jr, 

USAF, 8–9 Aug 78, Office of Air Force History, pp. 156–57 (hereafter cited as Vogt Interv).
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

352

1,000 used in the officially sanctioned Proud Deep Alpha strike 

of December 1971.12

Lavelle’s unauthorized attacks 

came to an end in early March. 

An Air Force enlisted man at the 

base at Udorn, Thailand, who 

was aware of the false reporting, 

wrote to his U.S. senator about 

it. This information, along with 

other indications, prompted the 

Air Force chief of staff, General 

John D. Ryan, to send his inspector general to Vietnam to investigate the allegations of unauthorized bombing. Lavelle and his 

subordinates admitted that they 

had conducted and concealed 

the strikes; but Lavelle insisted 

that higher officials, including 

General Abrams, tacitly had 

approved his breaking of the 

rules. However, when queried by 

Secretary Laird, Abrams denied knowing that the attacks were unprovoked. Lavelle’s freelancing disturbed Laird and Admiral Moorer, who 

feared that if the raids became public knowledge, popular and congressional outrage would make it politically impossible to escalate air operations against the North when the enemy offensive actually started. On 

23 March, after the inspector general reported, Ryan recalled Lavelle to 

Washington for consultations. Subsequently, at Laird’s direction, Ryan 

relieved Lavelle of command for what were described publicly as health 

reasons. Early in April, General John W. Vogt, U.S. Air Force, Director of 

the Joint Staff, replaced Lavelle as Seventh Air Force commander.13

Inevitably, the real reasons for Lavelle’s dismissal became public in 

mid-May, after the enemy offensive was well under way. Much controversy ensued. The Senate and House Armed Services Committees 

investigated at length but could not establish that Lavelle’s superiors 

ordered or knew of the unauthorized operations. The Air Force retired 

Lavelle for disability and demoted him. From the available evidence, 

12

 Thompson, “Rolling Thunder to Linebacker,” ch. 8, pp. 1–3, 6–7, 10–13, 16–18. Abrams’ denials are reported in the Washington Post, 14 Sep 72, p. P–8, Miscellaneous/Calendar Backup box; and 

Washington Post, 17 Sep 72, no pp., Newspaper Clippings, Biography, Miscellaneous box. Both in 

Abrams Papers, MHI. 13

 Thompson, “Rolling Thunder to Linebacker,” ch. 8, pp. 18–23; Joint History Office, “The 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Crises: Response to the North Vietnamese Offensive” (MS, 

Washington, D.C.: Joint History Office, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1996), pp. 8–10 (hereafter cited as Joint 

History Office, “CJCS and the North Vietnamese Offensive”); Vogt Interv, 8–9 Aug 78, pp. 152–54. 

General Lavelle
353

The Easter Offensive

it seems clear that Lavelle, who 

had a prior record of impulsive 

actions, ordered the strikes on 

his own, probably in response to 

the high-level official hints that 

he should stretch his authority 

and out of impatience with rules 

of engagement that he (and most 

other commanders) resented as 

hindering their operations and 

endangering the lives of their 

men.14

While preparing to resist the 

North Vietnamese offensive, the 

Military Assistance Command 

planned and carried out additional troop withdrawals. As of 

the end of January, the command 

had completed its tenth redeployment increment, involving 

45,000 men, which cut MACV’s 

authorized strength to 139,000 

and its actual strength to about 

136,500. This was the first step in implementing OPLAN J208A for 

reducing the American force in Vietnam to 60,000 men by 1 July 1972. 

General Abrams and his staff were preparing further redeployment 

steps for reaching the 60,000 goal. The Free World allies also were 

withdrawing. By early March, the Thai division and the Australian task 

force had left Vietnam, as had the 10,000-man South Korean Marine 

Brigade and a slice of logistical troops. Under an agreement negotiated 

by Washington, Saigon, and Seoul, the two Korean infantry divisions 

would remain in Military Region 2 at least through the end of the 

year.15

On 13 January, driven by domestic political pressures, President 

Nixon again accelerated U.S. withdrawals. He announced that 70,000 

more troops would leave Vietnam by 1 May, reducing MACV’s strength 

ceiling to 69,000, whereas OPLAN J208A had envisioned a force of 

about 84,000 on that date. The 69,000-man level itself was to be only 

14 U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Report of the Committee on Armed Services on 

the Nomination of General Creighton W. Abrams for . . . Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, with Additional 

Views of Senator Margaret Chase Smith, copy in Miscellaneous/Calendar box, Abrams Papers, 

MHI. 15

 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pt. 2, p. 442; 

MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 1, p. 9. Briefing [for Sec Def], sub: Contingency Plan OPLAN J208A, 

tab F, MAC J–303 Briefing Book no. 4; OPLAN 208A Briefing Presented to Sec Army, 10 Jan 72; 

Hq MACV J–3 Historical Summary, Feb 72, p. 2. All in MACV Collection, MHI.

General Vogt
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

354

transitional, since Nixon also promised another withdrawal announcement before the end of April.16

In response to this acceleration of redeployment, General Abrams, 

in consultation with his regional commanders, designed an “austere” 

69,000-man force. The force would be capable of commanding and 

controlling American operations; protecting its own installations; supplying and administering itself; carrying out minimal intelligence and 

communications functions; advising the South Vietnamese; and furnishing limited air, helicopter, and logistical assistance to the South 

Koreans. It would include two infantry brigades, two artillery battalions, and three fighter/attack squadrons as well as large advisory and 

logistical elements. About 10,000 of the logistical troops were designated as a “roll-up” force for shipping out excess American supplies 

and equipment. MACV and its service components prepared detailed 

troop lists for the new withdrawal, Increment Eleven, which would 

remove the 101st Airborne Division, the last American division to leave 

South Vietnam. With an eye to the expected enemy offensive, General 

Abrams scheduled for redeployment late in the increment those units, 

for example helicopter companies, most needed to support the South 

Vietnamese. Other units began standing down during February. As they 

did so, Abrams and his staff, at Laird’s and the Joint Chiefs’ direction, 

began preparing plans for reducing MACV to 30,000 men by 1 July and 

15,000 by 1 November.17

As part of the speedup in redeployments, MACV accelerated its own 

headquarters reduction and restructuring under the plan for an interim 

Vietnam Assistance Command (VAC). On 14 January, General Abrams 

directed all headquarters agencies to reconfigure to the VAC level by 1 

May instead of the previous target date of 1 July, but with no change in 

the designations of the various elements. This required the headquarters to cut its strength from 1,844 spaces to 1,058 in four months. By 

early February, the reorganization was well under way. MACV headquarters dissolved the office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Military 

Assistance and distributed its advice and support functions among the 

assistant chiefs of staff for personnel, operations, and logistics. The J–3 

section took preliminary steps toward its planned absorption of the J–5 

office.18

16

 Kissinger, White House Years, p. 1101; MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 2, an. F, p. 56. Briefing 

presented to Gen Abrams, Ambs Bunker and Berger, and Field and Component Cdrs, 22 Jan 72, tab 

B, MAC J–303 Briefing Book no. 4, MACV Collection, MHI. 17

 Msgs, Abrams SPECAT to McCain info Moorer, 14 Jan 72; Abrams SPECAT to McCain 

info Moorer et al., 17 Mar 72; Abrams Microfilm, MHI. Msgs, Abrams MAC 0424 to Lavelle 

et al., 15 Jan 72; Abrams MAC 0829 to Vann, 27 Jan 72; Abrams MAC 0929 to Lavelle and 

McCaffrey, 31 Jan 72. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Briefing presented to Gen Abrams, Ambs 

Bunker and Berger, and Field and Component Cdrs . . . , 22 Jan 72, tab B; Briefing for Gen 

Clay, 21 Jan 72, sub: U.S. Redeployment Status, tab D. Both in MAC J–303 Briefing Book no. 

4, MACV Collection, MHI. 18

 Memo, Maj Gen Bowley, USAF, for Distribution, 24 Jan 72, sub: Increment 11 Drawdown of 

HQ MACV, in folder, same title; Memo, Bowley for CofS, MACV, 5 Feb 72, sub: Reorganization 
355

The Easter Offensive

On 19 January, in the light of the fact that MACV was drawing 

down toward assistance command level faster than anticipated, Admiral 

McCain asked Abrams for his views on when MACV could revert to 

an advisory group headquarters and whether an interim VAC was any 

longer needed. McCain also inquired as to whether command and control of air operations in Southeast Asia, which increasingly were being 

mounted from bases in Thailand, should be transferred out of South 

Vietnam. In response, General Abrams took the position that MACV 

should change into a military assistance group only upon the “termination of a combat role requiring the exercise of operational control 

of U.S. combat forces by the command,” which presumably would not 

occur until the end of air operations. Abrams declared further that command and control of the air war in Southeast Asia, which likely would 

continue at high sortie levels for at least another year, should remain 

in South Vietnam. Transfer of the responsibility to a headquarters in 

Thailand or the Philippines, he argued, would disrupt the effective 

working relationship between the U.S. and South Vietnamese air forces 

and lead as well to diplomatic difficulties and political accusations that 

the administration was expanding the war.19

On 12 February, to ensure that command of the air war remained in 

Saigon even as American forces shrank below the 69,000 level, Abrams 

proposed to McCain a modified version of the VAC plan. Under it, 

MACV would absorb the operational and intelligence elements of the 

Seventh Air Force headquarters into a restructured VAC headquarters. The commanding general of Seventh Air Force, while retaining 

his title and operational control of Air Force units in South Vietnam 

and Thailand, would serve also as deputy COMUSMACV. There would 

be six general staff directorates––personnel, intelligence, operations 

(incorporating the Seventh Air Force’s Tactical Air Control Center), 

communications-electronics, logistics, and civil operations and revolutionary development support. The reorganized headquarters would 

have under it Army, Air Force, and Navy advisory groups. A small joint 

assistance command in each military region would advise the South 

Vietnamese commander, coordinate American support of his forces, 

and report on his operations. U.S. Army, Vietnam, would be reduced to 

a VAC support command performing Army supply and administrative 

functions and providing common item support to U.S. forces. Abrams 

argued that this structure would permit retention of air command and 

control in South Vietnam while minimizing headquarters overhead. 

It also would maintain a “viable” advisory effort in training, technical 

matters, and logistics and could readily adapt to a variety of future 

U.S. redeployment schedules. Abrams asked McCain’s permission to 

of HQ MACV, in folder, same title; Hq MACV J–3 Historical Summary, Feb 72, p. 6. All in MACV 

Collection, MHI. 19

 Msgs, McCain SPECAT to Abrams, 19 Jan 72; Abrams SPECAT to McCain, 21 Jan 72; Abrams 

SPECAT to McCain info Moorer, 12 Feb 72. All in Abrams Microfilm, MHI.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

356

begin planning at once on the basis of the concept, for implementation sometime in April or May.20

On 15 February, Admiral McCain authorized Abrams to proceed 

with planning and preparations for the reorganization. At Abrams’ 

recommendation, for simplicity’s sake and to avoid a need for “adjudication at the Washington level” that might delay implementation 

of the plan, McCain decided to abandon the VAC designation and 

continue calling the reorganized command in Saigon the Military 

Assistance Command, Vietnam, until it became an advisory group. To 

work out details of the reorganization, Abrams then formed a senior 

planning group headed by the MACV deputy chief of staff and including the deputy J–3 for plans and representatives of Seventh Air Force; 

U.S. Army, Vietnam; and Navy Forces, Vietnam. By early March, the 

planners had refined the functions and command relationships of the 

proposed new MACV organization, which were the same in general 

principles as those of the existing one. On 4 April, the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff approved the new structure, for implementation on a date to 

be set by Abrams. Meantime, headquarters reductions under previous 

plans continued. On 19 March, XXIV Corps, denuded of all but one 

brigade of American combat troops, stood down and was replaced 

by the First Regional Assistance Command. This change brought the 

advisory and support organization in Military Region 1 into line with 

those of the other three military regions. On 31 March, the Studies and 

Observations Group began the process of phasing down to an advisory 

team attached to the South Vietnamese Strategic Technical Directorate, 

Saigon’s headquarters for special operations, which would continue the 

activities of the Studies and Observations Group on a lesser scale.21

Attack and Counterattack

On 30 March, the North Vietnamese opened their long-anticipated offensive, which they named “Nguyen Hue” after a hero of an 

earlier war with China. Americans labeled it the “Easter Offensive.” 

It began with a thunderous artillery bombardment of the South 

Vietnamese firebases in northern Military Region 1. Under cover 

of rain and clouds that hampered American air operations, three 

North Vietnamese divisions, heavily supported by armor, moved to 

the attack across the Demilitarized Zone and down Highway 9 from 

Laos. In a month of the severest conventional fighting yet seen in 

the Vietnam conflict, the North Vietnamese destroyed the new South 

20 Msg, Abrams SPECAT to McCain info Moorer, 12 Feb 72, Abrams Microfilm, MHI.

21

 Msgs, McCain SPECAT to Abrams info Moorer, 15 Feb 72; Abrams SPECAT to McCain 

info Moorer et al., 23 Feb 72 and 6 Mar 72; Abrams SPECAT to McCain, 22 Jun 72. All in Abrams 

Microfilm, MHI. Msgs, Abrams MAC 1563 to Regional and Component Cdrs, 20 Feb 72; Abrams 

MAC 2304 to Regional and Component Cdrs, 14 Mar 72; Abrams MAC 1987 to McCaffrey and 

Dolvin, 4 Mar 72. All in Abrams Papers, CMH. Msg, Col John F. Sadler SOG 237 to USARV et al., 

30 Mar 72, box V, Abrams Papers, MHI.
The Easter Offensive

A U.S. Navy A–7 pulls away from a strike on the Hai Duong

railway bridge in North Vietnam; below, An enemy T54 tank

burns in An Loc, Binh Long Province, South Vietnam, after being

struck by a U.S. Army AH–1G Cobra helicopter gunship.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

358

Vietnamese 3d Division, routed other defending forces, and captured 

most of Quang Tri Province including the capital, Quang Tri City. 

The enemy then rolled toward Hue, the main prize of the region. 

By early May, as refugees streamed southward and Saigon’s battered 

units formed a shaky defense line north of the city, the fall of the old 

imperial capital seemed imminent.

Nearly simultaneous crises developed farther south. In Military 

Region 3, where the allies had not expected large-scale attacks, two 

North Vietnamese divisions, also with armor, advanced from Cambodia 

into Binh Long Province, north of Saigon. By 7 April, they had laid 

siege to An Loc, the province capital. The South Vietnamese defenders, 

supported by round-the-clock U.S. tactical air and B–52 strikes, held on 

through more than two months of savage fighting. In Military Region 

2, the Communists opened their offensive by seizing the northern districts of Binh Dinh, a heavily populated coastal province and long-time 

revolutionary stronghold. The major crisis in this region, however, did 

not come until early May. Then an armor-supported North Vietnamese 

force, after overrunning several outlying towns and camps, attacked 

Kontum, a key Central Highlands province capital, and precipitated 

another hard fought month-long siege. As at An Loc, American airpower enabled the South Vietnamese defenders to hold. In Military 

Region 4, the Mekong Delta, the enemy launched a flurry of battalion and smaller-size attacks during April, May, and June. The South 

Vietnamese, with the Regional and Popular Forces doing much of the 

fighting, beat back these thrusts and even were able to spare a division 

to assist Military Region 3 in the battle for An Loc.22 (Map 5)

President Nixon reacted belligerently to the North Vietnamese 

offensive. With his successful China trip behind him, Nixon decided 

to risk the breakdown of his diplomacy with Beijing and Moscow, not 

to mention a domestic political firestorm, rather than accept the defeat 

of his Vietnamization policy and the attendant humiliation of the 

United States before the world. On 4 April, Kissinger, speaking for the 

president, told his interagency crisis response group that Nixon did not 

expect to lose the fight for Military Region 1, that all previous restraints 

on American action were subject to removal, and that the United States 

“must bring as much air and naval force to bear as possible in order to 

give the enemy a severe jolt.” Beyond defeating the immediate attack, 

Nixon and Kissinger intended to use the crisis as an occasion to do 

what they had contemplated since 1969––bomb the North Vietnamese 

into negotiating an end to the war on terms the United States could 

live with. The North Vietnamese had opened the end game and Nixon 

was determined to play it to a decision.23

22 This summary of events is drawn from Andrade, Trial by Fire, and MACV History, 1972–73, 

vol. 1, an. A, pp. 5–6.

23 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 1097–99, 1108–11; Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of 

Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pt. 1, pp. 352–57. Quotation is from Joint History Office, 
The Easter Offensive

Tonle 

Sap 

G U L F O F 

T H A I L A N D 

S O U T H

C H I N A S E A

S O U T H C H I N A S E A 

Mekong R

Mekong R

M R 1 

M R 2 

M R 3 

M R 4 

Con Son 

Phu Quoc 

DEMARCATION LINE Sakon Nakhon 

Savannakhet

Kammouane 

Tchepone 

Dong Ha 

Hue 

Da Nang 

Muong Nông 

Ubon Ratchathani

Paksé Quang Ngai

Tam Ky 

Tam Quan 

Hoai Nhon

Hoai An

Attopeu 

Stung 

Treng 

Dak To

Kontum 

Qui Nhon 

Ban Me Thuot Kratie Kompong Thom 

Pursat

Kompong Cham 

Chup Memot

Snuol

Loc Ninh 

An Loc 

Nha Trang 

Tay Ninh 

Svay Rieng 

Kampot

Takeo 

SAIGON 

Rach Gia Can Tho 

Quang Tri 

Saravane 

Pleiku 

PHNOM PENH 

Siem Reap 

Neak Luong 

Lomphat

L A O S 

T H A I L A N D 

C A M B O D I A 

S O U T H 

V I E T N A M 

N O R T H 

 V I E T N A M 

 EASTER OFFENSIVE 

North Vietnamese Axis of Attack 

Military Region 

Note: On 1 July 1970, Corps Tactical Zones 

 were redesignated Military Regions.

MR

March–May 1972 

0 100 

Miles 

MAP 5
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

360

At Nixon’s direction, the Joint Chiefs of Staff accelerated the flow 

of air and naval reinforcements that had begun before the North 

Vietnamese offensive. Between January and May 1972, the United 

States doubled its land-based tactical air strength in Southeast Asia from 

212 aircraft to 480. Many of the reinforcing squadrons were based in 

Thailand in order to avoid exceeding troop ceilings in South Vietnam. 

The number of B–52s on Guam and in Thailand increased threefold, 

from 42 to 148. The Navy expanded its carrier strength in the South 

China Sea from three to six and enlarged the number of gunfire support ships in Vietnamese waters from 16 to 54.24

With the increased forces came a freer hand for commanders in using 

them. Assuming that the Communist assault across the Demilitarized 

Zone had terminated the 1968 bombing halt understanding, Nixon 

resumed the air war against North Vietnam. During April, he step by 

step authorized Admiral McCain and General Abrams to conduct tactical air and naval gunfire attacks up to the 20th Parallel. In mid-April, 

Nixon directed a one-time B–52 strike on the Haiphong area. On 8 May, 

with Hue in danger and An Loc and Kontum under siege, and after a 

fruitless secret meeting in Paris between Kissinger and his Vietnamese 

opposite number, Le Duc Tho, Nixon took the final step. He ordered the 

mining of Haiphong and other North Vietnamese ports and extended 

the air campaign, which received the code-name Linebacker, to all of 

North Vietnam except a narrow buffer zone along the Chinese border. 

The campaign’s military purpose was to interdict North Vietnam’s 

importation of war supplies and its movement of them to the south. 

Its larger diplomatic aim was to signal American determination to the 

Russians and Chinese and compel Hanoi to make terms. In escalating as he did, Nixon risked Soviet cancellation of the Moscow summit 

meeting, then in the final stages of preparation. However, aside from 

pro forma denunciations and protests, the Russians and Chinese continued their three-sided diplomatic minuet with the Americans. The 

Moscow summit took place late in May as planned while American 

bombers battered North Vietnam.25

As Nixon’s policy unfolded, General Abrams used his diminishing 

forces inside South Vietnam and his expanding air and naval resources 

outside it to check the offensive. At the same time, he continued planning and executing troop redeployments and the MACV headquarters 

reorganization. As the air war against the north expanded, Abrams 

faced command issues dormant since the end of Rolling Thunder and 

conflicts with the administration over operational priorities.

“CJCS and the North Vietnamese Offensive,” pp. 20–21; see also p. 3. 24

 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pt. 1, pp. 

357–60, 394–96. 25 Thompson, “Rolling Thunder to Linebacker,” ch. 9, pp. 3–4, 16–19; MACV History, 1972–73, 

vol. 1, an. B, p. 5; Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” 

pt. 1, pp. 365–91, 406–12. The diplomatic aspects are covered in Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 

1113–1201.
361

The Easter Offensive

General Abrams’ first task was to monitor and report on the developing offensive. To follow the course of the battle, he relied primarily 

on daily reports from his American regional commanders and senior 

advisers and occasional face-to-face conferences with them. He made 

personal visits to the Vietnamese corps commanders and sent his 

deputy, General Weyand, on periodic trips to the field. Abrams and 

Ambassador Bunker met regularly with President Thieu to review the 

situation and inform Thieu of American efforts on South Vietnam’s 

behalf. As in previous crises, Abrams sent daily appraisals to Admirals 

McCain and Moorer and special reports to Secretary Laird and President 

Nixon. Abrams and Bunker briefed Dr. Kissinger’s military assistant, 

General Haig, during Haig’s periodic visits to Saigon.26

Relatively optimistic at the beginning of the offensive, Abrams’ 

assessments descended rapidly toward alarm, especially as the South 

Vietnamese forces in northern Military Region 1 neared collapse. Early 

in April, Abrams reported that the situation in the north was grave but 

that the South Vietnamese, considering the pressure they were under, 

were performing “in an orderly and controlled manner.” He characterized the Vietnamese corps commanders as “serious, determined and 

confident” and declared that they were “skillfully adjusting their tactics to the enemy situation in their respective areas.” On 24 April, after 

the South Vietnamese had temporarily stabilized their lines around 

Quang Tri City, Abrams asserted that overall his allies had “fought well 

under extremely difficult circumstances” and that “the leadership in 

MR [Military Region] 1 is outstanding; aggressive and confident.” A 

week later, as the South Vietnamese retreated in disorder from Quang 

Tri, Abrams’ tone changed. On 1 May, he reported to Secretary Laird: 

“As the pressure has mounted and the battle has become brutal the 

senior military leadership has begun to bend and in some cases break. 

In adversity it is losing its will and cannot be depended upon to take 

the measures necessary to stand and fight.” There was “no apparent 

basis for confidence,” Abrams concluded, that Hue could be held.27

Aside from providing air support to the South Vietnamese, General 

Abrams, with only two American combat brigades left in the country, could influence the ground fighting only at the margins. MACV’s 

remaining helicopter units delivered fire support, supplies, and reinforcements to embattled South Vietnamese garrisons. U.S. Army, 

Vietnam, furnished equipment to refit shattered South Vietnamese 

26 Msgs, Abrams MAC 3029 to Regional Cdrs, 5 Apr 72; Abrams MAC 3143 to Regional Cdrs, 8 

Apr 72. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. Msg, Cowles MAC 4381 to Regional and Component Cdrs, 

11 May 72, box V, Abrams Papers, MHI; Msg, Abrams SPECAT to McCain info Moorer, 6 Apr 72, 

Abrams Microfilm, MHI. Msg, Bunker Saigon 0060 to Kissinger, 10 Apr 72, box 414; Memo, Haig 

for Kissinger, 19 Apr 72, sub: Southeast Asia Trip Report, box 1014; Msg, Laird OSD 08825 to 

Abrams, 23 Apr 72, box 117. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 27 Msgs, Abrams SPECAT to McCain info Moorer, 3 and 6 Apr 72, Abrams Microfilm, MHI. Msgs, 

Abrams MAC 3757 to Laird, 24 Apr 72; Abrams MAC 4021 to Laird, 2 May 72. Both in Abrams 

Papers, CMH. Msg, Abrams to Laird, 3 May 72, box 130, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

362

units. MACV dispatched advisers to train the Vietnamese in technical 

specialties, such as counterbattery fire and the air dropping of supplies and heavy equipment. Late in May, to help the South Vietnamese 

defeat the enemy’s armor, MACV introduced the TOW (tube launched, 

optically tracked, wire guided) antitank missile into the fighting. 

However, Abrams limited distribution of the sophisticated weapon to 

only the most reliable South Vietnamese units, such as the marine division. General Abrams engaged in lengthy, frustrating negotiations with 

the South Korean forces commander, Lt. Gen. Lee Sae Ho, seeking to 

persuade Lee to assist the South Vietnamese in the Central Highlands. 

Lee, under orders from Seoul to avoid combat unless directly attacked, 

responded grudgingly and demanded exorbitant amounts of U.S. helicopter, armor, and artillery support when he did move. In April, the 

Koreans made slow work of clearing An Khe Pass on the vital supply 

route from the coast to the highlands. Beyond that, they did little but 

protect their own areas of operation.28

Early in May, as South Vietnamese collapse began to seem possible, 

Abrams prepared for the worst. He convened a group of representatives 

from the MACV and component command staffs to prepare contingency plans “to be implemented should the military or political situation in the [Republic of Vietnam] dictate evacuation of U.S. personnel 

from any threatened area. . . .” Reflecting the sense of impending disintegration, he also issued instructions that “no Vietnamese commander 

will be airlifted out of a unit defensive position by U.S. fixed-wing aircraft or helicopter” unless the evacuation was directed personally by 

the Vietnamese corps commander.29

The latter directive, as well as General Abrams’ 1 May assessment, 

pointed up the fact that the early South Vietnamese defeats resulted 

in large part from the inadequacy of Saigon’s top-level military leadership. In the April battles for Quang Tri, the Military Region 1 commander, General Lam, whose limitations had been apparent during 

Lam Son 719, again demonstrated his unfitness to direct large-scale 

conventional operations. His counterparts in Military Regions 2 and 3 

also proved unequal to the demands of high-intensity warfare, as did 

several division commanders.30

28 Msg, McCaffrey ARV 1166 to Abrams, 5 May 72; Maj Gen James F. Hollingsworth, Senior 

Adviser, First Regional Assistance Command, ARV 1241 to Abrams, 10 May 72; Abrams MAC 4371 

to McCaffrey, 10 May 72; Abrams MAC 4372 to Watkins, 10 May 72; Abrams MAC 4458 to Vann, 

13 May 72; Vann PKU 539 to Abrams, 8 Apr 72; Vann PKU 586 to Abrams, 18 Apr 72. All in Abrams 

Papers, CMH. Msgs, CINCUNK/COMUSKOREA SPECAT to Moorer and McCain, info Abrams, 

26 Apr 72; Abrams SPECAT to McCain, info CJCS and COMUSKOREA, 8 May 72. Both in Abrams 

Microfilm, MHI. Andrade, Trial by Fire, pp. 191–92, 293–98. 29 First quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 4217 to Component Cdrs, 6 May 72; second is from 

Msg, Abrams MAC 4040 to Regional Cdrs, 2 May 72. Both in Abrams Papers, CMH. 30 Lam’s failings are summarized in Andrade, Trial by Fire, pp. 169–70. Overall South Vietnamese 

command problems are summarized in Clarke, Final Years, pp. 483–86.
363

The Easter Offensive

On this issue, General Abrams and Ambassador Bunker intervened 

decisively. On 2 May, at a meeting with President Thieu, Abrams, with 

Bunker’s concurrence, described in unvarnished terms the inadequacies 

of the senior South Vietnamese generals and warned of an approaching breakdown of command and control, especially in Quang Tri. “All 

that had been accomplished over the last four years was now at stake,” 

Abrams told Thieu, “and it was the effectiveness of his field commanders that would determine the outcome.” Following this meeting, Thieu 

called together his four military region commanders, the chief of the 

Joint General Staff, and other senior officers to announce command 

changes. He replaced Lam in Military Region 1 with Lt. Gen. Ngo Quang 

Truong, then in charge of Military Region 4. A former commander of 

the South Vietnamese 1st Division, Truong knew the northern corps 

area well, and the Americans considered him South Vietnam’s most 

competent field general. Subsequently, Thieu relieved General Dzu, the 

Military Region 2 commander, although he could not find a successor for Dzu of Truong’s caliber. General Minh, commander of Military 

Region 3, although only marginally effective, survived the shakeup 

because of his close friendship with President Thieu. In follow-up meetings on the leadership problem, Abrams and Bunker strongly pressed 

Thieu to replace Minh and counseled the president on the selection 

and promotion of other commanders.31

In Military Region 1, the command change made an immediate, 

dramatic difference. General Truong quickly restored order among 

the armed forces and civilian population in Hue, started reassembling 

broken units, and organized a defense of the city built around the 

marines and the South Vietnamese 1st Division. Assisted by heavy 

American air strikes, his troops repelled North Vietnamese attacks and 

began a counteroffensive to retake Quang Tri Province. In Military 

Regions 2 and 3, despite the reliefs, Vietnamese leadership remained 

at best lackluster. Abrams told Vice President Agnew in mid-May 

that “only about ten” South Vietnamese generals were “earning their 

pay.” The American regional senior advisers, John Vann (killed in a 

helicopter crash on 9 June) in Military Region 2 and Maj. Gen. James 

F. Hollingsworth in Military Region 3, braced up wavering counterparts and orchestrated the constant American air strikes that smashed 

the North Vietnamese attacks at Kontum and An Loc. At the tactical 

level, unit advisers, whom Abrams characterized as “heroic, smart, and 

professional in every sense of the word,” held the defense together at 

critical points and compensated by example and action for persistent 

weaknesses in South Vietnamese command and control.32

31

 Quotation is from Msg, Abrams MAC 4021 to Laird, 2 May 72, Abrams Papers, CMH. Msgs, 

Bunker Saigon 0081 to Kissinger, 2 May 72, and Bunker Saigon 0100 to Kissinger, 8 Jun 72, box 

414; Msg, Abrams to Laird, 3 May 72, copy in box 130; Msg, Bunker Saigon 6374 to Sec State, 3 

May 72, box 160. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 32 Quotations are from Msg, Abrams MAC 4600 to Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, 17 

May 72, Abrams Papers, CMH. Andrade, Trial by Fire, pp. 171–72, 187–94, 312–13, recounts 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

364

Airpower was the Military Assistance Command’s decisive weapon in 

the 1972 battles. During the crisis, MACV’s single management system, 

tried and perfected since 1968, enabled General Abrams to mass his 

airplanes where and when they were needed. Each day, Abrams personally allocated the available tactical air, B–52, and fixed-wing gunship 

sorties among South Vietnam’s military regions, on the basis of his 

own and his staff’s reading of the situation, the advice of the Seventh 

Air Force commander, and requests from the regions. He also apportioned sorties to Laos and Cambodia. The Seventh Air Force tactical 

air control center then directed flights to the regions, where the South 

Vietnamese commanders and their senior advisers, working through 

the corps direct air support control centers and airborne forward air 

controllers, sent the aircraft where they could best affect the outcome 

of the battle. As the action developed, Abrams regularly shifted the 

weight of effort between North Vietnamese troops engaging the South 

Vietnamese or massing to attack and the enemy’s supply routes and 

cross-border bases. American airplanes kept the North Vietnamese 

under a round-the-clock rain of destruction. Where the enemy gained 

ground, he paid a fearful price in dead men and wrecked equipment. 

Where the South Vietnamese held, American airpower was the mainstay of their defense. Abrams declared on 3 May: “In my judgment, any 

bleeding off of the tactical air support now being directed into the . . . 

land battle would result in major defeats of ARVN forces.”33

Nixon’s air war against North Vietnam threatened just such a bleeding off, and it raised also questions of command and control similar 

to those in Rolling Thunder. When the North Vietnamese offensive 

opened, General Abrams, as he had since 1968, effectively controlled 

the allocation and targeting of the American air effort throughout 

Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, subject only to restrictions set by 

national policy. However, as Nixon progressively extended the air 

campaign northward, CINCPAC once again became involved in air 

operations, often as the transmitter of administration directives that 

conflicted with General Abrams’ tactical priorities. 

The well-established working relationship between Admiral McCain 

and General Abrams survived these new stresses, as did the close cooperation between their respective staffs. Especially helpful was the line 

of communication that Abrams’ chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Donald H. 

Cowles, established with his Pacific Command opposite number, Maj. 

Gen. Charles A. Corcoran, himself a former MACV chief of staff. The 

two officers spoke by telephone every day, “to make sure we underTruong’s accomplishments and Dzu’s relief. Clarke, Final Years, pp. 484–86, describes the work 

of Vann and Hollingsworth. 33 Quotation is from Msg, Abrams SPECAT to McCain, 3 May 72, Abrams Microfilm, MHI. 

Msg, Abrams MAC 4316 to Regional Assistance Cdrs, 9 May 72, box V, Abrams Papers, MHI; Bfg, 

17 Jun 72, sub: U.S. Air Operations in Southeast Asia, in folder, same title, MACV Collection, MHI. 

Vogt Interv, 8–9 Aug 78, pp. 261–66, 268–69, contains comments on the role of Seventh Air Force 

in intelligence and targeting.
365

The Easter Offensive

stood each other, even if no one else did.” Corcoran kept the MACV 

chief of staff informed of what the president and the Joint Chiefs were 

telling Admiral McCain. Abrams regularly sat in on the Saigon end of 

these conversations, and he also talked with McCain “once or twice a 

week as circumstances dictated.” By these means, the two commanders 

maintained their united front in dealing with a frequently peremptory 

administration.34

McCain and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Moorer, 

increasingly found themselves trying to mediate between General 

Abrams and a White House that progressively lost confidence in the 

MACV commander. Abrams’ credit with Nixon and Kissinger had 

been damaged by Lam Son 719. When the North Vietnamese offensive began, Nixon almost immediately decided that Abrams, and the 

American military leadership in general, was sluggish and unimaginative in using the additional forces and expanded authorities he was 

giving them. Early in April, he complained that Abrams was not acting 

forcefully enough to control the crisis in northern Military Region 1 

and directed Admiral Moorer to tell Abrams to commit his entire B–52 

strength to that region. Moorer passed this instruction on to Abrams, 

as a suggestion rather than an order. An enraged Abrams telephoned 

Moorer and threatened to resign his command if Washington were 

going to dictate his air allocations. Moorer managed to mollify both 

Abrams and the White House. Nixon, however, continued to be dissatisfied with the MACV commander’s response to the offensive. He 

suspected that Abrams and Secretary Laird were working together to 

concentrate American military action on restoring the status quo in 

South Vietnam while passing up the opportunity to pressure North 

Vietnam for a definitive settlement. For his part, Admiral Moorer 

became increasingly convinced that Abrams, tired from having been 

on the job too long, was taking an overly narrow, localized view of the 

situation and American strategy.35

In an effort to invigorate the air campaign and ensure its responsiveness to his political direction, Nixon personally interceded with 

General Lavelle’s successor in command of the Seventh Air Force, 

General Vogt, whom Nixon had come to know while Vogt was director of the Joint Staff. An Ivy League–educated officer with more staff 

than command experience, Vogt had worked on Rolling Thunder in 

the Pentagon and at Pacific Air Force headquarters in Hawaii. He was 

close to Admiral Moorer and had made Kissinger’s acquaintance while 

taking courses at Harvard. Early in April, before Vogt left for Saigon, 

34

 Corcoran Interv, 1975, pp. 40–41, 45–47. Quotation is from Cowles Interv, 20 Dec 75, pp. 

21–22. McCain Interv, n.d., pp. 17–18. 35 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 1111–12. Msg, Moorer SPECAT 3492 to McCain and 

Abrams, 8 Apr 72, box 1016; Memos, Nixon for Kissinger and Haig, 15 and 19 May 72, box 1006, 

in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA, reflect Nixon’s irritation with his military commanders. Joint 

History Office, “CJCS and the North Vietnamese Offensive,” pp. 16–18, 23–25, 60, covers Abrams’ 

reaction to the B–52 order and Moorer’s view of Abrams.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

366

Nixon summoned the new Seventh Air Force commander to the White 

House and told Vogt that he was to direct the entire air war in Southeast 

Asia, apparently without reference to McCain and Abrams. Evidently 

unaware of the MACV reorganization already in train, Vogt suggested 

that he be made deputy COMUSMACV rather than merely deputy for 

air, and that he be freed from answering to a multitude of superiors 

for different air campaigns. Nixon promised those things would be 

done. However, when Vogt reached Saigon, he found that neither the 

White House nor the Defense Department had changed the MACV 

and Seventh Air Force terms of reference. “So . . . I ran into the same 

problems that all my predecessors had run into. I had bosses all over 

the place.” Vogt answered to Abrams for operations in South Vietnam, 

Cambodia, and Laos and to Admiral McCain for the Seventh Air Force 

role in bombing North Vietnam.36

Nevertheless, Vogt clearly was the administration’s man in MACV. 

Admiral Moorer, whose confidence in Abrams’ reporting had been 

shaken during Lam Son 719, turned to Vogt as an alternative source of 

information on military operations in South Vietnam. At Moorer’s direction, Vogt sent the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff daily situation 

reports and assessments through Air Force channels that bypassed both 

Abrams and McCain, and he also conferred frequently with Moorer 

by telephone outside the formal chain of command. Especially as the 

defense of Quang Tri crumbled, the Air Force general’s evaluations of 

South Vietnamese performance and prospects usually were less optimistic than those coming from MACV. Moorer and Kissinger, to whom 

Moorer passed copies of the messages, relied heavily on Vogt’s reports 

for their views of the course of the battle.37

General Vogt’s influence notwithstanding, disputes arose between 

General Abrams and the White House over the allocation of airpower. 

While not opposed to bombing North Vietnam, Abrams believed 

that such attacks would have little immediate effect on the fighting 

in the South, his principal concern. He argued that, by the time they 

started their offensive, the North Vietnamese had built up, in South 

Vietnam and its immediate approaches, enough troops and materiel 

for an extended campaign. Therefore, air could be most profitably 

used against the North Vietnamese assault forces and the parts of their 

logistical pipeline closest to the front. Attacks on the enemy’s deeper 

rear would have effect only after the critical battles for South Vietnam 

had been decided. Defense Secretary Laird and much of the U.S. intelligence community concurred with Abrams’ assessment and with its 

logical conclusion that American airpower should be concentrated in 

the South.38

36 Thompson, “Rolling Thunder to Linebacker,” ch. 9, pp. 4–7; Vogt Interv, 8–9 Aug 78, pp. 

63–64; quotation is from pp. 116–17. 37 Joint History Office, “CJCS and the North Vietnamese Offensive,” pp. 27–28, 44n, 66–67. 

38 Msg, Abrams SPECAT to Moorer and McCain, 8 Apr 72, Abrams Microfilm, MHI; Memos, 
367

The Easter Offensive

Nixon and Kissinger, on the other hand, were convinced that defeat 

of the immediate offensive would lead to nothing but a renewed military and diplomatic stalemate. They wanted to shape the intensified 

air war so as to push the North Vietnamese, and indirectly the Soviets 

and the Chinese, toward negotiations that at minimum would secure 

South Vietnam’s survival for Kissinger’s “healthy interval.” “In effect,” 

Nixon wrote to Kissinger on 30 April, “we have crossed the Rubicon 

and now we must win––not just a temporary respite from this battle, 

but if possible, tip the balance in favor of the South Vietnamese for battles to come when we no longer will be able to help them with major 

air strikes.” Caught in the middle, Admiral Moorer acknowledged that 

Abrams was “absolutely right from a purely military point of view.” 

However, the United States was now “playing a political problem” with 

the North Vietnamese and the Russians and General Abrams had to 

take more than his local circumstances into account.39

During April and early May, the tug-of-war over allocation of air 

sorties, particularly those of the B–52s, reached its height. Abrams considered it essential to concentrate the strategic bombers in support of 

the South Vietnamese at Hue and An Loc, both for tactical reasons 

and to shore up the will to fight of wavering South Vietnamese commanders. At the same time, Nixon wanted B–52 strikes deep in North 

Vietnam to show Hanoi he meant business and provide a forceful 

backdrop for his trip to Moscow. In the first collision, in mid-April, 

Abrams, citing the crisis at An Loc and appeals from President Thieu, 

tried to secure postponement of a White House–directed tactical air 

and B–52 raid on the Haiphong area. The administration overrode his 

objections and the strike went in as planned on 16 April. Immediately 

thereafter, Kissinger sent General Haig to Saigon to convey personally 

to Abrams the importance the president attached to the northern air 

campaign. After discussions with Abrams, Haig assured Kissinger and 

Admiral Moorer that the MACV commander appreciated the political 

requirements and would “divert whatever is necessary to support the 

diplomatic hand.”40

Haig’s optimism was premature. A second confrontation occurred 

early in May, against the background of Kissinger’s secret Paris meeting 

with Le Duc Tho, final preparations for the Moscow summit, and battlefield crises at Hue, An Loc, and Kontum. On 3 May, President Nixon 

Laird for the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 6 Apr 72, sub: Contingency 

Plans for Operations against North Vietnam; and Haig for Kissinger, 6 Apr 72, sub: Contingency 

Planning. Both in box 1014, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 39 Nixon quotation is from Memo, Nixon for Kissinger, 30 Apr 72, box 1006, NSC files, Nixon 

Papers, NARA. Joint History Office, “CJCS and the North Vietnamese Offensive,” pp. 26–28; 

Moorer quotation is from pp. 31–32. See also Kissinger, White House Years, p. 1113. 40

 Msgs, Moorer SPECAT 8374 to Moorer et al., 13 Apr 72, Abrams SPECAT to Moorer and 

McCain, 14 Apr 72, box 1016; Bunker Saigon 0062 to Kissinger, 14 Apr 72, Haig Saigon 0065 to 

Kissinger, 17 Apr 72, box 414. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Haig quotation is from lastcited message. Joint History Office, “CJCS and the North Vietnamese Offensive,” pp. 33–36, 39.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

368

ordered a forty-eight-hour attack, using fighter-bombers and B–52s, on 

targets close to Hanoi and Haiphong, the timing directly related to 

the diplomatic maneuvering. Abrams, with Admiral McCain’s concurrence, promptly declared that diversion of the B–52s and Seventh Air 

Force tactical aircraft from the southern battlefield at that point could 

lead to South Vietnamese military collapse. General Truong had just 

taken command of Military Region 1 and “we have got to pour the air 

support to him” to buy time while Truong regained control of the situation. Deferring to his field commanders’ urgent recommendations, 

Nixon cancelled the attack. However, on 4 May, Kissinger informed 

Ambassador Bunker that Nixon was “nearing the end of his patience” 

with Abrams’ seeming inability to appreciate that “we are playing a 

most complex game with the Soviets involving matters which extend 

far beyond the battle in Vietnam crucial as it is.” In an effort to circumvent what he, Nixon, and Moorer thought was Laird’s contradictory 

influence on Abrams, Kissinger arranged for the White House to transmit its instructions on critical military operations directly to Abrams 

through Bunker, bypassing regular State and Defense channels. Abrams 

was to send his views to the White House by the same route.41 

The “Bunker channel” received its first test a few days later, when 

Nixon initiated Linebacker and the mining of North Vietnam’s harbors. 

At Nixon’s direction, the Joint Chiefs and CINCPAC did the planning for 

these operations, and the president and the National Security Council 

decided to launch them, without involving MACV. However, on 6 May, 

Kissinger, via Bunker, informed Abrams of the administration’s intentions. He told the ambassador that there should be “no question in 

either your or General Abrams’ mind that we want to devote the necessary assets to this action” and would send additional air and naval 

reinforcements if Abrams needed them to meet “tactical exigencies” in 

the south. Both Bunker and Abrams welcomed the president’s decision. 

On 9 May, Abrams declared that it was “certain to have strong impact 

on the enemy.” To supplement the mining, he recommended that the 

Seventh Air Force launch immediate and continuing attacks on the 

railroads between Hanoi and the Chinese border, North Vietnam’s only 

remaining means of importing large quantities of supplies once the 

ports were closed. He also suggested that he be given the authority 

“to determine the proper daily application of sorties” so as to achieve 

“maximum effectiveness . . . both within the rail line interdiction program and the in-country close support.”42

41 Quotation is from Msg, Abrams SPECAT to Moorer and McCain, 4 May 72; Msgs, McCain 

SPECAT to Moorer, 4 May 72; Kissinger WHS 2063 to Bunker, 4 May 72; Bunker Saigon 0085 to 

Kissinger, 5 May 72. All in box 414, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Moorer’s suspicion of Laird’s 

influence is expressed in Joint History Office, “CJCS and the North Vietnamese Offensive,” p. 52. 42

 Kissinger message is quoted in White House Years, p. 1181. For an account of the president’s 

decision, see pp. 1174–86; Thompson, “Rolling Thunder to Linebacker,” ch. 9, pp. 19–20. Abrams 

quotations are from Msg, Abrams SPECAT to McCain, info Moorer, 9 May 72, Abrams Microfilm, 

MHI.
369

The Easter Offensive

Allocation authority, however, belonged to Admiral McCain. To 

conduct Linebacker, McCain reinstituted the route package system. 

He assigned Route Package 1, the area just above the Demilitarized 

Zone, to MACV’s control and himself directed operations in the other 

route packages through Pacific Air Force and Pacific Fleet. McCain 

had the final say in apportioning the available airpower among the 

northern route packages and Abrams’ areas of operation, although he 

consulted the MACV commander closely and gave high priority to 

his requirements. In contrast to President Johnson’s detailed management of Rolling Thunder, in Linebacker President Nixon established 

a list of approved targets and permitted his military commanders to 

decide when and how to strike them. Nevertheless, the president and 

his national security adviser frequently intervened to orchestrate the 

bombing in aid of their diplomacy. Secretary Laird also regularly exercised his authority to limit attacks within the restrictive circles that 

remained around downtown Hanoi and Haiphong.43

Paradoxically, the initiation of Linebacker was followed by a reduction in the tension between the Military Assistance Command and the 

White House over air sortie allocations. This was so even though after 

9 May the north received more than 50 percent of the air attack effort 

compared to 13 percent during the previous month. The burden of the 

Linebacker campaign fell upon the tactical fighter-bombers, which were 

best suited for precision strikes, some with the new guided “smart” 

ordnance, against bridges, rail yards, power plants, and other transportation and industrial targets. Abrams thus could concentrate the B–52s 

in the south where he wanted them. In addition, the steady arrival of 

air reinforcements made more sorties available for all purposes. Finally, 

during May and June, the tide of battle turned in South Vietnam. 

The allies, after stopping the initial enemy attack, prepared their own 

counteroffensives. Still, the difference in perspective and priorities 

remained. Nixon and Kissinger pressed constantly for a high level of 

activity over the North. Abrams, while he acknowledged that attacks 

on the enemy’s logistical system in North Vietnam had achieved “very 

substantial results,” emphasized that “it is not possible to lose the war 

in the north but it still is possible to lose the war in the south and we 

must not turn loose of this until the job is done.”44

As the Linebacker campaign and the harbor mining moved into high 

gear, both Kissinger’s National Security Council staff and the Military 

43

 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 1, an. B, p. 5; Thompson, “Rolling Thunder to Linebacker,” 

ch. 9, pp. 25–26, 58–66. Memos, Nixon for Haig, 18 and 20 May 72, box 1006; and Msg, Kissinger 

WHS 2081 to Haig, 30 Jun 72, box 414, all in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA, are examples of the 

administration’s orchestration efforts. 44 Thompson, “Rolling Thunder to Linebacker,” ch. 9, pp. 20–21. Percentages are given in Memo, 

Laird for the President, 3 Jul 72, sub: Assessment of Campaign against North Vietnam, box 096, NSC 

files, Nixon Papers, NARA. In this memorandum, Laird concludes that the air attacks in the north 

have had little immediate impact on the fighting in South Vietnam. Abrams quotation is from Msg, 

Abrams SPECAT to McCain, info Moorer et al., 6 Jun 72, Abrams Microfilm, MHI.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

370

Assistance Command floated proposals for fundamental changes in 

the U.S. command structure in Southeast Asia. Kissinger considered 

the division of responsibility for air operations in North and South 

Vietnam to be “institutionalized schizophrenia.” Early in May, he had 

his staff develop a plan for a new joint U.S. Southeast Asia Command, 

built around the existing MACV headquarters. Separate from Pacific 

Command and reporting directly to the Joint Chiefs, the new organization would control all U.S. air, land, and naval forces operating in and 

around the two Vietnams, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos. Secretary 

Laird and Admiral Moorer promptly objected to this proposal. They 

argued that it would disrupt well-established, functioning command 

relationships throughout the Western Pacific at a critical time. In addition, the change would impose on the commander and staff in Saigon a 

host of regionwide operational, logistical, intelligence, and advice and 

support tasks that currently were being handled by Pacific Command. 

The reorganization thus would necessitate enlargement of the headquarters in South Vietnam at a time when the United States was trying 

to reduce its strength there. Laird and Moorer recommended instead 

that the administration proceed with the MACV and Seventh Air Force 

merger already in progress, which would ensure continuity in the 

direction of the air effort while economizing on headquarters spaces. 

On 19 May, Nixon accepted Laird’s and Moorer’s recommendation and 

directed that the MACV reorganization go forward as planned.45

On its part, the Military Assistance Command reached out for control of the entire air war. Early in June, with the MACV and Seventh 

Air Force merger about to be consummated, General Abrams suggested that Admiral McCain transfer mission tasking for the two route 

packages covering the rail lines to China from Pacific Air Force to the 

restructured MACV. Admiral Moorer at once rallied the Joint Chiefs to 

defeat this proposal. In October, Abrams’ successor as COMUSMACV, 

General Weyand, went further. In connection with plans for continuing Linebacker into 1973, Weyand suggested that MACV be given 

responsibility for the conduct of U.S. operations in both North and 

South Vietnam, including all targeting of air strikes. The breakthrough 

in the peace negotiations, which occurred that same month, rendered 

Weyand’s proposal moot and turned MACV’s planning in a different 

direction. Except for the combination of the MACV and Seventh Air 

45

 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pt. 2, pp. 

459–62; Joint History Office, “CJCS and the North Vietnamese Offensive,” pp. 54, 60, 62. Memos, 

Odeen for Haig, 5 May 72, sub: Command Structure in SEA; Moorer CM–1820–72 for Laird, 8 

May 72, sub: Command Structure in Pacific/Southeast Asia Area; Moorer JCSM–214–72 for Laird, 

8 May 72, sub: Command Structure in the Southeast Asia Area; Laird for the President, 10 May 72, 

sub: Command Structure in the Pacific/Southeast Asia Area; and Kissinger for the Sec Def, 19 May 

72, sub: Command Structure in Southeast Asia. All in box 096, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 

Quotation is from Kissinger, White House Years, p. 1112.
371

The Easter Offensive

Force headquarters, the existing Southeast Asia command arrangements remained in force until the close of hostilities.46

Redeployments and Reorganization

Even as the Military Assistance Command fought to defeat the 

North Vietnamese offensive, it continued to remove troops from 

South Vietnam and prepare for reorganization under General Abrams’ 

February plan. During April, Abrams revised his troop list for the eleventh withdrawal increment to retain in the 69,000-man force helicopter companies and other units indispensable in the ongoing battle, 

as well as to accommodate the Air Force and Marine jet squadrons 

arriving in the administration’s buildup. He kept under the ceiling by 

redeploying 3,000 logistical troops, most of them Army elements that 

had been intended for the “roll-up” force. The result, Abrams pointed 

out to McCain, was to “unbalance” the remaining structure, making it 

“questionable how long the augmentation forces can be sustained by 

the supporting base.” Despite this caveat, redeployments went forward, 

bringing MACV’s actual troop strength down to 68,100 on 30 April.47

Besides managing Increment Eleven, Abrams addressed Secretary 

Laird’s request for plans to reduce MACV to 30,000 men by 1 July and 

15,000 by 1 November. On 15 March, he declared that these “rather 

arbitrary” ceilings, if enforced, would leave MACV unable to control 

the air war and provide essential advice and support to the South 

Vietnamese. Abrams recommended instead that the administration 

set a 1 November strength limit of 23,000 for the Military Assistance 

Command, the lowest level which would permit MACV to conduct 

both air operations and the advisory mission, and that he would be 

allowed to schedule redeployments to reach that goal. If “overriding 

considerations at the national level” dictated another withdrawal by 

1 July, Abrams proposed that the troop level at that time go no lower 

than 37,000. On 16 April, after the offensive began, Abrams declared 

the 37,000 strength “unrealistic” in the light of the reinforcements 

streaming into Southeast Asia and the intensifying combat. He advised 

postponement of any new redeployments until after 1 July “to permit 

refined assessments of enemy intentions and capabilities, to regain an 

46

 Msg, Abrams SPECAT to McCain info Moorer, 6 Jun 72, Abrams Microfilm, MHI; Joint 

History Office, “CJCS and the North Vietnamese Offensive,” pp. 66–67. Msg, Haig Saigon 0176 to 

Kissinger, 3 Oct 72; Memo (handwritten), and Weyand for Haig [Oct 72]. Both in box 1017, NSC 

files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 47 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 2, an. F, pp. 56–57. Msg, Abrams MAC 3194 to Component 

Cdrs, 9 Apr 72, Abrams Papers, CMH. Msgs, Abrams SPECAT to McCain, 14 Apr 72; Abrams 

SPECAT to McCain info Moorer, 16 Apr 72. Both in Abrams Microfilm, MHI. Abrams quotation is 

from last-cited message. Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–

1973,” pt. 2, p. 453, gives the actual MACV strength figure.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

372

element of balance in the force, and to provide maximum possible 

assistance to the RVNAF.”48

Abrams’ recommendation notwithstanding, the administration 

was committed to keeping up the withdrawals during the enemy offensive, both to demonstrate continuing confidence in Vietnamization 

and to reduce the adverse effect on American public opinion of the 

escalation of the air war. There were disagreements, however, over the 

size and timing of the next increment. On behalf of the Joint Chiefs, 

Admiral Moorer endorsed Abrams’ call for a temporary halt to withdrawals. Secretary Laird advocated setting an end strength for MACV of 

15,000, to be reached by 1 December, and permitting Abrams to stretch 

out the necessary redeployments over the intervening months. As he 

had done previously, Nixon chose his own course. On 26 April, after 

sending General Haig to sound out Bunker and Abrams, the president 

announced a reduction of 20,000 spaces during May and June, to bring 

MACV down to 49,000 men by 1 July. By taking this approach, Nixon 

kept up the momentum of withdrawals while retaining flexibility to 

respond to changes in the military and diplomatic situations. He also 

held MACV’s strength on 1 July well above the 37,000 that Abrams 

initially had considered acceptable.49

In response to this directive, Abrams, in consultation with his 

regional and component commanders, designed a 49,000-man transitional force that he declared would have “many weaknesses” and 

suffer from “severe” personnel and logistical turbulence and imbalances in structure. Nevertheless, it would remain marginally capable 

of performing its basic administrative, operational, and advisory functions. To reach the new ceiling, Abrams made heavy cuts in security 

forces, by redeploying one of his two remaining combat brigades, and 

in logistical troops by eliminating the “roll-up” elements. He transferred the Air Force and Marine squadrons based at Da Nang to fields 

in Thailand, from which they continued to fly missions in North and 

South Vietnam. These reductions enabled him to retain advisers, helicopter units, and logistical troops essential to supporting the South 

Vietnamese and managing the flow of new equipment to them. During 

June, to keep still more of these elements, as well as some air squadrons, 

he gave up his remaining brigade, the 3d of the 1st Cavalry Division, 

except for two battalion-size task forces for defense of American installations around Da Nang and Saigon. When completed at the end 

of June, Increment Twelve left MACV’s actual personnel strength at 

48,000. Large American forces remained elsewhere in Southeast Asia. 

48

 Msgs, Abrams SPECAT to McCain info Moorer, 15 Mar 72 and 16 and 21 Apr 72, Abrams 

Microfilm, MHI. Quotations are from the first two messages. 49

 Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 1166–67; Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the 

War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pt. 2, pp. 454–57. Memos, Laird for the President, 21 Apr 72, sub: US 

Force Redeployments from SVN, and 25 Apr 72, sub: US Force Deployments from SVN, box 159; 

Msg, Haig Saigon 0065 to Kissinger, 17 Apr 72, box 1014; Haig WHS 2053 to Bunker, 23 Apr 72, 

box 414. All in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.
373

The Easter Offensive

In response to the North Vietnamese offensive, the United States had 

increased its strength in Thailand from 32,000 men to about 45,000; 

and 42,000 more Americans were on Navy ships in the South China 

Sea.50

As the Increment Twelve withdrawal went on, the administration 

planned for the next one. On 21 June, in response to a query from 

Laird, both McCain and Abrams, their views endorsed by Moorer, 

stated that any further reduction below 49,000 would undermine the 

security of U.S. forces and impair their ability to support the South 

Vietnamese. Nevertheless, Abrams declared that, if it were imperative 

to continue withdrawals, he could spare another 10,000 spaces during 

July and August. Taking the MACV commander at his word, on 28 

June, Nixon announced a withdrawal that would bring MACV down 

to 39,000 men by 1 September. In a further gesture to public opinion, 

the president declared that no more draftees would be sent to Vietnam 

unless they volunteered for the assignment. MACV executed this redeployment, Increment Thirteen, on schedule, removing in the process 

the last Army infantry combat units to leave South Vietnam. On 31 

August, the command’s actual troop strength stood at 36,800.51

The consolidation of the MACV and Seventh Air Force headquarters was an integral part of the spring redeployment plans. However, 

to avoid disruption of air operations during the height of the enemy 

offensive, General Abrams postponed the actual combination from its 

original proposed date of 1 May until late June. In the interim, the 

Military Assistance Command continued reducing its staff and taking 

preliminary reorganization steps. These included formal disbandment 

of the Studies and Observations Group and the organization of MACV 

Special Troops to replace the office of the Headquarters Commandant 

and the U.S. Army Headquarters Area Command. On 15 May, MACV 

established an Army Advisory Group, formed around the old Training 

Directorate. A counterpart to the Air Force and Navy advisory groups, 

the Army Advisory Group was to plan and carry out assistance to 

South Vietnam’s land forces. Headed by a brigadier general, the group 

consolidated under one headquarters all Army advisers to the South 

Vietnamese except those with units in the field, who remained under 

the regional assistance commands, and the logistics advisers who stayed 

under the MACV J–4. 

50 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 2, an. F, p. 57; Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the 

War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pt. 2, pp. 457–59. Msgs, Abrams SPECAT to McCain info Moorer, 27 

Apr and 9 May 72; Abrams SPECAT to Moorer, 13 May 72; Abrams SPECAT to McCain info Moorer 

et al., 10 Jun 72. All in Abrams Microfilm, MHI. New York Times, 29 Jun 72, p. 1, in Newspaper 

Clippings, Biography, Miscellaneous box, Abrams Papers, MHI. 51

 Msg, Abrams SPECAT to McCain info Moorer, 19 Jun 72, Abrams Microfilm, MHI; Msg, 

Kissinger WHS 2077 to Bunker, 14 Jun 72, box 414, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA; Historical 

Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pt. 2, pp. 462–64; New York 

Times, 29 Jun 72, p. 1, Newspaper Clippings, Biography, Miscellaneous box, Abrams Papers, MHI; 

MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 2, an. F, p. 58.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

374

During the last half of June, the shift of functions and personnel 

from the Seventh Air Force headquarters to MACV took place. The intelligence and operations sections of the Seventh Air Force staff moved 

across Tan Son Nhut air field into the MACV building and were incorporated into the J–2 and J–3 offices of the senior headquarters. On 29 

June, General Abrams formally put the consolidation into effect. The 

administration publicly announced it at the same time.52

The restructured MACV headquarters had a personnel strength of 

about 1,450, larger than the originally contemplated VAC organization 

but 350 people smaller than the previous aggregate of the MACV and 

Seventh Air Force staffs. General Vogt served as deputy COMUSMACV 

while also commanding the Seventh Air Force. Besides Vogt and a civilian deputy COMUSMACV for CORDS, the command group included 

the chief of staff, a technical assistance coordinator (the renamed science adviser), the deputy chief of staff for economic affairs, the staff 

judge advocate, the inspector general, the Office of Information, and 

the secretary of the Joint Staff. The general staff consisted of directorates, 

as the J sections were retitled, for personnel, intelligence, operations, 

logistics, communications-electronics, and CORDS plus the comptroller. The special staff included an Office of Administrative Services, the 

chaplain, the command surgeon, the provost marshal, the Free World 

Military Assistance Office, and the Data Management Agency. Under 

MACV, a reduced Seventh Air Force headquarters and a Naval Advisory 

Group performed service component functions. U.S. Army, Vietnam, 

redesignated the MACV Support Command, besides acting as Army 

component, provided common item supply to the other services. The 

regional assistance commands carried on advice and support of the 

South Vietnamese military regions.53

Reflecting the predominance of airpower in the American effort 

in Southeast Asia, the Air Force enjoyed enhanced influence in the 

reorganized MACV headquarters. As deputy COMUSMACV, General 

Vogt took part in the planning and conduct of ground as well as air 

operations, in his view to the “dramatic” improvement of air-ground 

coordination. In the restructured staff, Air Force generals headed the 

directorates for operations, personnel, and communications-electronics. The Army held on to the MACV chief of staff, the directorates of 

intelligence and logistics, and all the special staff sections. With possession of the deputy COMUSMACV slot (which the service had coveted 

52 Msg, Abrams SPECAT to McCain info Clay, 14 May 72, Abrams Microfilm, MHI; Msg, 

Abrams MAC 5105 to Vogt, 2 Jun 72, Abrams Papers, CMH; MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 1, p. 

37, an. C, pp. 8–9, 32–33; vol. 2, an. I, pp. 3–5; Memo, Cowles for Distribution List, 8 May 72, 

sub: Establishment of Army Advisory Group, in folder, same title, MACV Collection, MHI; Hq 

MACV J–3 Historical Summary, Jun 72, MACV Collection, MHI; Thompson, “Rolling Thunder to 

Linebacker,” ch. 9, p. 37. 53 Msg, Abrams SPECAT to McCain, 22 Jun 72, Abrams Microfilm, MHI; Hq MACV Directory, 

Jul–Aug 72, folder 2000; Hq MACV Joint Table of Distribution, Aug 72, vol. 1, pp. 1–3, MACV 

Collection, MHI.
375

The Easter Offensive

since MACV was established), as well as the operations directorate, the 

Air Force no longer could claim that it was underrepresented in the 

joint headquarters.54

At Secretary Laird’s direction, the MACV reorganization was timed 

to coincide with the end of General Abrams’ tour in command. On 20 

June, at Laird’s recommendation, President Nixon nominated Abrams 

to succeed General Westmoreland, who was retiring, as chief of staff 

of the Army. Dissatisfied with the general’s performance in Vietnam, 

Nixon was reluctant to advance Abrams. In 1969, however, Nixon had 

promised Laird that as secretary of defense he would have the final 

word on military and civilian Defense Department appointments, and 

Laird held Nixon to his pledge. Nixon nevertheless delayed Abrams’ 

nomination until the imminence of Westmoreland’s retirement forced 

his hand. Then the president gave way to Laird’s unwavering support 

of Abrams. A week after announcing Abrams’ elevation, the president 

designated General Weyand to replace him as COMUSMACV. General 

Abrams left Saigon on 29 June. Befitting the continuing crisis in South 

Vietnam, he departed with no public change of command or farewell 

celebration, although President Thieu presented him with a decoration 

in a private ceremony.55

Like Westmoreland in 1968, Abrams left behind in South Vietnam an 

unfinished work and an uncertain legacy. During his four years in command, Abrams was compelled to fight what amounted to a prolonged 

rear guard action. He successfully managed the extrication of nearly 

500,000 American troops from the battlefield in the midst of continuing hostilities. Under his guidance, the South Vietnamese armed forces 

were enlarged and improved to the point where they could assume 

the entire burden of territorial security and conduct major cross-border 

offensives. Behind their shield, Saigon established military and administrative control over most of its national territory. When the North 

Vietnamese responded to these gains with a full-throated main force 

assault, Abrams used his remaining resources––airpower and advisers––

to help the South Vietnamese parry the blow. By the time he laid down 

his command, the North Vietnamese offensive had spent its force, 

and the South Vietnamese were recovering from their early defeats 

and beginning to counterattack. Yet fundamental problems remained 

unsolved. Abrams had not overcome South Vietnam’s persistent deficiencies in military leadership, nor had he been able to disentangle the 

South Vietnamese Army from its territorial responsibilities and turn it 

54

 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 2, an. M; Vogt Interv, 8–9 Aug 78, pp. 211, 270–72.

55 Msg, Sec Def OSD 0675 to Abrams, 20 Jun 72, box V; New York Times, 2 Jul 72, p. 1, 

Newspaper Clippings, Biography, Miscellaneous box; Abrams Papers, MHI; Msg, Moorer SPECAT 

1808 to McCain and Abrams, 22 Jun 72, Abrams Microfilm, MHI. Memo, Laird for the President, 

31 May 72, sub: Appointments of Key Military Officials; Memo, Haig for Kissinger, 1 Jun 72, sub: 

Action Items, box 1001; Transcript of White House News Conference, 28 Jun 72, box 1016. All 

in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Sorley, Thunderbolt, pp. 332–35; Interv, Walter S. Poole with 

Melvin R. Laird, 15 Jul 98, Joint History Office, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington D.C.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

376

into a force capable on its own of mobile conventional combat. While 

the Viet Cong had been forced underground in most places, their 

political and military hard core survived; and North Vietnam remained 

implacable and able to return to the attack at any time. Laird’s goal of a 

militarily self-sufficient South Vietnam still was some distance away. In 

sum, while Abrams, like his predecessor, registered impressive success 

in fulfilling MACV’s mission, he did so without achieving an acceptable conclusion to the war.56

Abrams returned to the United States to face congressional scrutiny 

over his role in General Lavelle’s unauthorized air strikes. The Senate 

delayed his confirmation as Army chief of staff until October, to allow 

time for a full investigation of the bombing by its Armed Services 

Committee. In the end, the committee concluded that Abrams neither 

ordered nor had knowledge of Lavelle’s illegal actions. On 12 October, 

the full Senate confirmed Abrams’ nomination with only two dissenting votes. As chief of staff, Abrams returned to Vietnam almost immediately at the president’s direction, to help Ambassador Bunker and 

General Weyand try to persuade President Thieu to accept the tentative 

peace agreement Kissinger had negotiated. Then he launched upon the 

task of rebuilding an Army badly damaged by the Vietnam conflict. 

Tragically, his death from cancer on 4 September 1974 prematurely terminated his efforts and deprived the Army of one of its most respected 

leaders.57

Abrams’ successor as COMUSMACV, General Weyand, possessed 

extensive Vietnam experience. Fifty-five years old in 1972, Weyand 

entered the Army through the Reserve Officers Training Corps at the 

University of California at Berkeley. A veteran of the China-BurmaIndia Theater in World War II, he commanded an infantry battalion 

in combat in the Korean War and also held a number of intelligence 

assignments. In Vietnam from 1966 to 1968, he commanded successively the 25th Infantry Division and II Field Force. In the latter position, 

he played a critical role in defending Saigon during the Tet offensive. 

After returning from Southeast Asia, Weyand spent fifteen months, 

from March 1969 to June 1970, as military adviser to the U.S. delegation at the Paris peace talks. He returned to Vietnam in September 1970 

as General Abrams’ deputy. Like Abrams, Weyand viewed the Vietnam 

conflict as a many-faceted struggle that required flexible tactics and 

56 Abrams is cautiously optimistic in Msg, Abrams SPECAT to McCain info Moorer, 21 Jun 

72, box 130, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Also Msg, Laird 06922 to Abrams, 28 Jun 72, box 

V, Abrams Papers, MHI. Clarke, Final Years, p. 508, summarizes Abrams’ advisory successes and 

failures. 57 Abrams’ confirmation struggle can be followed in the newspaper articles in the Newspaper 

Clippings, Biography, Miscellaneous box, Abrams Papers, MHI. U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed 

Services, Report . . . on the Nomination of General Creighton W. Abrams for . . . Chief of Staff, U.S. 

Army, with Additional Views of Senator Margaret Chase Smith; Washington Post, 13 Oct 72, p. P–2; 

both in Miscellaneous/Calendar Backup box, Abrams Papers, MHI. Abrams’ post-Vietnam activities 

are covered in Sorley, Thunderbolt, pp. 339–78.
377

The Easter Offensive

constant pressure on all elements 

of the enemy’s political and 

military system. As it turned out, 

however, his experience at Paris 

would prove the most relevant 

to the problems he was to face as 

COMUSMACV.58

During General Weyand’s 

first four months in command, 

MACV’s activities continued 

with little change. The command 

provided fixed- and rotary-wing 

air support, naval gunfire, and 

advice to the South Vietnamese 

as they battled to retake areas 

the Communists had overrun 

in the spring offensive. On 16 

September, after a prolonged 

struggle, Vietnamese marines 

raised the republic’s red and gold 

flag over the rubble of Quang 

Tri’s citadel, signaling the symbolic recapture of that lost province. During the summer and 

early autumn, under Project Enhance and other programs, the Military 

Assistance Command presided over an influx of American weapons and 

equipment to replace the combat losses of the South Vietnamese armed 

forces and complete their expansion under the improvement and modernization plan. At the same time, American troop withdrawals continued. On 29 August, after consultations among Secretary Laird, the Joint 

Chiefs, and General Weyand, President Nixon announced another 

redeployment of 12,000 men, to be completed by 30 November. This 

fourteenth withdrawal increment, which lowered MACV’s strength to 

27,000, turned out to be the last but one. In December, Nixon held off 

further reductions pending the outcome of the critical military and 

diplomatic actions then under way.59

The Blow Parried

By the end of summer 1972, the Military Assistance Command and 

its South Vietnamese allies had fought the enemy’s offensive to a stand58 Gen Frederick C. Weyand, Biographical Summary, CMH. Weyand’s view of the Vietnam War 

can be found in Weyand Debrief, 15 Jul 68, pp. 3–4. 59 The recovery of Quang Tri is recounted in Andrade, Trial by Fire, chs. 11 and 12. Clarke, Final 

Years, pp. 452–53, details the reequipment effort. Redeployment is discussed in Historical Division, 

“Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pt. 2, pp. 465–70; MACV History, 

1972–73, vol. 2, an. F, p. 59. 

General Weyand is named Army 

Chief of Staff after serving as

COMUSMACV.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

378

still and rolled it back in some areas. Yet the long-run implications of the 

spring and summer battles were uncertain. The North Vietnamese and 

Viet Cong had failed to destroy Saigon’s army and had been unable to 

take and hold permanently any important places. They had disrupted 

pacification in some provinces, but no general political uprising had 

accompanied the general military offensive. By the end of the summer, 

the enemy had lost perhaps 100,000 troops killed and much of his stock 

of tanks and heavy equipment; his units were depleted and exhausted. 

Although probably of little immediate effect on the fighting in the South, 

Linebacker and the mining campaign had drastically reduced North 

Vietnam’s imports of both civilian and military goods and wrecked a 

large part of the North’s industrial and transportation infrastructure. On 

the other hand, South Vietnam also had suffered severely. The southern 

republic’s casualties included at least 10,000 soldiers killed and 33,000 

wounded, as well as large quantities of tanks, artillery pieces, and other 

equipment destroyed or captured. About 25,000 civilians died in the 

fighting and nearly one million were left homeless. North Vietnamese 

troops held about half the land area of Military Region 1, although only 

a tiny fraction of the people, and they had established themselves in a 

strip of lightly populated territory along the borders of Military Regions 

2 and 3.60

As a test of Vietnamization, the results of the campaign were subject 

to varying interpretation. General Abrams attributed allied success to 

the courage and resilience of Saigon’s armed forces. Their willingness 

to stand and fight, he insisted, had enabled American air power to 

play its critical role in beating back the enemy. In his private assessments for Admiral Moorer, General Vogt painted a less flattering portrait of the South Vietnamese performance, noting for example that 

in the battle for Quang Tri, South Vietnamese troops repeatedly broke 

and ran under bombardment by North Vietnamese artillery. Whereas 

Abrams cited shortcomings in command and control as the principal 

cause of South Vietnamese setbacks, Vogt asserted that Saigon’s troops 

lacked fighting spirit. American air power alone, Vogt contended, had 

saved South Vietnam from collapse. On 6 June, he told Moorer: “If it 

was not for the air and the carriers offshore, the whole ground war 

would have gone down the drain a long time ago. That is 100 percent 

truth.” In fact, South Vietnamese troops had fought well in some places 

and poorly in others. The differences in performance often were due 

to objective tactical and materiel factors, such as North Vietnamese 

superiority in armor and long-range artillery at particular points, as 

well as to command failures and lack of morale. In the end, the South 

Vietnamese had survived a heavy blow, but U.S. air power and advisers 

60 Results of the offensive are conveniently summarized in Andrade, Trial by Fire, pp. 527–38. For 

representative contemporary analyses, see State Department, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, 

Study, 17 Jul 72, sub: Vietnam: The July Balance Sheet on Hanoi’s Offensive, box 161, and CIA 

Intelligence Memorandum, 22 Aug 72, box 097, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.
379

The Easter Offensive

clearly had provided the margin of success. For the moment, a rough 

battlefield equilibrium had been established, and neither side possessed 

the immediate capacity to upset it.61

61

 Quotations are from Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–

1973.” Clarke, Final Years, pp. 481–89, gives a balanced summary of South Vietnamese strengths 

and weaknesses during the offensive.

12

The Final Phasedown

During the autumn of 1972, the Military Assistance Command was preparing for its final drawdown to a 15,000-man Military 

Assistance Group as General Weyand and his subordinates made 

plans for continuing the war into 1973. At that point, a sudden breakthrough occurred in the secret Paris negotiations. Dr. Kissinger and 

his Communist opposite number, Le Duc Tho, achieved a cease-fire 

agreement that rendered invalid the assumptions about redeployment 

and Vietnamization under which Weyand and his command had been 

working up to that time. In this changed political environment, MACV 

had to plan for and carry out new and difficult tasks even as it dismantled itself at an accelerated pace.

Peace Nearly at Hand

As Nixon and Kissinger had thought likely, once the Easter offensive’s inconclusive outcome became evident, the North Vietnamese 

moved quickly to serious negotiations.1 In July, Le Duc Tho, a member 

of the North Vietnamese Politburo, resumed his secret Paris talks with 

Kissinger. On 8 October, after weeks of diplomatic sparring, the North 

Vietnamese dropped their long-standing demand for Thieu’s removal 

and the establishment of a coalition government in Saigon. Since 

the United States previously had abandoned its insistence that North 

Vietnam withdraw its troops from the south, the stage was set for rapid 

progress. On 12 October, Kissinger and Le Duc Tho concluded a draft 

agreement. On the twenty-third, as a gesture of good faith, Nixon 

stopped the bombing of North Vietnam above the 20th Parallel.2

Le Duc Tho’s concession, which surprised and dismayed the leaders 

of the southern Viet Cong, stemmed in large part from North Vietnam’s 

military situation in late 1972. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces 



 The following account is based on Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 1301–1473; and Walter 

Scott Dillard, Sixty Days to Peace: Implementing the Paris Peace Accords, Vietnam 1973 (Washington, 

D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1982), pp. 5–26.

 Thompson, “Rolling Thunder to Linebacker,” ch. 9, pp. 64–65, recounts the decision to cut back 

bombing of North Vietnam.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

382

in the south were exhausted and depleted; they required an extended 

pause for recovery. The American bombing and mining campaign—a 

campaign that had elicited no effective response from Hanoi’s Russian 

and Chinese allies—had reduced North Vietnam’s economy and air 

defenses to a shambles. So long as the bombing and blockade continued, North Vietnam could not secure the wherewithal to rebuild its 

forces. In the United States, Nixon had momentarily faced down the 

antiwar movement by responding forcefully to the Easter offensive, and 

he seemed certain to defeat his Democratic opponent, Senator George 

McGovern, in the coming presidential election. At the same time, the 

military equilibrium in South Vietnam clearly depended heavily on 

continued American support of the South Vietnamese Army with air 

power and materiel. If U.S. attacks on the North could be stopped and 

American air power removed from the war, Saigon’s army might well 

collapse under renewed Communist attack. Taking all these factors 

into account, the North was willing to accept the temporary survival 

of the Thieu regime as the price for removing the American aid that 

propped it up.3

 Larry Berman, No Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam (New York: 

Free Press, 2001), p. 176. For a Communist view of the state of their forces, see Tran Van Tra, 

Kissinger and Le Duc Tho
383

The Final Phasedown

The draft terms of the Paris agreement called for an in-place ceasefire within twenty-four hours of the formal signing of the instrument 

and withdrawal of all American troops and materiel within sixty days. 

Simultaneously, American and Vietnamese military prisoners of war, 

but not Viet Cong civilian detainees, were to be released. Both sides 

were to refrain from enlarging their armed forces in South Vietnam 

but could replace equipment on a one-for-one basis. Under the political provisions, Thieu’s regime would remain in place until a National 

Council of National Reconciliation and Concord, composed of equal 

numbers of representatives of the Saigon government, the Viet Cong 

Provisional Revolutionary Government, and a neutral “third force,” 

could organize national elections in South Vietnam. However, the 

National Council was to make decisions on the basis of unanimity and 

possessed no independent means of enforcing any decrees it managed 

to issue. All sides pledged to respect the neutrality, sovereignty, and 

territorial integrity of Laos and Cambodia and to refrain from using 

those countries as bases for attacking each other. Four-party and twoparty military commissions representing the belligerents and an international control commission of neutrals were to implement the agreement and oversee compliance with its terms.4

Nixon and Kissinger believed that the agreement would allow the 

United States to recover its prisoners of war and disengage while still 

securing its minimum objective in South Vietnam: the continued survival of the Saigon government and its access to American financial 

and materiel support, at least for a while. President Thieu would be 

able to keep thousands of Viet Cong in jail, and he would possess a 

veto over decisions of the National Council. This possibility meant 

that elections could occur in South Vietnam only when Thieu considered them to his advantage. While the agreement would allow some 

150,000 North Vietnamese troops to remain inside South Vietnam, it 

would leave Saigon with forces many times as large and in control 

of all the heavily populated areas of the country. When consulted on 

the agreement, Secretary Laird and General Abrams endorsed it as the 

best the allies could obtain. Abrams observed that the allies would be 

no better off militarily if they continued fighting for another year on 

the same scale, which he doubted that they would be able to do, given 

congressional pressure to cut back or end U.S. operations.5

President Thieu saw the agreement differently. From his perspective, a complete American pullout, in combination with a continued 

North Vietnamese military presence in the South and recognition of 

the Provisional Revolutionary Government as a political entity on a 

Vietnam: History of the Bulwark B2 Theater, vol. 5, Concluding the 30-Years War (Ho Chi Minh 

City: Van Nghe Publishing House, 1982). Trans. by Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Feb 

1983, pp. 33–34 (hereafter cited as Tran Van Tra, Bulwark B2). 

 Texts of the agreement and its protocols are in Dillard, Sixty Days to Peace, apps. A–E.

 Abrams’ views are summarized in Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 1365–67, 1374.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

384

par with his government, meant ultimate disaster for his country. In 

addition, he felt compelled by domestic political considerations to 

display independence of the Americans. Accordingly, on 18 October, 

when Kissinger, accompanied by General Abrams, presented the agreement to Thieu, the South Vietnamese leader rejected it. As an act of 

South Vietnamese self-assertion, Thieu demanded a long list of major 

and minor changes in the document.

The North Vietnamese had difficulties of their own with their southern allies. Leaders of the National Liberation Front and the Provisional 

Revolutionary Government, although represented at the formal Paris 

talks, had been left out of the negotiations between Kissinger and 

Le Duc Tho. When the southerners learned of the draft terms, they 

objected to the exclusion of their civilian comrades from the prisoner 

exchange and to Thieu’s continuation in control of Saigon’s political 

apparatus. Like their enemies, the southern Communists wanted to 

amend the agreement to serve their interests.6

There ensued a confusing period of three-sided jockeying between 

the United States and the two Vietnams. Pressing for an early conclusion of the deal, the North Vietnamese publicized its terms on 26 

October. Kissinger responded by telling a news conference that “peace 

is at hand.” During November and early December, in negotiations 

over Thieu’s amendments and over the protocols implementing the 

agreement, the North Vietnamese hardened their position and made 

their own demands for American concessions on critical points. In midDecember, the negotiations collapsed. Nixon, a landslide reelection 

behind him, resumed the mining of North Vietnam’s ports. Between 

18 and 29 December, he conducted the so-called “Christmas bombing,” a series of unprecedentedly heavy B–52 and tactical air strikes on 

targets in and around Hanoi and Haiphong. At the same time, Nixon 

pressed Thieu to endorse the agreement. He threatened that if the 

South Vietnamese remained adamant, the United States would conclude peace without them and terminate military and economic aid.

In the end, both North and South Vietnam gave way. When the 

Paris talks resumed early in January 1973, the North Vietnamese withdrew their most objectionable alterations to the October terms. On 21 

January, Thieu finally endorsed the agreement. On 23 January 1973, 

Kissinger and Le Duc Tho initialed the Paris Peace Accords and their 

ancillary protocols.

Preparing for a Cease-Fire

For MACV, the months between the October breakthrough and the 

signing of the Paris Peace Accords were a hectic period of planning and 

preparation for the final American withdrawal and the replacement 

 Southern Communist and non-Communist reactions are summarized in Berman, No Peace, No 

Honor, pp. 176–77.
385

The Final Phasedown

of MACV by other organizations. The process was plagued with difficulties, many of which stemmed from the secrecy that had shrouded 

Kissinger’s diplomacy. From the start of the national security adviser’s 

meetings with Le Duc Tho in 1969, only President Nixon, a few of 

Kissinger’s National Security Council staff, and Ambassador Bunker 

had been aware of the private negotiations in progress. Until January 

1972, the State and Defense Departments, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

and the Central Intelligence Agency were not informed of the talks. 

MACV had maintained liaison officers with the formal Paris delegation 

and furnished information to it but had no knowledge of the secret 

meetings and of the concessions that Kissinger was offering. This 

ambiguity meant that the military conducted its redeployment and 

Vietnamization planning, and executed the plans, without reference 

to the changing U.S. diplomatic position.7

MACV received its first inkling that a termination of hostilities 

might be imminent late in September 1972. At that time, Kissinger 

directed Bunker and Weyand to encourage the South Vietnamese to 

“move promptly and seize the maximum amount of critical territory.” 

During Kissinger’s and Abrams’ mid-October visit to Saigon, Kissinger 

briefed Ambassador Bunker and General Weyand on the proposed peace 

terms; but he forbade them to reveal the information to their staffs at 

that time. MACV’s planning began only after the North Vietnamese 

publicly announced the state of the negotiations. On 30 October, via 

the special channel the administration had set up for sensitive policy 

matters, Kissinger instructed Bunker to start MACV working on the 

details of organizing the four-party commission that was to implement the cease-fire and supervise the exchange of prisoners and the 

American troop withdrawal. Bunker was to bring Weyand “completely 

into [the] picture” on the Paris talks and have him form a small staff 

to do the planning. Without exchanging written documents, Weyand 

was to include General Vien in the deliberations. Although initially 

requesting only an organization and staffing plan for the commission, 

Kissinger soon expanded Weyand’s task to defining exactly what a 

cease-fire would mean in a war without fronts and how to bring it into 

effect.8

To lead the MACV planning group, Weyand turned to his chief 

of staff, Maj. Gen. Gilbert H. Woodward. Fortuitously, Woodward was 

uniquely qualified for the task. Having served as staff secretary to the 

Berlin Command in 1953 and senior member of the United Nations 

Command Armistice Commission in Korea from 1968 to 1969, the 

period of the Pueblo crisis, Woodward possessed a rich fund of experience in dealing with Communist military negotiators. His planning 

 Ibid., pp. 43–44.

 Dillard, Sixty Days to Peace, pp. 8–10, 15–18. Msgs, Kissinger WHS 2212 to Bunker, 28 Sep 

72; Kissinger WHS 2305 to Bunker, 30 Oct 72; Haig WHS 2312 to Bunker, 4 Nov 72. All in box 

413, NSC files, Nixon Papers.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

386

group initially consisted of a Marine colonel and an Army major from 

the MACV Operations Directorate. Equipped with a copy of the draft 

agreement, the two planners set up shop in an office next to Woodward’s. 

They, and others who joined them later, enjoyed direct access to both 

Woodward and General Weyand. As the planning progressed, Weyand 

through personal conferences kept General Vien informed and sought 

his counterpart’s views. Despite President Thieu’s intransigence, Vien 

maintained a cooperative attitude and made useful suggestions.9

By early November, General Woodward and his team had outlined 

how the Four-Party Joint Military Commission should be organized 

and the requirements for an effective cease-fire. They proposed that 

the commission be headed by a major general or equivalent from each 

party (the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Viet 

Cong’s Provisional Revolutionary Government), assisted by a staff 

in Saigon with equal representation from all sides. In the field, four 

regional control groups, one for each military region, and subgroups 

at province level and below, would try to enforce the armistice terms. 

Those terms, Weyand and his planners stated, at minimum must provide for determining the size and positions of opposing forces, defining the territorial limits of each side’s control, forestalling last-minute 

land-grabbing, and establishing monitored entry points for each side’s 

introduction of supplies and replacement equipment. Weyand observed 

that the purpose of a cease-fire in this unconventional war would be 

“to stop the shooting and free the political negotiating process from 

the pressures of armed force.” Hence, the armistice terms must allow 

 Dillard, Sixty Days to Peace, pp. 11–12.

General Woodward (center)
387

The Final Phasedown

Saigon’s police and troops the latitude to protect their population from 

small-scale attacks by Viet Cong guerrillas, who could be expected to 

continue to operate despite the cease-fire.10

MACV’s submissions formed the basis of the American position 

in the Paris negotiations over the protocols to the main agreement. 

Woodward and his team supported the talks by reviewing North 

Vietnamese proposals and drafting responses and modifications of the 

American plan. Early in January, Woodward and one of his chief planners, Maj. Paul L. Miles, traveled to Paris to participate in the last stages 

of the technical negotiations. The final cease-fire protocol closely followed the principles MACV had outlined. However, in a concession to 

the Communists, which the South Vietnamese resented, the Americans 

agreed that the four-party commission’s field structure would conform 

to the enemy’s geographical command and administrative organization rather than Saigon’s. It would consist of seven regional control 

groups instead of four and twenty-six subregional ones. While the 

organizational aspects of the cease-fire were settled at Paris, the negotiators, in both the main agreement and the protocols, avoided the 

complex political-military question of defining each side’s area of territorial control in South Vietnam. Instead, the military commanders 

in the field were to settle that issue among themselves. Viewed with 

consternation by Weyand and Woodward, this omission set the stage 

for future problems in establishing and enforcing the armistice.11

While General Woodward and his team worked on the Four-Party 

Joint Military Commission, other groups in MACV headquarters planned 

for the final withdrawal of American forces from South Vietnam and 

for MACV’s successor military organizations. None of MACV’s many 

contingency plans for the termination of hostilities envisioned total 

removal of American forces from South Vietnam; hence, the planners 

had to start from scratch. Until late in the process, all the planning was 

done by small, compartmented groups of officers under conditions of 

extreme secrecy. A limited number of people, unable to communicate 

with each other because of the tight security, “worked unbelievably 

long hours doing what the overall staff could have accomplished in 

a routine manner.” As the Paris negotiations alternately progressed 

and halted, the planners repeatedly had to revise their assumptions 

and their work. They labored under uncertain deadlines, since no one 

could predict when the contemplated cease-fire actually would take 

place and withdrawals begin.12

10

 Ibid., pp. 13–14. Msgs, Bunker Saigon 0248 to Kissinger, 4 Nov 72; Bunker Saigon 0253 to 

Kissinger, 7 Nov 72. Both in box 413, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. Quotation is from last-cited 

message. 11 Maj Gen Gilbert H. Woodward, Briefing, sub: The Four-Party Joint Military Commission, 

pp. 4–5, box 1, Gilbert H. Woodward Papers, MHI; Dillard, Sixty Days to Peace, p. 13. Berman, No 

Peace, No Honor, pp. 178–79, emphasizes the avoidance of the territorial issue. 12

 Quotation is from Essay, “Cautionary Notes”; see also Memo, sub: Answers to Historical 

Questions. . . . Both in folder, interview with Col R. L. Branch (Special Planning Groups) MACV 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

388

Immediately after Kissinger’s mid-October visit, General Weyand 

put a small steering group to work on a general concept for redeploying 

all U.S. and South Korean forces within sixty days of a cease-fire. On 

27 October, he received instructions from the Joint Chiefs to continue 

planning for the troop withdrawal and also to prepare proposals for 

two successor command organizations: an oversized Defense Attaché 

Office in Saigon, to manage continuing American assistance to the 

South Vietnamese military, and a joint headquarters in Thailand to conduct post-cease-fire U.S. operations in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. 

Weyand assigned the task of planning for the headquarters in Thailand 

to the MACV Directorate of Operations. The MACV Directorate of 

Logistics took on the planning for the Defense Attaché Office, since 

that office primarily would perform supply tasks. Each directorate initially formed a small close-held planning group, which gradually drew 

in the rest of the staff as the approach of agreement in Paris permitted 

a relaxation of security restrictions.13

Planning for the new headquarters in Thailand was punctuated by 

a final round of interservice debate over command and control of air 

operations in Southeast Asia. After MACV submitted its initial concept 

early in November, the Army and Air Force chiefs of staff argued that 

the new headquarters should have targeting and tasking authority over 

all American air forces in Southeast Asia, including the Strategic Air 

Command’s B–52s and the Pacific Fleet’s carriers. Admiral Moorer, supported by the chief of naval operations and the commandant of the 

Marine Corps, objected to this proposal as reviving the already rejected 

concept of a Southeast Asia Command. Instead, Moorer preferred to 

continue in Thailand the more limited jurisdiction then possessed by 

MACV. Secretary Laird endorsed Moorer’s position.14

That argument settled, the Military Assistance Command completed 

plans for a headquarters entitled U.S. Support Activities Group/Seventh 

Air Force (USSAG/7AF), to be located at Nakhon Phanom Air Base in 

Thailand. A “multi-service integrated headquarters” under CINCPAC’s 

operational command, USSAG/7AF was to exercise operational control 

of Air Force units based in Thailand and was to command the Defense 

Attaché Office in Saigon, thereby overseeing military aid to South 

Vietnam. It was to plan and conduct post-cease-fire American air operations in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, for which purpose it could tie 

in to the South Vietnamese Air Force’s air control system. Command 

of the B–52s was to remain with Strategic Air Command, which would 

maintain a liaison team at Nakhon Phanom, and that of the carriers with 

Pacific Fleet. In structure, the 600-man headquarters was essentially a 

Collection, MHI. MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 1, p. 103. 13

 Msg, Weyand MAC 10291 to Abrams, 28 Oct 72, box A, Abrams Papers, MHI; MACV History, 

1972–73, vol. 2, an. G, pp. 1–2, 8–9. 14 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 2, an. G, p. 2; Essay, “Cautionary Notes,” in folder, interview 

with Col R. L. Branch (Special Planning Groups), MACV Collection, MHI; Historical Division, 

“Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pt. 2, pp. 643–45.
389

The Final Phasedown

shrunken version of MACV with many of its key officers double-hatted 

as members of the Seventh Air Force staff, also to be located at Nakhon 

Phanom. An Air Force general was to command USSAG/7AF with an 

Army major general as deputy, and Air Force officers would head all 

the general staff divisions except those for personnel and logistics, 

which had Army chiefs. Secretary Laird approved this concept on 17 

November and authorized the Joint Chiefs and CINCPAC to take the 

necessary steps for establishing the new headquarters as soon as the 

cease-fire went into effect. During December, the State Department, 

through the American ambassador in Bangkok, secured the necessary 

permission from the initially reluctant Thai authorities.15

Within the Directorate of Logistics, a planning group headed by 

Col. Raymond L. Branch, chief of the Logistics Operations Center, 

struggled to flesh out the size, organization, and functions of the 

Defense Attaché Office, which initially went by the cumbersome title, 

quickly changed, of Defense Resources Surveillance and Termination 

Office. To continue assistance to the South Vietnamese after a total 

American military pullout, the planners, with no precedents to guide 

them, had to construct a unique hybrid civilian-military organization 

within manpower and functional limits that changed repeatedly with 

the ebb and flow of the Paris negotiations. They had to identify all 

the activities, both of the government and private contractors, that 

had grown up to assist the South Vietnamese and determine which 

ones U.S. civilian agencies could assume and which must remain under 

military direction through the Defense Attaché Office. Some activities, 

a participant recalled, “came out of the woodwork” as the planning 

proceeded.16

Despite these difficulties, between late October 1972 and January 

1973, Branch’s group gradually filled in the outline of an organization 

of 50 military personnel and about 1,200 government and contract 

civilians, which was to occupy the MACV headquarters building at Tan 

Son Nhut. An Army major general was to head the office and sit on the 

ambassador’s country team as senior American military representative 

in South Vietnam. In the military chain of command, he was to report 

to the commander of the USSAG/7AF. The Defense Attaché Office had 

a division for operations and plans, a division for assistance to each 

South Vietnamese military service, and directorates for communications-electronics, and support, as well as small field offices around the 

country. It was to furnish the limited advice and support to Saigon’s 

armed forces permitted under the Paris Peace Accords and plan and 

administer continuing financial and material assistance by the Defense 

15 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 2, an. G, pp. 2–4. Msgs, State 223339 to Bangkok, 9 Dec 72; 

Bangkok 17592 to State, 14 Dec 72. Both in box 1022, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 16 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 2, an. G, pp. 8–9. Interview of Col R. L. Branch, 6 Apr 73, and 

accompanying documents in folder, interview with Col R. L. Branch (Special Planning Groups), 

MACV Collection, MHI, describes the planning problems.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

390

Department and the individual U.S. services. It also would report on 

and evaluate South Vietnamese military operations. Most pacification 

support functions, however, were to be transferred to the American 

embassy when MACV closed down.17

While the separate planning groups were still refining the details of 

MACV’s successor entities, the headquarters completed its outline plan 

for the final drawdown. Published on 9 November as OPLAN J215, 

this plan was initially code-named Thunderbolt, in honor of General 

Abrams, and later renamed, more descriptively, Countdown. It brought 

all cease-fire-related redeployments and reorganizations together in a 

single schedule built around a still hypothetical cease-fire date, designated X-Day.

The plan had three phases. In Phase I, before X-Day, units would 

begin standing down, the USSAG/7AF advance party would move to 

Nakhon Phanom, and MACV would complete equipment and facilities transfers to the South Vietnamese. In Phase II, X-Day to X plus

45, most U.S. and Korean troops would leave; the Defense Attaché 

Office was to be activated, initially under MACV’s operational control; 

the USSAG/7AF headquarters main body would move to Thailand; 

and MACV would begin turning over its functions to the new agencies and the American embassy. In Phase III, X plus 45 to X plus 60, 

all remaining American and Korean forces were to depart except for 

the Defense Attaché Office staff; the successor organizations would go 

into full operation; and on X plus 60 MACV headquarters would go 

out of business. Paralleling the MACV standdown, the four Regional 

Assistance Command headquarters would start closing down on X plus

30. However, regional, division, and other field advisers would remain 

in place and continue reporting to MACV until X plus 45. MACV 

would retain enough aircraft and communications equipment in South 

Vietnam to exercise command and control until X plus 50. The Army, 

Navy, and Air Force component commands would be responsible for 

the details of troop redeployments and the transfer of equipment and 

bases to the South Vietnamese. When the plan was published in early 

November, the length of Phase I was uncertain. In fact, it lasted nearly 

three months, time that MACV and its subordinate commands put to 

good use to perfect their plans and preparations.18

Besides planning for its own dissolution, the Military Assistance 

Command launched a final drive to place the South Vietnamese armed 

forces in the best possible position before the cease-fire. Between October 

and January, the command transferred to the South Vietnamese title 

to all of its bases and facilities, including those still occupied by U.S. 

units, which became in effect tenants of their ally. This expedient was 

necessary because the Paris Peace Accords required the dismantling 

of all bases still under American ownership when the cease-fire went 

17

 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 1, p. 138; vol. 2, an. G, pp. 9–12.

18

 Ibid., 1972–73, vol. 2, an. H, pp. 1–2. 
391

The Final Phasedown

into effect. (To permit this maneuver, U.S. negotiators at Paris had purposely kept the wording of the agreement ambiguous on the issue of 

what constituted “American” bases.) At the same time, the command 

oversaw a massive effort to complete the equipping of South Vietnam’s 

forces and building up their materiel stockpiles. The Americans made 

sure that formal title to all the items was passed to Saigon before XDay, when the one-for-one replacement provision of the agreement 

would begin to apply. Supplementing earlier programs for replacing 

RVNAF combat losses and equipping new units, President Nixon late in 

October initiated Project Enhance Plus. Under it, between 23 October 

and 12 December, MACV received and distributed over 105,000 equipment items, including medium and light tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery pieces, fixed-wing aircraft, and helicopters, many taken 

from U.S. reserve components or diverted from military assistance programs for other American allies. When the cease-fire went into effect in 

January, the South Vietnamese possessed reserves of major items well 

in excess of authorized unit requirements. Much of this materiel was 

in storage, awaiting the activation and training of the battalions and 

squadrons that would use it.19

On the eve of the cease-fire, South Vietnam’s armed forces, their 

losses from the North Vietnamese offensive made good and their 

combat capabilities enhanced by additional armor, antitank, and aviation elements, ranked as the fifth largest in the world. They appeared 

to enjoy overwhelming superiority over the North Vietnamese and Viet 

Cong. South Vietnam had about 1.1 million men under arms, about 

half in the regular army, navy, and air force, and the rest in territorial, 

police, and paramilitary formations. The regular army included eleven 

infantry divisions and one airborne division, seven Ranger groups, 

seven nondivisional armored cavalry squadrons, three M48 medium 

tank battalions (two in training), thirty-three border defense Ranger 

battalions (descendants of the old CIDG units), five 175-mm. artillery 

battalions (three in training), forty-one 105-mm. artillery battalions, 

fifteen 155-mm. artillery battalions, and four air defense artillery battalions (one in training and two still to be activated). The Regional and 

Popular Forces possessed their own artillery support in the form of 204 

platoons of 105-mm. guns. South Vietnam’s Air Force had a planned 

strength of sixty-six squadrons, of which thirty-nine were operational 

and twelve in training at the time of the cease-fire. Its 1,099 fixed-wing 

aircraft included jet fighters and fighter-bombers, and its pilots flew 

1,098 helicopters of various types. The Vietnamese Navy possessed 

19

 Dillard, Sixty Days to Peace, pp. 60–61; Clarke, Final Years, pp. 452–53; MACV History, 

1972–73, vol. 1, p. 104 and an. C, pp. 20–21, 74, 77. Memo, Laird for the Assistant to the President 

for National Security Affairs, 13 Oct 72, sub: RVNAF Supply Status . . . , box 162; Memo, Sec Def 

Elliot L. Richardson for the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 17 Mar 73, sub: 

Replacement of RVNAF Combat Losses, box 163, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

392

about 1,500 riverine, coastal surveillance, harbor defense, and logistic 

and support craft and included as well a division-size marine corps.20

As had been true since the days of Ngo Dinh Diem, and despite 

MACV’s best efforts, the impressive facade concealed significant weaknesses. It was questionable whether South Vietnam’s available manpower base could sustain its forces over the long term; and its economy could carry the load only with continuing, substantial American 

assistance. The South Vietnamese still depended heavily on American 

technical support in areas such as maintenance of the sophisticated 

equipment, which the United States had poured in under Enhance

Plus. Weak top-level leadership, inequitable promotion systems, high 

desertion rates, and neglect of troop and dependent welfare persisted 

despite American exhortations and South Vietnamese promises of 

reform. For all the expansion of its air force, Saigon could not carry on 

anything like the Americans’ interdiction campaign against the Ho Chi 

Minh Trail.21

Perhaps most ominous for the future, Saigon’s ground forces, with 

most of the infantry divisions still closely tied to particular localities, remained without adequate mobile reserves to counter concentrated attacks like those the North Vietnamese had launched in 1972. 

American airpower had filled the gap during that offensive, but the 

days of that support’s availability were numbered. During the summer 

of 1972, President Nixon, at Kissinger’s urging, prodded the Defense 

Department for action on this issue. Secretary Laird, however, supported by the Joint Chiefs and Generals Abrams and Weyand, declared 

that no drastic reorganization or expansion of the South Vietnamese 

Army was possible at that stage. Instead, Laird said, the United States 

must rely on a “sequential and evolutionary approach” emphasizing 

continued improvement of the territorial forces and gradual steps to 

free regular divisions from static security tasks. There the question 

rested until the cease-fire. In the end, Vietnamization had prepared 

the South Vietnamese to hold their own against Viet Cong guerrillas 

supported by North Vietnamese light infantry. Their capacity by themselves to defeat a major conventional North Vietnamese assault with 

heavy mechanized and artillery formations was as much in doubt as 

ever.22

20 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 1, an. C, pp. 19–20, 84. South Vietnam’s world ranking is noted 

in William S. Turley, The Second Indochina War: A Short Political and Military History, 1954–1975

(New York: New American Library, 1987), p. 161. 21

 Clarke, Final Years, pp. 462–69. General Cao Van Vien and Lt. Gen. Dong Van Khuyen, 

Reflections on the Vietnam War, Indochina Monographs (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 1980), pp. 113–14. 22 Clarke, Final Years, pp. 517–18; Vien and Khuyen, Reflections, pp. 114–15. Quotation is from 

Memo, Laird for the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 4 Aug 72, sub: Reserve 

Forces for the RVNAF, box 161, NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA. For examples of White House 

concern, see Memo, Kissinger for the Sec Def, 12 Jul 72, sub: Military Assistance to the RVN, box 

1019; and Memo, Odeen for Kissinger, 20 Sep 72, sub: Additional Mobile Reserve Units for RVNAF, 

box 161. Both in NSC files, Nixon Papers, NARA.
393

The Final Phasedown

South Vietnam’s forces were not severely tested during most of 

the time between the diplomatic breakthrough in October and the 

signing of the agreement in January. On the ground, military activity declined. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong concentrated on 

refitting their battered forces. They also used guerrillas and small main 

force elements to establish a presence in as many areas as possible. The 

South Vietnamese countered these efforts with renewed pacification 

and population control campaigns. There were upsurges of combat in 

October and again in late January, as each side attempted last-minute 

land grabbing in anticipation of the armistice.23

During those months, MACV continued its air operations in South 

Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, as well as in North Vietnam below the 

20th Parallel. The command played only a subordinate part in the 

December Linebacker II bombing campaign, which was concentrated 

around Hanoi and Haiphong, in route packages over which MACV had 

no jurisdiction. Because the B–52s, with their massive bomb loads and 

all-weather attack capability, played the central role in the campaign, 

Secretary Laird and the Joint Chiefs placed the Strategic Air Command 

headquarters at Omaha, Nebraska, in charge of scheduling, targeting, 

and planning the missions. Strategic Air Command issued operational 

instructions to the Eighth Air Force on Guam, the carrier Task Force 

77 in the Gulf of Tonkin, and the MACV/Seventh Air Force in Saigon. 

General Vogt’s headquarters had little to do but respond, often on short 

notice, to Strategic Air Command’s demands for escort and other missions. As an Air Force historian put it, during Linebacker II, Strategic Air 

Command “was not merely going its own way, but instructing Seventh 

Air Force to follow along smartly.”24

The Final Drawdown

On 27 January 1973, at the International Conference Center in Paris, 

Secretary of State Rogers and the foreign ministers of North and South 

Vietnam and the People’s Revolutionary Government formally signed 

the “Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam” 

and its supporting protocols. With that action, a cease-fire went into 

effect in South Vietnam, and the sixty-day countdown began for final 

American withdrawal and MACV’s inactivation. General Weyand and 

his subordinates at once put into execution the plans they had carefully worked out during the previous three months.

On 28 January, Weyand activated the U.S. delegation to the FourParty Joint Military Commission. To head the delegation, the administration, at Weyand’s recommendation, selected General Woodward. 

23 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 1, pp. 103–04, an. A, p. 7. 24

 Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pt. 2, pp. 

666–78; Thompson, “Rolling Thunder to Linebacker,” ch., 10, pp. 1–3, 23–24, 33–37, 40–49, 50–51. 

Quotation is from pp. 23–24.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

394

General Wickham, who had been serving as MACV deputy chief of 

staff for economic affairs, became Woodward’s deputy. Like Woodward, 

Wickham had experience in dealing with Cold War confrontation 

lines, having served in Berlin and on the Demilitarized Zone in Korea. 

Personnel from MACV headquarters, most of whom had participated 

in planning for the commission, constituted the U.S. delegation’s 

central staff in Saigon. Officers and enlisted men from the regional 

assistance commands formed the delegation’s regional and subregional 

teams. To ensure close coordination between MACV headquarters and 

the Four-Party Joint Military Commission, General Woodward retained 

his other “hat” as MACV chief of staff until the new organization was 

well launched. Woodward reported to Washington through General 

Weyand and the military chain of command. He also worked closely 

with Ambassador Bunker, who had final authority on political matters. The Nixon administration gave Bunker, Weyand, and Woodward 

wide freedom of action and full and prompt support in the unfolding 

negotiations over implementation of the Paris terms. 

During the commission’s negotiations, Woodward held regular 

conferences, outside the plenary sessions, with his South Vietnamese 

counterpart, General Dzu, and with Dzu’s successor, Lt. Gen. Du Quoc 

Dong, to harmonize the allies’ positions. When necessary, which it 

often was, Bunker and Weyand assisted Woodward in obtaining decisions from President Thieu, who allowed Dzu and Dong little discretion. Further facilitating American liaison with the South Vietnamese, 

General Wickham established a close working relationship with the 

influential deputy chief of the Saigon delegation, Brig. Gen. Phan Hoa 

Hiep, who had close personal ties to Thieu. 25

General Woodward’s task was far from easy. At every stage of the 

Four-Party Joint Military Commission’s existence and every step of 

its work, he had to contend with the mutual hostility and conflicting political agendas of the two Vietnamese sides. President Thieu 

had signed on to the Paris agreements only under extreme American 

pressure, and his government dragged its feet at every point of their 

implementation. The South Vietnamese reneged on a commitment to 

provide logistical support for the field elements of the Four-Party Joint 

Military Commission and the International Commission for Control 

and Supervision. To fill the gap, the MACV Directorate of Logistics and 

the regional assistance commands took on the housing, feeding, and 

transportation of the armistice organizations. For their part, the North 

Vietnamese and the Provisional Revolutionary Government haggled 

over the smallest procedural details, usually in order to expand the 

Provisional Revolutionary Government’s organizational presence 

throughout South Vietnam and enhance its governmental status. They 

attempted to establish linkages between issues that the Paris agree25 Dillard, Sixty Days to Peace, pp. 29–49, 181; Msg, Weyand MAC 11038 to Abrams, 21 Nov 

72, box A, Abrams Papers, MHI.
395

The Final Phasedown

ments had clearly separated. For example, they tried to tie the release 

of Viet Cong civilian detainees to the exchange of military prisoners. 

Most damaging, on the excuse, which was largely valid, that the South 

Vietnamese had failed to provide the requisite support and security, 

the Communists never fully manned their parts of the Four-Party Joint 

Military Commission’s regional and subregional offices, thereby crippling enforcement of the cease-fire.26

Through a judicious combination of tact, patience, and firmness, 

General Woodward kept the Four-Party Joint Military Commission 

moving forward on the commission’s three basic tasks: supervising 

American and South Korean troop withdrawals, accounting for and 

exchanging captive military personnel, and attempting to stop the 

shooting. Of these tasks, the commission fully discharged the first 

two before it went out of existence on 29 March. Supervising troop 

withdrawals was a straightforward matter of stationing observers at the 

ports and airfields to verify the movement of men and supplies. The 

prisoner exchange was complicated by the aforementioned Communist 

attempts at linkage. Backed by Bunker, Weyand, and the administration, Woodward countered those ploys by insisting on exact adherence 

to the Paris agreement. At one point, he withdrew from commission 

meetings and the administration temporarily halted redeployments in 

a display of firmness. The other side, interested above all in getting 

American forces out of South Vietnam, gave way. In the end, the commission managed the return of 587 American military personnel from 

captivity in North and South Vietnam and Laos; and the two Vietnamese 

sides also completed an exchange of their military prisoners.27

Despite General Woodward’s best efforts, the Four-Party Joint 

Military Commission failed to end military combat in South Vietnam. 

The American delegation made a good-faith attempt to enforce a 

cease-fire, but it faced intractable obstacles. The negotiators at Paris 

had avoided the politically explosive task of determining which side 

controlled which territory—a nearly impossible endeavor at any event 

in an unconventional conflict with no fixed front line. One belligerent, North Vietnam, refused to acknowledge that its army even was 

present on the battlefield. By refusing to deploy their regional and 

subregional teams, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong prevented 

investigation and resolution of the numerous cease-fire violations. The 

International Commission for Control and Supervision, made up of 

Canadians, Indonesians, Poles, and Hungarians, had no better success, 

due to disagreements between its Communist and non-Communist 

members and to the Viet Cong’s refusal to support or protect its teams 

26 Dillard, Sixty Days to Peace, pp. 37–38, 54–67; MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 1, pp. 138–39, 

vol. 2, an. H, p. 18; Woodward, Briefing, pp. 11–13. 27 Dillard, Sixty Days to Peace, pp. 71–99, 178, 180; Woodward, Briefing, pp. 1–2, 26–28. The 

negotiations can be followed in detail in General Woodward’s Handwritten Notes on the Four-Power 

Armistice Commission, 2 Feb–14 Mar 73, Woodward Papers, MHI.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

396

in contested areas. After much American prodding, Saigon and the 

Provisional Revolutionary Government organized the Two-Party Joint 

Military Commission, which was supposed to enforce the cease-fire 

after the Four-Party Joint Military Commission disbanded. However, 

the Two-Party Joint Military Commission, hamstrung by a requirement 

for unanimous decisions, never functioned at all.28

More than any other factor, the unresolved issue of territorial 

control undermined the cease-fire. Even had the negotiators at Paris 

made more of an effort than they did to establish the opposing military positions, circumstances on the battlefield would have frustrated 

their efforts. The war had left the contending Vietnamese forces intermingled in a “leopard spot” pattern. In the many contested rural areas, 

the degree of Saigon government and Communist control continuously fluctuated, depending in some villages on whether it was day 

or night. The most practical solution might have been a regrouping 

of military forces into clearly demarcated, geographically contiguous 

zones of control, on the pattern of the partition of Vietnam in the 1954 

Geneva Agreements; but both Vietnamese sides rejected that approach. 

President Thieu insisted that his government was sovereign throughout South Vietnam; even after the Paris agreements were signed, he 

persisted in trying to recover the Communist-controlled regions. For 

their part, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong recalled that, after 

the 1954 regrouping of forces, President Ngo Dinh Diem had used his 

troops and police to destroy the party’s political organization in South 

Vietnam. They preferred the existing intermingling of armies, which 

allowed their military units to protect and support the revolutionary political structure. In addition, as of early 1973 the Communists 

controlled more territory than people; they would have to fight and 

maneuver to enlarge their population base.29

What Kissinger and Le Duc Tho could not settle in Paris, Weyand 

and Woodward, as they had feared, could not settle in Vietnam. The 

Vietnamese antagonists, regardless of what they had signed at Paris, 

intended to resolve the issue between them by armed force. During 

the first three months after the signing of the Paris agreement, combat 

in South Vietnam showed no noticeable decline from immediate precease-fire levels. Generals Weyand and Woodward were not surprised 

by this development. Fully appreciating the complex nature of the 

Vietnam conflict, they had hoped that the so-called cease-fire at least 

would reduce rather than end the violence. Even that hope, however, 

went unrealized.30 

28 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 1, p. 139; Dillard, Sixty Days to Peace, pp. 137–69, 178, 181–

82; Woodward, Briefing, pp. 29–30. 29 The Communist view is summarized in Tran Van Tra, Bulwark B2, pp. 38–39, 44–45. Berman, 

No Peace, No Honor, pp. 8–9, 179, argues that Nixon and Kissinger never expected the cease-fire to 

work. They wanted from the Paris agreements simply the recovery of American prisoners of war and 

a legalistic rationale for continued U.S. support of South Vietnam in an ongoing war. 30 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 1, pp. 139, 141–49, summarizes military operations.
397

The Final Phasedown

While General Woodward and his staff struggled to implement 

the cease-fire, the rest of MACV put in motion the troop withdrawals 

and headquarters reorganizations of Operation Countdown. As of 28 

January, out of an authorized strength of 27,000 officers and men, the 

command had 23,335 American personnel actually in South Vietnam, 

most of them in logistical units, air cavalry troops, helicopter companies, and a Marine aircraft group. These troops, along with about 35,000 

South Koreans and 100 or so Thais, Filipinos, and Nationalist Chinese, 

had to leave South Vietnam by the end of March. The American withdrawal took place in four fifteen-day increments, each consisting of 

about one-fourth of the force, paralleled by outward shipments of 

cargo by air and sea. Troop movements proceeded steadily, except for a 

temporary halt during one of the crises in the prisoner exchange negotiations. The final increment boarded ships and planes between 27 and 

29 March, simultaneously with the departure of the last American prisoners of war from Hanoi. The Koreans and other allies managed their 

own withdrawals. All their forces left South Vietnam well before the 

end of March.31

Formation of the USSAG/7AF headquarters and the Defense Attaché 

Office followed the three phases outlined in the Countdown plan. 

The advance echelon of USSAG/7AF moved to Nakhon Phanom on 

29 January. Transfer of the main body, drawn largely from the operations and intelligence sections of MACV and Seventh Air Force, began 

on 10 February. At 0800 on 15 February, General Vogt, as USSAG/7AF 

commander, took over from MACV control of American air operations. 

Additional headquarters and support personnel continued moving from 

Saigon to Nakhon Phanom during the following month as their MACV 

staff agencies closed down. As the personnel of USSAG/7AF moved out 

of the MACV headquarters complex at Tan Son Nhut, civilian members 

of the Defense Attaché Office arrived for orientation and on-the-job 

training by their MACV counterparts. On 28 January, Maj. Gen. John 

E. Murray, the MACV director of logistics, whom General Weyand had 

nominated to head the new office, activated the Defense Attaché Office

and took command of it, initially as a subordinate of COMUSMACV. 

Assembly of the 1,200-person civilian staff was slower than expected, 

due to difficulty in recruiting civil servants to work in Vietnam. By 29 

March, nevertheless, 90 percent of the necessary people had been hired 

and 58 percent of the staff had arrived in Saigon. On that date, General 

Murray assumed responsibility for residual American support of the 

South Vietnamese armed forces.32

During Countdown, the Military Assistance Command staff gradually dwindled. Directorates transferred their functions to USSAG/7AF 

and the Defense Attaché Office, and headquarters personnel either 

31

 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 137–38; vol. 2, an. F, pp. 60–61, an. H, pp. 2–6.

32 Ibid., 1972–73, vol. 1, pp. 137–38; vol. 2, an. G, pp. 4–5, 10–12; Vogt Interv, 8–9 Aug 78, pp. 

252–53.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

398

redeployed or joined the new agencies. Much of the Directorate of 

Operations moved to Nahkon Phanom, while the Defense Attaché 

Office absorbed the MACV command center and took over liaison 

with the Joint General Staff. The Intelligence Directorate withdrew 

its personnel from the combined intelligence centers and turned the 

centers over to the South Vietnamese. Civilians of the Defense Attaché 

Office and employees of American contractors replaced the Logistics 

Directorate in providing technical assistance to Saigon’s forces. MACV’s 

Communications and Electronics Directorate set up communications 

for USSAG/7AF, supported the Four-Party Joint Military Commission 

and the International Commission for Control and Supervision, and 

maintained MACV’s contact with the rest of the world until the end 

of March, when it turned over its mission and much of its equipment 

to the Defense Attaché Office. The MACV Office of Information, while 

furnishing public affairs support to General Woodward’s delegation, 

slowly went out of existence. The office held its last afternoon press 

briefing on 27 January and then progressively turned over public information to the South Vietnamese and the U.S. Embassy. MACV’s Office 

of Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support stood 

down on 27 February. It passed its remaining pacification support and 

reporting functions, as well as many of its civilian personnel, to the 

U.S. Embassy’s Office of the Special Assistant to the Ambassador for 

Field Operations and the U.S. Agency for International Development. 

CORDS field representatives went to newly established Directorates for 

Resettlement and Reconstruction in the American consulates general 

at Da Nang, Nha Trang, Bien Hoa, and Can Tho, where they would 

continue to monitor the situation in the countryside.33

MACV’s advisory groups and regional assistance commands also 

gradually went out of business. The regional assistance command 

headquarters, charged with support of the field elements of the FourParty Joint Military Commission and the International Commission 

of Control and Supervision, kept working with minimal staffs until 

the last days of March. When they disbanded, they turned the task of 

monitoring South Vietnamese military activity over to the consulates 

general. After the signing of the Paris Accords, the Army, Navy, and Air 

Force advisory groups withdrew their personnel from Vietnamese units, 

training centers, and other facilities and assembled them in Saigon for 

redeployment. Before disbanding in March, the advisory groups transferred their remaining equipment and bases to the South Vietnamese 

and their residual advice and assistance functions to the Army, Navy, 

and Air Force divisions of the Defense Attaché Office.34

33 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 1, pp. 138–39, an. D, pp. 43–44; vol. 2, an. H, pp. 6–10, an. I, 

p. 6; Hammond, Military and the Media, 1968–1973, pp. 613–14. 34

 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 1, p. 139; vol. 2, an. H, pp. 15–18; Memo, Col R. R. Battreall 

for CofS MACV, 26 Mar 73, sub: Countdown After Action Report, in AAR Countdown folder, 

MACV Collection, MHI.
399

The Final Phasedown

As its forces redeployed and its headquarters closed down, the 

Military Assistance Command relinquished its responsibilities for the 

war in Cambodia to other agencies. The Military Equipment Delivery 

Team, which managed the assistance program for Cambodia, had 

moved all its personnel from Saigon to Phnom Penh by the end of 

1971. During 1972, the United States began shipping military materiel 

to Cambodia directly through the port of Kompong Som instead of 

through Saigon. MACV gradually terminated its airlift and logistical 

support to the Military Equipment Delivery Team and turned those 

functions over to Pacific Command and the U.S. forces in Thailand. 

MACV’s component commands closed out their training programs 

for the Cambodian armed forces, leaving that effort to the South 

Vietnamese. When the cease-fire went into effect in South Vietnam, 

USSAG/7AF, in conjunction with the American embassy in Phnom 

Penh, assumed control of air operations in Cambodia, where the war 

went on. The tripartite American–South Vietnamese–Cambodian operational coordinating group moved its sessions from Saigon to Phnom 

Penh. Pacific Command took over from MACV provision of the senior 

U.S. member, with USSAG/7AF and the Defense Attaché Office also 

sending representatives.35

At this final stage of Vietnamization, General Weyand viewed South 

Vietnam’s military prospects with cautious optimism. On 7 March, in 

a personal assessment prepared at the request of the new secretary of 

defense, Elliot L. Richardson, who had replaced Laird on 29 January, 

Weyand declared that the South Vietnamese should be able to hold their 

own after the Americans left. He anticipated that the North Vietnamese 

would rebuild their main force units and bases inside South Vietnam, 

principally in Military Region 1 and the border areas of Military Region 

3; but he doubted that they would attempt a “decisive violation” of the 

cease-fire, at least in the near future. Instead, the North Vietnamese 

and the Provisional Revolutionary Government would carry on a campaign of political subversion and “low-level” military action to expand 

their influence and territory. The South Vietnamese, with their existing force structure and weaponry, could deal easily with this threat. 

Weyand assessed favorably the incumbent South Vietnamese corps 

and division commanders but noted that the quality of their staff 

officers and subordinate commanders, as well as that of province and 

district leaders, remained mixed. He saw encouraging indications that 

Thieu’s government was beginning to take merit as well as politics into 

account in assignments and promotions. Weyand expressed considerable concern about the persistent inadequacy of South Vietnamese 

35 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 2, an. F, pp. 63–65. Msgs, Abrams SPECAT to McCain, 10 Jan 

72 and 14 Feb 72, Abrams Papers, MHI. Maj Gen Howard H. Cooksey, Briefing, n.d., sub: US Air 

Strikes in Support of the Khmer Republic, Howard H. Cooksey Papers, MHI. Msgs, State 39041 to 

Phnom Penh, 2 Mar 73; Phnom Penh 3411 to State, 10 Apr 73; box 514, NSC files, Nixon Papers, 

NARA.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

400

equipment maintenance, which suffered from command neglect and 

a lack of qualified personnel. Presumably, the Defense Attaché Office 

and its contractors would have to take up the slack in that area.

Weyand seemed less certain of South Vietnam’s ability to defeat 

another large-unit offensive, for which he estimated the North 

Vietnamese would be ready by 1974. He acknowledged that the South 

Vietnamese artillery could not counter North Vietnam’s longer-range 

130-mm. fieldpieces and that the South Vietnamese had yet to master 

the tactical coordination of armor and infantry. He admitted as well 

that the South Vietnamese still lacked sufficient mobile reserves and 

could shift forces between regions only by creating “unavoidable risks” 

in the areas from which they were withdrawn. Weyand’s proclamation that “Vietnamization has succeeded” notwithstanding, the facts 

he presented made clear that South Vietnam’s survival would depend 

in large measure on North Vietnamese and Provisional Revolutionary 

Government willingness to pursue power through means short of allout war and on American willingness to intervene if the other side 

again escalated the military conflict.36

By 29 March, the only American military personnel left in South 

Vietnam were the U.S. delegates to the Four-Party Joint Military 

Commission, themselves in the process of winding up work and 

departing; the fifty-man Defense Attaché Office military contingent; 

and a 143-man Marine embassy guard. At 1100 on the twenty-ninth, 

in a simple ceremony, General Weyand furled the colors of the Military 

Assistance Command, Vietnam, and formally inactivated it. In a 

final statement, he declared: “Our mission has been accomplished.” 

“I depart,” he said “with a strong feeling of pride in what we have 

achieved, and in what our achievement represents.” In a message read 

at the ceremony, Admiral Moorer expressed gratitude and admiration 

for all those Americans who had served in the armed forces in Vietnam. 

He praised the work of MACV and the “courageous actions” of its members. Immediately after furling the colors, General Weyand himself left 

for Washington with an intermediate stop at Honolulu. At his departure ceremony at Tan Son Nhut, attended by General Vien and other 

Vietnamese dignitaries and featuring a band and honor guard, Weyand 

“astounded all present” by delivering his five-minute farewell remarks 

in understandable Vietnamese. With that graceful gesture, Weyand 

boarded his aircraft and MACV’s eleven years of war came to an end.37

36 Msg, COMUSMACV MAC 39933 to JCS, 7 Mar 73, Historians files, CMH; Clarke, Final 

Years, pp. 493–95. 37 MACV History, 1972–73, vol. 2, an. G, p. 27; Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff and 

the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973,” pt. 2, p. 775. Msg, George D. Jacobson Saigon 0878 to Abrams, 30 

Mar 73, box A, Abrams Papers, MHI, describes Weyand’s departure speech. Maj. Charles D. Melson, 

USMC and Lt. Col. Curtis G. Arnold, USMC, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The War That Would Not 

End, 1971–1973 (Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine 

Corps, 1991), p. 216.
401

The Final Phasedown

Epilogue: The Fall of a Nation

Although MACV’s war had ended, South Vietnam’s war went on. 

Even as Generals Weyand and Woodward tried to put the Paris agreements into effect, North Vietnam began rebuilding its military strength 

in the South. As early as February 1973, the North Vietnamese established a new surface-to-air missile complex at the old American base at 

Khe Sanh, to protect the movement of men and supplies into Military 

Region 1. During the first year after the signing of the Paris agreements, 

more than 100,000 North Vietnamese troops entered South Vietnam, 

along with tanks and artillery to replace the losses of 1972. To support 

their forces, the enemy built new roads and logistical facilities in Laos, 

Cambodia, and South Vietnam. Fighting continued in Cambodia. In 

Laos, a cease-fire, signed on 21 February 1973, soon broke down. In all 

four of South Vietnam’s military regions, Saigon’s forces battled with 

the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong for control of territory and for 

strategic position. According to one estimate, 80,000 Vietnamese on 

both sides were killed during the first year of “peace.”38

38 Military operations are summarized in Turley, Second Indochina War, pp. 163–67; and in 

Col. William E. LeGro, Vietnam from Cease-Fire to Capitulation (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army 

Center of Military History, 1981), chs. 3–7. The North Vietnamese recount their buildup with pride 

The colors of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, were

officially retired, 29 March 1973, during a deactivation ceremony at MACV

headquarters in Saigon.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

402

In the process of persuading President Thieu to sign the Paris 

agreements, President Nixon repeatedly promised that he would 

take stern action, presumably a resumption of U.S. air strikes, if 

the North Vietnamese violated the terms. Put to the test, he did 

not keep his word. During March and April 1973, Nixon and his 

advisers seriously considered bombing North Vietnamese troops 

and bases in South Vietnam and on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up plans for the raids. The administration continued the air war over Cambodia and conducted B–52 

and tactical air strikes in Laos in response to Communist breaches 

of the cease-fire there. However, Nixon took no action in Vietnam. 

Until the end of March, the president did not want to upset the 

return of American prisoners of war. Thereafter, the intensifying 

Watergate scandal undermined Nixon’s authority and paralyzed 

the administration. Finally, in July 1973, Congress passed and 

Nixon reluctantly signed legislation that prohibited any use of 

government funds after 15 August to support American combat 

activities within Cambodia, Laos, and the two Vietnams and in the 

skies above them.39

Whether Nixon ever intended to resume a full-scale air war in 

Vietnam if the North Vietnamese violated the agreement—as he 

and Kissinger expected them to do—remains a question. Nixon and 

his national security adviser gave every indication that they were 

ready to settle for a “healthy interval” between the Paris agreements 

and South Vietnam’s fall. On 5 March, for example, Kissinger told 

his Washington Special Actions Group that Nixon “has no intention of letting North Vietnam take over South Vietnam militarily—particularly in 1973; two or three years from now is another 

matter.”40

In fact, South Vietnam’s fall took two more years. At the outset, 

South Vietnam’s post-cease-fire position was far from hopeless. The 

Saigon government, according to one authority, “was no longer a fragile colonial rump but a fairly stable regime in possession of the world’s 

fifth largest armed force. . . . It was no longer susceptible to overthrow 

by political turmoil or Southern-based insurgency.” Despite the enemy’s 

buildup, the military balance, in numbers of troops and quantities of supplies and equipment, initially favored Saigon. Besides its strong armed 

forces, Thieu’s government held administrative and military control 

of the bulk of South Vietnam’s population and resources, whereas the 

Communist-dominated regions were poor and thinly populated. After 

the Paris agreement was signed, aggressive South Vietnamese “landgrabbing” and pacification operations further reduced the enemy’s terin Victory in Vietnam, pp. 338–40. 39 Berman, No Peace, No Honor, pp. 254–59. 40

 CJCS M–24–73 for Record, 15 Mar 73, quoted in Historical Division, “Joint Chiefs of Staff 

and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973.”
403

The Final Phasedown

ritory. The COSVN commander recalled: “[Saigon’s forces] stepped up 

their attacks and exercised even tighter control over the people, thus 

creating considerable difficulties for us.” Faced with defeats and losses, 

some Communist leaders “concluded that the balance of forces on the 

battlefield had changed in favor of the enemy, and that the revolution 

was in danger.” Most North Vietnamese and Viet Cong commanders, 

however, kept their faith in ultimate victory and worked methodically 

to reverse the unfavorable trends.41

Their faith was justified. During 1973 and 1974, the balance of 

forces in Vietnam gradually tipped in the Communists’ favor. The 

North Vietnamese, while continuing military operations and political agitation in the South, methodically rebuilt their main forces 

and logistical system in preparation for another sustained offensive. 

Besides armor and artillery, the buildup included a formidable air 

defense system that effectively neutralized Saigon’s air force. With the 

Watergate scandal sapping his administration’s authority, Nixon could 

not prevent Congress from progressively reducing appropriations for 

military assistance to South Vietnam. Nixon’s resignation under threat 

of impeachment in August 1974 closed out whatever chance remained 

of another American rescue of Saigon. Materially, the aid reductions 

compelled the Joint General Staff to restrict issues of fuel, ammunition, spare parts, medical supplies, radio batteries, and other consumable items to its troops in the field even as enemy pressure on them 

increased. Psychologically, the cuts induced a sense of abandonment 

and defeatism at all levels of South Vietnamese society. The diminution 

of American support exacerbated all of South Vietnam’s long-standing internal weaknesses—uninspired military and civilian leadership, 

endemic corruption, and political and social disunity. President Thieu, 

whose increasingly dictatorial rule alienated a wide spectrum of nonCommunist elements, proved unable to stop the rot or devise a strategy 

for national survival suited to the changing circumstances.42

In fact, Thieu’s political and strategic decisions played a major 

part in shaping South Vietnam’s final tragedy. Thieu adopted a policy 

toward the Paris agreements of “Four No’s”—no negotiations with the 

enemy, no Communist activity in South Vietnam, no coalition government, and no surrender of territory. The unanimity rule on the 

National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord permitted 

Thieu to deadlock the political process as he wished. Implementing 

his fourth point, Thieu pressed a nationwide military offensive to seize 

and hold every part of South Vietnam’s territory. As noted previously, 

this offensive produced initial gains. However, it also exacerbated 

41 First quotation is from Turley, Second Indochina War, p. 161; see also pp. 162, 166–67. Second 

quotation is from Tran Van Tra, Bulwark B2, pp. 32–33. 42

 Stephen T. Hosmer, Konrad Kellen, and Brian M. Jenkins, The Fall of South Vietnam: 

Statements by Vietnamese Military and Civilian Leaders (New York: Crane, Russak & Co., 1980); 

Turley, Second Indochina War, pp. 169–74. 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

404

South Vietnam’s principal military weakness: the dispersal of its forces 

in defensive and security missions. The Communists, with an army 

that was smaller overall than the South Vietnamese Army, thus could 

concentrate superior strength at any point of attack, and Saigon lacked 

mobile reserves to counter them. Exploiting this advantage, the North 

Vietnamese step by step eliminated the outer layers of South Vietnam’s 

defenses, securing their expanding logistical system and compressing 

the South Vietnamese back into the major population centers.43

During 1973 and 1974, the South Vietnamese managed to hold on 

militarily, but at the cost of a casualty rate in both years that nearly 

equaled that of 1972. By the beginning of 1975, Saigon’s forces were 

bled out, suffering from shortages of munitions and supplies, territorially overextended, and pervaded, like South Vietnamese society 

as a whole, by an expectation of inevitable defeat. When the North 

Vietnamese opened their new main force offensive, featuring a more 

sophisticated employment of combined arms than in 1972, the South 

Vietnamese collapse came with stunning rapidity. During March 

1975, after initial defeats, President Thieu made an ill-considered 

last-minute attempt to regroup his forces in Military Regions 1 and 

2 for defense of a few key centers. Saigon’s shaky command and staff 

structure was not up to the challenge, and its locally based military 

units disintegrated as soldiers deserted to save their families. Within 

a few weeks, the North Vietnamese captured all of Military Regions 1 

and 2. In the debacle, the better half of South Vietnam’s army ceased 

to exist. After regrouping, the North Vietnamese advanced into 

Military Region 3 and closed in on Saigon, only briefly delayed by 

the valiant stand of the South Vietnamese 18th Division at Xuan Loc 

northeast of the capital. On 21 April, with Saigon’s defenses crumbling, President Thieu resigned. Nine days later, on 30 April, his successor, General Duong Van Minh, who had led the overthrow of Ngo 

Dinh Diem twelve years before, unconditionally surrendered South 

Vietnam to the North Vietnamese and the Provisional Revolutionary 

Government. By the time he did so, Phnom Penh had already fallen 

to the Khmer Rouge. Laos, where the cease-fire of February 1973 had 

failed to halt the fighting, soon would follow South Vietnam and 

Cambodia into the Communist fold.44

In the United States, government officials and the general public 

had the impression that South Vietnam was giving up without a fight, 

but the truth was more complex. Many South Vietnamese and territorial units fought hard until the very end. Especially notable was the 

stand of the South Vietnamese 18th Division and Long Khanh provincial forces at Xuan Loc, a key town and road junction on the eastern 

approaches to Saigon. For eleven days, from 9 to 21 April 1975, the 

43

 Turley, Second Indochina War, pp. 166–69; LeGro, Cease-Fire to Capitulation, p. 179. 44 South Vietnamese casualty rates are noted in Thayer, “War Without Fronts,” pp. 938–39. 

Military operations are recounted in LeGro, Cease-Fire to Capitulation, passim.
405

The Final Phasedown

South Vietnamese 18th Division 

fought a North Vietnamese corps 

of three divisions to a standstill, 

repelling attack after attack by 

Communist armor and infantry 

supported by heavy artillery and 

inflicting thousands of enemy 

casualties. The result was due in 

good measure to the leadership 

of the 18th’s commander, Brig. 

Gen. Le Minh Dao. Dao carefully 

planned his defense, conserved 

his scarce artillery ammunition 

for the main battle, deployed 

and maneuvered his troops with 

skill, and made effective use of 

supporting arms and of what 

was left of South Vietnamese air 

power. When finally outflanked 

and forced to withdraw, he 

brought his troops out in good 

order. The North Vietnamese 

corps commander, a veteran of 

combat against both the French 

and the Americans, characterized 

Xuan Loc as the fiercest battle of 

his career.45

Xuan Loc was not an isolated incident. In every corps area, while some 

South Vietnamese and territorial units disintegrated, others fought until 

overwhelmed by superior enemy numbers and fire power. The troops of 

Military Region 4, the Mekong Delta, held together and continued battling the local Communist main force units and guerrillas until ordered 

to surrender after Saigon fell. Their commander, Maj. Gen. Nguyen Khoa 

Nam, dutifully transmitted the order to his soldiers, then went into his 

office and shot himself. The valor of individuals and units, however, 

could not compensate for the strategic failures of the South Vietnamese 

high command, in particular Thieu’s poorly planned effort to regroup 

his forces in the northern two military regions. An American officer who 

closely studied the final campaign concluded: “Unit for unit and man 

for man, the combat forces of South Vietnam repeatedly proved themselves superior to their adversaries. Missing . . . were inspired civilian and 

45

 George J. Veith and Merle L. Pribbenow, II, “ ‘Fighting Is an Art’: The Army of the Republic 

of Vietnam’s Defense of Xuan Loc, 9–21 Apr 1975,” The Journal of Military History 68 (January 

2004): 163–213. This detailed account is based on Vietnamese sources from both sides.

South Vietnamese soldiers help the 

wounded leave the embattled town 

of Xuan Loc.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

406

Vietnamese refugees line up on the deck of the U.S.S. Hancock for

processing following evacuation from Saigon; below, Vietnamese refugees 

crowd the decks of the U.S. Merchant Ship Pioneer Contender. 
407

The Final Phasedown

military leadership at the highest levels and unflagging American moral 

and material support.”46

As the unraveling proceeded, the American mission and the 

Defense Attaché Office in Saigon could do little but watch in dismay. 

President Gerald R. Ford attempted to secure additional assistance for 

South Vietnam, but the Congress rejected his requests. A fact-finding 

trip in late March by General Weyand, who had succeeded Abrams 

as Army chief of staff, accomplished nothing. The American mission 

evacuated its personnel from Military Regions 1 and 2 during March, 

and U.S. Navy and commercial vessels offshore picked up thousands 

of fugitive Vietnamese troops and civilians. In the last days of April, 

as North Vietnamese divisions closed in on Saigon, Bunker’s successor, Ambassador Graham Martin, ordered the execution of previously 

prepared evacuation plans. Helicopters of the Air Force and the 9th 

Marine Amphibious Brigade, operating from Seventh Fleet ships in the 

South China Sea, lifted out of Saigon the remaining Americans in the 

embassy and Defense Attaché Office, foreign nationals, and thousands 

46

 Quotation is from LeGro, Cease-Fire to Capitulation, p. 179; see also pp. 171–72. The final 

days in Military Region 4 are described in Francis Terry McNamara with Adrian Hill, Escape with 

Honor: My Last Hours in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1997), passim. For General Nam’s 

suicide, see p. 211.

Aerial view of MACV headquarters on fire
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

408

of Vietnamese. Tragically, thousands more Vietnamese who had fought 

and worked for the U.S. and the Saigon government were left behind. 

Perhaps fittingly, the Defense Attaché Office compound at Tan Son 

Nhut Air Base, the former MACV headquarters, was one of the two 

locations where helicopters picked up evacuees, the other being the 

U.S. Embassy in downtown Saigon. Over 5,000 persons left from the 

Defense Attaché Office landing zone before the marines shut it down. 

During the evacuation, under North Vietnamese bombardment of the 

airbase, a rocket killed two marines of the landing zone security force. 

The last American combat fatalities in Vietnam thus occurred almost 

literally on MACV’s former doorstep. The rear guard of marines left the 

Defense Attaché Office compound at 0300 on 30 April. Before departing, they set the buildings afire with thermite grenades.47

47

 Evacuation operations at the Defense Attaché Office are described in Maj. George R. Dunham, 

USMC, and Col. David A. Quinlan, USMC, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Bitter End, 1973–1975

(Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1990), pp. 

169–97.
13

Conclusion: MACV in Retrospect

As a major participant in the unsuccessful American intervention in Indochina, MACV had a mixed record. The successive MACV commanders worked within the framework of policy set by the nation’s civilian leadership. Two elements of that policy were controlling throughout. The first was the decision to minimize American military activity, 

especially on the ground, outside the borders of South Vietnam and 

to renounce from the outset the option of invading North Vietnam or 

threatening the existence of the government in Hanoi. The second was 

the requirement to maintain the appearance, and as far as possible the 

reality, of South Vietnamese sovereignty. These imperatives restricted 

the MACV commander’s use of the extensive resources at his disposal, 

probably to the point of placing anything like decisive military victory 

out of reach.

Throughout most of the command’s existence, its basic mission 

was the same: in the words of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “to assist the 

Government of Vietnam and its armed forces to defeat externally 

directed and supported communist subversion and aggression and 

attain an independent non-communist . . . South Vietnam functioning in a secure environment.”1 To that end, MACV was to help the 

Saigon government defeat the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong armed 

forces and to extend its political and administrative control throughout the territory of the southern republic. The latter task involved 

the command in the interwoven civilian and military processes of 

pacification and “nation-building,” the more so as civil authority in 

South Vietnam rested primarily with the military forces MACV was 

assisting. Under President Nixon, MACV’s mission changed to securing 

the South Vietnamese people’s right to determine their own political 

future by peaceful means. The implementing tasks, however, remained 

fundamentally the same, although with more emphasis on building up 

Saigon’s armed forces and a new requirement to disengage American 

ground troops from combat.



 Mission statement is quoted in Memo, Kissinger for the President, 8 Oct 69, box 139, NSC files, 

Nixon Papers, NARA.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

410

The Strategy

From the Military Assistance Advisory Group’s Geographically Phased 

Counterinsurgency Plan of 1961 through General Westmoreland’s 

“two-fisted strategy,” General Abrams’ “one war,” and the Marshall 

Committee’s area security system, MACV’s basic approach to fighting 

the war in South Vietnam changed only in nomenclature and detail. 

It consisted throughout of two basic elements. The first was a series of 

variations on the spreading oil-spot approach to pacification. Working 

outward from relatively secure bases, the allies tried to drive enemy 

military units from the villages, uproot the Viet Cong political and 

administrative structure, emplace a pro-government system, and carry 

out programs to win the allegiance of the peasants. The second element 

consisted of efforts by regular troops outside the pacification zones to 

destroy major enemy formations and base areas. Initially intended to 

assist pacification by forestalling enemy offensives, these operations 

also acquired the purpose of breaking the other side’s will by inflicting heavy casualties on its forces. MACV’s emphasis on the two elements—pacification and offensives—shifted over time in response to 

conditions in South Vietnam, to the actions of the other side, and to 

policy direction from Washington.

The actions of the enemy were the most significant variable in 

determining the intensity of the main force war and MACV’s distribution of resources between big battles, territorial security, and other 

endeavors. In South Vietnam, the United States was combating not 

a new stand-alone insurgency but the continuation of a Vietnamese 

revolution that had begun in 1945. By the early 1950s, the Viet Minh 

had advanced through the military stages of Maoist revolutionary warfare to the final level of multidivisional conventional battles, typified 

by their defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu. Under the 1954 Geneva 

agreements, the Viet Minh constituted themselves a state in the northern half of Vietnam, with an effective government and powerful armed 

forces, even as they remained a guerrilla movement in South Vietnam. 

From its activation, MACV thus confronted an opponent capable of 

shifting almost at will through the spectrum of revolutionary warfare, 

using large- and small-unit operations in opportunistic combinations. 

Because North Vietnam, its war effort underwritten by the Soviet Union 

and China, could reinforce its southern forces from bases in Laos and 

Cambodia, the level of main force combat in South Vietnam did not 

depend entirely on the state of the guerrilla movement. Indeed, the 

North Vietnamese launched their largest conventional attacks in 1972, 

when the southern insurgency was at its lowest ebb of the war.

North Vietnamese actions, combined with the internal vicissitudes 

of the Republic of Vietnam and changing U.S. national policy, determined MACV’s priorities and shaped the stages of the command’s war. 

In the first stage, from 1962 through Ngo Dinh Diem’s fall in November 

1963, MACV focused on building up Saigon’s armed forces and work-
411

Conclusion: MACV in Retrospect

ing with other agencies of the U.S. mission to implement the Strategic 

Hamlet Program. In the second stage, from Diem’s overthrow to early 

1965, MACV tried to press on with advice and support and pacification 

while struggling to stabilize the Saigon government and participating 

in the first steps of American escalation. In the third stage, between 

1965 and 1968, the enemy added an expanding main force campaign to 

his ongoing guerrilla and political subversion efforts. To forestall what 

appeared to be an imminent collapse of its ally and to pursue success by 

a massive commitment of U.S. military power, the Johnson administration launched Rolling Thunder and sent a large expeditionary force to 

South Vietnam. In this third stage, General Westmoreland’s priorities 

became managing the American buildup, defeating the Communist 

main force, and reestablishing a semblance of constitutional government in Saigon as the basis for a renewed pacification effort. The North 

Vietnamese/Viet Cong Tet offensive of 1968 and its follow-on attacks 

terminated this third stage of MACV’s war and confirmed President 

Johnson’s resolve to level off escalation and try to reduce the U.S. commitment. If the offensive shook the resolution of the U.S. government, 

however, in South Vietnam the enemy failed to achieve his objectives. 

The heavy losses that he suffered left his forces, and especially the Viet 

Cong, much weakened.

The United States’ decision to de-escalate and disengage, combined 

with the temporary enfeeblement of the enemy, shaped the fourth 

stage of the conflict. During this stage, both sides, for different reasons, stepped back from large-scale combat; and the United States 

endeavored to reduce the war’s cost in blood and treasure while still 

preventing the fall of South Vietnam to the Communists. Accordingly, 

General Abrams switched the weight of MACV’s effort to providing 

security for Saigon and South Vietnam’s other major cities, solidifying 

the pacification program, improving South Vietnam’s armed forces, 

and withdrawing American troops. At the same time, he advocated and 

carried out ground and air offensives against the North Vietnamese 

bases in Cambodia and Laos. The North Vietnamese put a violent end 

to this stage and inaugurated a fifth with their 1972 spring offensive, 

to which President Nixon responded with renewed bombing of North 

Vietnam. Bereft of American ground combat forces, MACV assisted 

the Vietnamese with airpower and advisers but continued to withdraw U.S. troops. Early in 1973, the Paris agreement inaugurated a last 

stage of preparation for the cease-fire and inactivation of MACV. After 

MACV disbanded and after two more years of fighting, a final North 

Vietnamese conventional assault decided the issue.

The Generals

As participants in formulating U.S. Vietnam policy, MACV’s commanders took a generally consistent line. Except for the first, General 

Paul D. Harkins, who commanded during the run-up to the anti-Diem 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

412

coup, they harmonized their advice and recommendations with those 

of the American ambassadors to South Vietnam, CINCPAC, and the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff; and they rarely dissented openly from presidential decisions. The commanders advocated a strong American military 

effort in the south and viewed negotiations and proposals to reduce 

offensive operations with skepticism. Yet they were also acutely aware 

of the political limitations within which they had to work. As a result, 

if they campaigned for attacks on the enemy’s cross-border sanctuaries, 

they never pressed their case to the point of stating that such operations 

were essential to victory. Concerning the bombing of North Vietnam, 

Westmoreland, Abrams, and Weyand kept in step with CINCPAC and 

the Joint Chiefs in advocating the air campaign. However, when questions of sortie allocation arose, they urged, as General Abrams did 

during the Easter offensive, that the war in South Vietnam have first 

call on the available aircraft. They also periodically attempted to gain 

control of the northern air offensive, only to be rebuffed by CINCPAC 

and the Joint Chiefs.

The four generals who commanded MACV—Paul Harkins, William 

Westmoreland, Creighton Abrams, and Frederick Weyand—differed in 

professional background and command style. Each faced different challenges, and each responded to them about as well as circumstances and 

national policy allowed. None of them, however, achieved anything 

like complete success. Harkins managed competently the American 

advisory buildup and the insertion into Vietnam of U.S. combat support units, and he worked diligently with the ambassador at the thankless task of moving President Diem in the directions that Washington 

wished him to go; but in the end, he was caught in the political wreck 

of the Diem regime. He ended his tour in bitterness, discredited in the 

view of the Kennedy administration and the American press. 

Westmoreland devoted his first year in command to an attempt 

to revive pacification while stabilizing the Saigon government. As the 

war escalated, he managed successfully the buildup of a half-millionman U.S. expeditionary force in South Vietnam, beat back the North 

Vietnamese/Viet Cong main force offensive, helped Ambassadors 

Lodge and Bunker establish an at least nominally constitutional South 

Vietnamese government, and contributed significantly to the unification of the American pacification effort through the creation of CORDS. 

Yet Westmoreland also ended badly. Although allied forces under his 

command defeated the Communist Tet offensive of 1968, the nationwide attack invalidated Westmoreland’s earlier claims of progress in 

the eyes of both U.S. officials and the American public. As Americans at 

home turned against the war, many also turned against Westmoreland 

as its most prominent symbol. Under Richard Nixon, Westmoreland as 

Army chief of staff found himself marginalized and largely ignored in 

the shaping of Vietnam policy. 

General Creighton Abrams took command at a favorable point in 

the war. He inherited from Westmoreland a mature MACV organiza-
413

Conclusion: MACV in Retrospect

tion, a stable Saigon government, and a severely weakened enemy. 

Building on these assets, Abrams competently executed Nixon’s troop 

withdrawal policy while simultaneously strengthening Saigon’s forces 

and working with them in the most effective pacification campaign 

yet conducted in the war.2 His cross-border offensives damaged the 

enemy’s logistic structure and bought time for redeployment and 

Vietnamization. Yet for Abrams as for Westmoreland, apparent early 

success was followed by an ambiguous ending. The Lam Son 719 

offensive in Laos that Abrams conceived and sold to the administration turned out badly, causing Nixon and Kissinger to lose confidence 

in their MACV commander. During the Easter offensive of 1972, the 

South Vietnamese armed forces buckled at many points under full-scale 

North Vietnamese attack, casting doubt on Abrams’ previous claims 

of progress of the South Vietnamese armed forces improvement and 

modernization. Although hard fighting by some South Vietnamese 

units and the intervention of American air power and advisers ultimately repulsed the assault, the outcome further discredited Abrams 

in the view of Nixon, Kissinger, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, 

Admiral Moorer. Like Westmoreland, Abrams left behind an incomplete task and an uncertain legacy.

The last MACV commander, General Weyand, executed with competence and grace the final drawdown of American forces in Vietnam 

and the inactivation of his headquarters. He carried out MACV’s tasks in 

implementing the Paris agreements to the best of his ability, although 

circumstances beyond his control prevented him from achieving a full 

cease-fire. Weyand, however, also made assessments that were belied 

by events. His proclamation of March 1973 that Vietnamization had 

succeeded rang hollow when South Vietnam crumbled in the spring 

of 1975. Succeeding Abrams as Army chief of staff, as the collapse 

proceeded, Weyand could only join in the futile efforts of President 

Gerald Ford to obtain enlarged American material support for South 

Vietnam.

From beginning to end, the MACV and its leaders purveyed a positive view of the course of the war in reports to higher authority and 

statements to the news media. Generals Harkins and Westmoreland 

were more emphatic, and publicly visible, in their optimism than 

were Abrams and Weyand, whose assessments were lower keyed and 

contained more caveats. Nevertheless, the command’s voluminous 

reports generally painted a picture of progress in destroying enemy 

forces, building up those of Saigon, and pacifying the countryside even 

as they acknowledged persistent problems. This pervasive optimism, 

which generally was echoed by the American ambassador and his senior 

assistants, was in part elicited by presidents trying to counter domestic 

 Abrams’ successes were such that some authorities have claimed that he all but won the war, at 

least in South Vietnam. See for example Lewis Sorley, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and 

the Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1999). 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

414

criticism of the war. This was true of Westmoreland’s public statements 

in the period before Tet 1968. In addition, senior military and civilian 

officials in Saigon seemed to believe in their mission and to have been 

genuinely convinced that the massive American effort was succeeding, 

albeit slowly and at high cost. From the beginning, however, lowerlevel American military men and civilians in Vietnam, along with the 

Saigon press corps, held a less sanguine view of the war’s progress. 

Doubts also arose and persisted among many high-level officials in the 

State and Defense Departments and at the Central Intelligence Agency. 

Episodes like Lam Son 719 did nothing to improve MACV’s credibility in 

these circles. In the face of lengthening American casualty lists, reports 

of South Vietnamese ineptitude and corruption, and the absence of 

tangible evidence of progress, coupled with dramatic enemy initiatives 

like the Tet and Easter offensives, MACV’s assertions that the war was 

going well failed to check the steady erosion of American official and 

popular will to persist in the seemingly endless conflict.

The influence of the MACV commanders on the development of 

American policy toward Vietnam is difficult to measure. They provided 

much of the information on which senior officials acted, but they shared 

that function with the State Department, the National Security Agency, 

and the Central Intelligence Agency, not to mention the American 

news media. Policymakers sought information from all the available 

sources. McNamara, for example, received regular briefings on the war 

from Central Intelligence Agency as well as Defense Department officials. On critical decisions, the MACV commanders often appeared to 

follow rather than set the trends of policy. Westmoreland asked for 

large American ground forces in 1965 only after receiving indications 

from General Harold K. Johnson, the Army chief of staff, among others, 

that the administration would be receptive to such proposals. Similarly, 

Westmoreland followed General Wheeler’s lead in the ill-fated reinforcement request after Tet 1968. General Abrams recognized early that 

withdrawal was the administration’s intention and adjusted his advice 

accordingly. He also seized the opportunities President Nixon afforded 

him to attack enemy bases in Laos and Cambodia and was a consistent 

advocate of such attacks. On questions such as the pace of American 

disengagement, other considerations than the MACV commander’s 

advice clearly predominated. In sum, COMUSMACV was a significant 

but subordinate player in American decisions for escalation and deescalation in Southeast Asia.

Command and Control

MACV’s place in the U.S. Pacific Command structure was shaped by 

both military and political considerations. Pacific Command’s insertion 

as a link between Saigon and Washington reflected not only the national 

policy of limiting the scope of hostilities in Southeast Asia but also the 

Navy’s interest in maintaining unified control of air and sea forces in 
415

Conclusion: MACV in Retrospect

the western Pacific. The need to limit the war constituted an immovable obstacle to creation of a full-fledged Southeast Asia Command, 

since it would have been diplomatically awkward for COMUSMACV 

to direct U.S. military activity in nations such as Thailand, which were 

at least nominally nonbelligerent. With MACV a subordinate unified 

command under Pacific Command, the latter headquarters could look 

after broader U.S. military interests in the region while MACV fought 

the war in South Vietnam. 

In practice, the extra echelon had little adverse effect on MACV’s 

efforts and in some instances was helpful. Pacific Command relieved 

the Saigon headquarters of many logistical and administrative chores, 

for example in conducting troop deployments and withdrawals. 

CINCPAC and COMUSMACV maintained a united front on most 

policy issues, and at times the Honolulu commander provided his 

Saigon subordinate with a buffer against Washington interference. 

COMUSMACV generally was able to organize his forces and conduct 

operations in South Vietnam as he saw fit. True, MACV’s commanders 

were denied control of the air campaign in the north. However, that 

campaign—in both its Rolling Thunder and Linebacker phases—was 

primarily an extension of Washington’s diplomacy rather than an integral element of the military effort in the south. COMUSMACV controlled air operations over the southernmost part of North Vietnam, 

and he acquired dominant influence over American military activity 

in those parts of Cambodia and Laos of most vital interest to him. 

COMUSMACV’s limited freedom of action beyond South Vietnam’s 

borders was an outgrowth of national policy, which in turn determined Pacific Command relationships.

Within South Vietnam, the organization of MACV’s headquarters 

staff and component and field commands evolved and expanded with 

the U.S. commitment. It followed generally the standard American pattern for joint commands and in the field conformed to the existing 

South Vietnamese regional military structure. Deviations from regular 

U.S. doctrine and practice reflected the peculiar political and military 

conditions of Vietnam. General Westmoreland’s decision, which his 

successors kept in effect, to retain tactical control over his U.S. Army 

forces and restrict the Army component command to administration 

and logistics was a case in point. Westmoreland justified this arrangement on the grounds that he could not have two high-level American 

headquarters both trying to work with the South Vietnamese Joint 

General Staff, which directed Saigon’s army as well as its entire military establishment. Proposals for a new advisory group headquarters 

under MACV to unify the fragmented Army advisory effort fell afoul 

of the same consideration. The size and location of American forces 

led to other deviations, such as the constitution of the III Marine 

Amphibious Force as a de facto fourth service component command 

and the establishment of an Army corps headquarters under the III 

Marine Amphibious Force to conduct operations in northern I Corps.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

416

The most significant organizational innovation within MACV was 

the establishment of CORDS to unify American support of pacification. This unorthodox joint civilian and military agency, headed by 

a civilian deputy COMUSMACV with ambassadorial rank, brought 

focus and direction to a key element of the American war effort. A 

drastic departure from bureaucratic business-as-usual that was resisted 

by many agencies, CORDS owed its existence primarily to the initiative of President Johnson and the urging of Secretary McNamara and 

Robert Komer; but General Westmoreland gave significant assistance 

at the birth. He early advocated central management of pacification 

and strongly supported Komer in putting CORDS into effective operation. Westmoreland’s successors maintained MACV’s commitment to 

CORDS and thereby made possible the allies’ post-1968 advances in 

reclaiming the South Vietnamese countryside.

Disputes among the American armed services, and between individual services and MACV, punctuated the expansion of the command. 

At issue were the conduct of the Vietnam conflict, the validation of 

service roles and missions, and the setting of critical precedents for 

future joint operations. The services jockeyed for key positions in 

MACV headquarters, with the Army winning the lion’s share of posts 

by virtue of the fact that the struggle in Vietnam was primarily a land 

war. Only at the end, after U.S. ground forces had left Vietnam, did the 

Air Force gain a predominant position within the headquarters. There 

were repeated disputes over the organization of service research and 

testing in the theater. The Army and the Air Force quarreled over the 

airmobility concept and the control of helicopters. MACV engaged in 

confrontations with the Marine Corps over command arrangements 

in I Corps and central management of fixed-wing tactical aircraft. 

Throughout, the successive MACV commanders sought to maintain 

as much interservice harmony as possible while ensuring their own 

ability to carry out their mission. In consultation with CINCPAC and 

the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, they arrived at compromises and 

working arrangements on most issues. However, when COMUSMACV 

asserted his right to organize and control his forces against service 

prerogatives, as Westmoreland did in his central management dispute 

with the marines, CINCPAC, the Joint Chiefs, and the secretary of 

defense supported him, although sometimes with reservations. Their 

actions foreshadowed the statutory strengthening of the authority of 

theater joint commanders over the organization of their forces in the 

Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986.3

General Westmoreland’s collision with the Marine Corps over central management pointed up the critical role of airpower in MACV’s 

war. Throughout most of MACV’s existence, American airpower con-

 The impact of the Goldwater-Nichols Act in strengthening joint commanders is summarized in 

Richard M. Swain, “Lucky War”: Third Army in Desert Storm (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: U.S. Army 

Command and General Staff College Press, 1994), pp. 27–29. 
417

Conclusion: MACV in Retrospect

stituted the joint commander’s most potent and responsive instrument 

for influencing the course of combat within South Vietnam. It was 

very nearly his only means of attacking the enemy beyond the nation’s 

borders. Accordingly, the control of aircraft and the allocation of sorties among the various air campaigns in Southeast Asia were issues on 

which MACV commanders, in particular Westmoreland and Abrams, 

waged some of their hardest battles with the individual services and at 

times the White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Although denied 

authority over the bombing of North Vietnam, the MACV commanders brought airpower in the rest of the theater under their control and 

used it as an instrument of their will. While the Seventh Air Force 

commander issued the tasking orders, COMUSMACV, to the Air Force’s 

discomfort, kept targeting and allocation firmly in his own hands 

and those of his Army-dominated staff. Westmoreland and Abrams 

set a lasting precedent. In the Gulf War of 1991, General H. Norman 

Schwarzkopf, over Marine and Navy objections, designated his Air 

Force component commander, Lt. Gen. Charles A. Horner, as Joint 

Force Air Component Commander with authority to assign missions 

to airplanes of all services through a daily tasking order. However, as 

had been true in Vietnam, Schwarzkopf, not Horner, made the critical 

targeting decisions.4

MACV’s command relationships with its allied forces were conditioned more by political than military considerations. With the 

South Vietnamese, the sensitivities of a people only recently freed 

from European colonial rule, along with U.S. preoccupation with 

maintaining Saigon’s sovereignty, reinforced after 1969 by the imperatives of disengagement and Vietnamization, dictated that there be no 

combined command. Instead, MACV and its American forces worked 

with the South Vietnamese on the basis of cooperation and coordination. MACV’s commanders influenced South Vietnamese operations 

by means of their advisory network, regular high-level contacts with 

the Joint General Staff and South Vietnamese political leaders, the 

promotion of combined campaign plans and other cooperative staff 

work, and the provision of military assistance. With the other allies, 

notably the South Koreans, political considerations also prevailed. 

Given Washington’s eagerness to obtain “more flags” in Vietnam, the 

allies could set their own terms for their presence; and the Koreans in 

particular did so in a restrictive manner. MACV used persuasion and 

the provision of U.S. combat and logistical support to influence their 

operations, often to only limited effect. These arrangements clearly 

violated the military principle of unity of command, but under the 

circumstances American officials in Washington and Saigon could find 

no acceptable alternatives.5



 Col. Edward C. Mann, III, USAF, Thunder and Lightning: Desert Storm and the Airpower 

Debates (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Air University Press, 1995), pp. 55–60.

 A representative criticism of the lack of unity of command can be found in Palmer, The 25-Year 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

418

Taken as a whole, the command structure in South Vietnam was 

a fabric of compromises, among the U.S. armed services, American 

civilian government agencies, and the allied nations. Nevertheless, 

it was adequate for coordination of the forces in a conflict in which 

division-size and larger formations were essentially static and 

operated in fixed areas; and it conformed to the requirements of 

American national policy. Alternative structures, such as a multinational combined command in South Vietnam and a U.S. Southeast 

Asia Command, while organizationally neater and potentially more 

operationally efficient, all possessed seemingly prohibitive political 

and diplomatic drawbacks. The wars in Indochina were politically 

and militarily messy and complicated; so, inevitably, was America’s 

organization for waging them.

The cooperation and coordination principle, so frequently condemned in Vietnam, reappeared when the United States again went to 

war alongside non-European allies with memories of a colonial past. In 

the Gulf War, a Defense Department report declared, “It became clear 

[that] an acceptable command structure must reflect the participating 

nations’ national, ethnic, and religious pride.” Hence, while American 

and British forces campaigned under the operational control of General 

Schwarzkopf’s U.S. Central Command, the various Arab contingents 

were grouped under a separate headquarters with a Saudi prince in 

charge. The French also answered to their own national authorities. 

There was no overall coalition commander. General Schwarzkopf 

worked with his counterparts on a cooperation and coordination basis 

that Westmoreland, Abrams, and Weyand would have found familiar. 

Under conditions quite different from those in Vietnam, the multiheaded Gulf War coalition command achieved the swift, overwhelming victory that MACV never did.6

In its combat operations within South Vietnam, MACV accomplished the most that was possible within the limits set by U.S. national 

policy. Although criticized by pacification advocates, the command’s 

concentration of its U.S. troops, while it had them, against the enemy’s 

large units and logistical system made the most productive possible use 

of American firepower and mobility. At the same time, MACV avoided 

over-Americanization of the territorial security and pacification effort, 

which officials expected to continue long after U.S. combat troops left, 

and which could only be carried on with lasting success by the South 

Vietnamese. As the war went on, MACV, profiting from experience 

and from an expanding intelligence capability, grew more effective at 

grinding down the other side’s military forces. The enemy’s three failed 

offensives of 1968 also contributed to the attrition process. By the time 

War, pp. 193–94.

 Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress, Pursuant to 

Title V of the Persian Gulf Conflict Supplemental Authorization and Personnel Benefits Act of 1991 

(Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 1992), vol. 1, pp. 55–59; quotation is from p. 55.
419

Conclusion: MACV in Retrospect

U.S. ground troops ceased offensive operations in mid-1971, MACV 

had driven the North Vietnamese divisions back to South Vietnam’s 

borders, much reduced the southern guerrillas and local units, and 

severely damaged the Communists’ base network. The command’s air 

operations hindered the enemy’s movement of supplies down the Ho 

Chi Minh Trail and made it costly in casualties and materiel, although 

they could not completely shut off the flow. Even so, the centers of 

the other side’s power remained intact; and MACV’s tactical successes 

came at a high cost in American and Vietnamese lives and in destruction and social disruption within South Vietnam. MACV won many 

battles, but it could not end the war by military means. 

In cooperation with other U.S. agencies, MACV advanced nationbuilding and pacification. During the long interregnum after Diem’s 

overthrow, General Westmoreland used his advisory relationship to 

maintain unity among the fractious generals who in practice ran the 

Saigon government, helping to move them toward restoration of a 

stable and at least formally constitutional system. Generals Abrams and 

Weyand had less to do in this area since the Thieu regime remained in 

office throughout their tours. With CORDS leading the way, the command helped South Vietnam repair the social and economic damage 

of the 1968 enemy offensives. Under General Abrams, it also played a 

central role in a succession of accelerated pacification campaigns that 

restored the Saigon government’s presence and authority in much of 

the countryside; and it assisted in projects like the land-to-the-tiller 

program that promised to enhance long-term social stability and equity 

in South Vietnam. By the time MACV ceased operations, the insurgency within South Vietnam no longer posed an immediate threat to 

overthrow the Saigon government. Nevertheless, as in military operations, the extent and permanence of MACV’s achievement were uncertain. Although the insurgency was much weakened, its political hard 

core remained intact throughout South Vietnam. The government’s 

ascendancy seemed to be due more to a temporarily favorable military 

balance than to its winning the active loyalty and support of the peasantry, and North Vietnam retained the capacity to change the military 

balance.

The South Vietnamese

Throughout MACV’s existence, the strengthening of the South 

Vietnamese armed forces was one of its principal missions. Between 

1965 and 1968, the huge American intervention temporarily eclipsed 

that effort; but the advent of Vietnamization in 1969 returned advice 

and assistance to center stage. The command sought to improve 

Saigon’s forces by infusing American advisers into them at every level 

from the Joint General Staff to battalion and district headquarters. It 

largely planned the expansion of the South Vietnamese military and 

managed the provision of American funds, weapons, and equipment 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

420

to it. In conferences with the chief of the Joint General Staff, and frequently with the president of the republic, MACV commanders tried 

to influence South Vietnamese military appointments and promotions 

and to induce their allies to correct their forces’ many administrative 

and operational deficiencies.

The results of this effort and of its culmination in Nixon’s 

Vietnamization program defy simple categorization. In 1973, MACV 

left the South Vietnamese army, navy, and air force much larger, better 

equipped, and operationally more capable by several orders of magnitude than it had found them eleven years before. By themselves, those 

forces could certainly contain, and perhaps ultimately eradicate, the 

southern insurgency even if that insurgency was reinforced by North 

Vietnamese troop infiltration. As the Easter offensive demonstrated, 

with U.S. advice and air support, they could repel a full-scale invasion by North Vietnamese heavy divisions. Yet Saigon’s forces still 

were plagued at the end by the same problems of weak and corrupt 

leadership, high desertion rates, and uneven tactical performance that 

had afflicted them at the beginning. They continued to depend on 

the American advisory network for much of their operational planning and coordination. Because their American sponsors had never 

fully resolved the issue of what kind of force they were creating, and 

for what kind of war, the South Vietnamese army was overly heavy 

and conventional for counterinsurgency and too lightly equipped and 

erroneously deployed for mobile conventional battle. Saigon’s military establishment was also too large, and too reliant on sophisticated 

weaponry and lavish expenditures of fuel and ammunition, to be sustainable without permanent American subsidies. When both advisers 

and subsidies were taken away, its decline was inevitable. 

Several points should be made about Vietnamization’s context 

and about the situation that gave rise to the effort. First, the policy 

originated late in the Johnson administration. Nixon picked it up and 

enlarged upon it in good measure because he and his advisers saw no 

other acceptable alternative. They refused to surrender South Vietnam 

to the Communists outright, and they considered escalation through 

renewed heavy attacks on North Vietnam to be politically unfeasible. 

Second, circumstances after Tet 1968 favored the effort. The enemy, 

exhausted by its failed offensives, could not interfere effectively 

with the gradual U.S. turnover of most military operations in South 

Vietnam to Saigon’s forces. In fact, between late 1968 and early 1972, 

Hanoi appears to have treated the struggle in the south as a holding 

action while it concentrated on repairing the damage done by Rolling

Thunder and building up strength for a new and more conventional 

offensive. Third, the Nixon administration, although under intense 

domestic political pressure, managed to keep the pace of U.S. troop 

withdrawals rapid enough to appease American public opinion and yet 

gradual enough to allow an orderly transfer of military operations to 

South Vietnam.
421

Conclusion: MACV in Retrospect

Until shortly before the cease-fire, the architects and implementers 

of Vietnamization worked on two assumptions that turned out to be 

wrong. The first of these was that the United States would maintain a 

large military advisory and support presence in South Vietnam, even 

after a cessation of hostilities and a political agreement. All of Pacific 

Command’s and MACV’s contingency plans provided for such a presence. Secretary Laird based his redeployment plan on drawing MACV 

down to a permanent 15,000-man advisory and assistance group by 

mid-1973 and then keeping the U.S. force at that level indefinitely. 

By requiring the complete removal from Vietnam of all but a handful of American military personnel, the Paris agreement upended this 

assumption and abruptly truncated the Vietnamization process. 

The second assumption was that the Communist threat would 

remain essentially what it had been since late 1965: a guerrilla insurgency in South Vietnam reinforced by infiltrated North Vietnamese 

light infantry divisions. After early 1969, the Communists’ withdrawal of their main force to the borders and reversion to small-unit 

military action and terrorism appeared to validate this assumption. 

As a result, until the Easter offensive, MACV emphasized territorial 

security in its Combined Campaign Plans, as typified by Abrams’ 

adoption of the Marshall Committee’s Area Security System, and 

in its guidance of the improvement and modernization of Saigon’s 

forces. Lam Son 719 signaled that the North Vietnamese might have 

something else in mind, but General Abrams in response pressed 

for only small modifications in South Vietnamese force structure 

and deployment. After the Easter offensive and with a cease-fire 

and total American withdrawal imminent, the Nixon administration conducted a last-minute U.S. infusion of heavy equipment into 

South Vietnam, too late for the South Vietnamese to assimilate it in 

their organization and training. 

Despite these flaws in concept and execution, Vietnamization as a 

military program produced South Vietnamese armed forces capable on 

their own of holding the cities and major populated areas against the 

Viet Cong and North Vietnamese infiltrators. As Xuan Loc and other 

engagements indicated in 1975, the South Vietnamese armed forces 

that MACV created could fight successfully against North Vietnamese 

armor and artillery, at least in the defense, if properly deployed and 

competently led. Unfortunately, in 1975 neither proper deployment 

nor effective high-level leadership was present. Combined with the 

decline of U.S. financial and materiel assistance and with the institutional weakness and political disunity of the South Vietnamese state 

and society, President Thieu’s final military blunders brought about 

the collapse. Even with this disastrous denouement, one could argue 

that Vietnamization achieved President Nixon’s minimum objectives; 

it secured for South Vietnam a fighting chance to survive and provided 

Nixon and Kissinger with their “healthy interval” between American 

disengagement and Saigon’s ultimate fate.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

422

Final Judgments 

A combination of circumstances prevented MACV from achieving 

more than partial, temporary success in South Vietnam. The first of 

these was the character of its ally. During the long conflict, the Republic 

of Vietnam displayed remarkable endurance and resilience, considering 

its origins and circumstances. More than 200,000 South Vietnamese 

soldiers died in the war, as did perhaps twice that number of civilians.7 Nevertheless, the southern republic was a collection of political, 

religious, and ethnic fragments. Many of its leaders were tainted by 

association with the former French imperial masters. Its national institutions were underdeveloped leftovers from the same French colonialism. Endemic South Vietnamese disunity, corruption, and inefficiency 

sapped the effectiveness of every allied endeavor, whether in military 

operations or pacification. Equally and perhaps more damaging, the 

spectacle of South Vietnam’s corruption and disarray disgusted many 

Americans, citizens and officials alike, and contributed to what eventually became a majority conviction in the United States that the republic was not worth the cost of defending it. Even with total Vietnamese 

cooperation, which was not often forthcoming, MACV and the U.S. 

mission would have needed a generation or more to transform South 

Vietnam into an effective state, let alone one meeting American standards of democracy and social justice. 

Unfortunately, South Vietnam’s northern rival, the Democratic 

Republic of Vietnam, already was a militarily and administratively 

effective state, although not by American standards a democratic one. 

Its leaders, veterans of the war of independence against the French, 

were implacable in their determination to “liberate” the south, however long the struggle took and whatever it cost in lives and treasure. 

As a result of the Soviet-Chinese competition for the allegiance of the 

rest of the Communist bloc, North Vietnam could count on a steady 

flow of military and economic aid for its war effort while remaining 

free to pursue its national objectives with little interference from its 

great power sponsors. From the early stages, North Vietnam fed the 

struggle in the south with men and materiel. It countered every expansion of American activity with one of its own. Convinced that they 

could outlast the United States in a battle of attrition, the leaders in 

Hanoi persisted despite American bombing, some 850,000 battlefield 

casualties among their forces,8 and disastrous defeats that, as at Tet 

1968, sometimes resulted from their own arrogant miscalculations.

 Turley, The Second Indochina War, p. 203. About 170,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died 

between 1965 and 1972 alone. Thayer, “War Without Fronts,” p. 848.

The Defense Department estimated that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong lost more than 850,000 

killed in action between 1965 and 1972. See Thayer, “War Without Fronts,” p. 847. The Socialist Republic 

of Vietnam today officially uses roughly the same figure. See Lewis Stern, “Research Note: North 

Vietnam’s War Dead,” Indochina Chronology, v. 18, no. 1 (October 1998–January 1999): 27–29.
423

Conclusion: MACV in Retrospect

The geography of Indochina constituted the third immovable 

obstacle to MACV’s success. South Vietnam was flanked on the west 

by a 900-mile land border, most of it covered by jungle and mountains. Cambodia and Laos, the republic’s neighbors on that side, lacked 

the power to prevent the North Vietnamese from appropriating their 

frontier regions for military bases and lines of communication. From 

these cross-border havens, the North Vietnamese could invade South 

Vietnam at every point from the Demilitarized Zone to the Mekong 

Delta, presenting Saigon with an almost insoluble defense problem. 

The same bases provided retreating Communist troops with sanctuaries from American and South Vietnamese ground attack. Intensive 

American air bombardment and small-unit reconnaissance and raids 

harassed the bases and supply routes but did not render them unusable. Unable to seal off its battlefield, MACV sought to destroy the 

enemy’s forces within South Vietnam more rapidly than they could be 

reinforced, but it never reached that goal. The United States might have 

attempted to resolve this strategic dilemma by blockading or invading 

North Vietnam or by establishing a cordon of ground forces across Laos 

to the Mekong River. American officials, however, were unwilling to 

enlarge the war to that extent and thereby increase the risk of a direct 

conflict with the Soviet Union and China. 

During the war, and over the years following it, alternative American 

strategies have had their advocates. From the earliest planning for what 

became Rolling Thunder, Air Force leaders, supported by the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff and CINCPAC, argued for concentrated heavy bombing of North Vietnam, possibly accompanied by blockade or mining 

of its ports. Such a hard, swift squeeze, they contended, would have 

brought Hanoi to terms many years before the Linebacker campaigns 

supposedly achieved that result. Supporting this position is the fact 

that, in 1968 and again in 1972, Hanoi’s diplomacy seemed to focus 

on ending the bombing of the north while leaving the comrades in 

the south to face continued heavy pounding from the allies. On the 

other side, Secretary McNamara and his civilian analysts argued that 

no permissible level of bombing would cause North Vietnam to cease 

supporting the revolution in the south or render it incapable of doing 

so. They also came to believe that the military and diplomatic costs of 

Rolling Thunder were excessive in relation to the meager results being 

obtained. Subsequent researchers—including Air Force officers—contend that the political conditions (Nixon’s opening to China) and technological advances (guided “smart” bombs) that allowed the conduct 

of Linebacker I and II and contributed to their apparent success were 

not present before 1972; hence the hard, swift squeeze was not possible 

earlier in the war.9

The case for a stronger air war is made by Admiral Ulysses S. G. Sharp, Strategy for Defeat: 

Vietnam in Retrospect (San Rafael, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1978). For the counter argument, see Mark 

Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam (New York: Free 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

424

At various times another alternate strategy was proposed by the 

Joint Chiefs; General Westmoreland; General Johnson, the Army chief 

of staff; and General Vien, the chief of the South Vietnamese Joint 

General Staff. This strategy was the establishment of a cordon of U.S., 

South Vietnamese, and possibly Laotian and Thai troops across the Laos 

panhandle to the Mekong River, roughly along the South Vietnamese 

line of advance in Lam Son 719. Unlike the temporary cross-border 

incursions of 1970–71, this cordon would have been aimed at permanently severing the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Since this action did not 

involve an invasion of North Vietnam, it would have entailed minimal 

risk of direct confrontation with China. If put in place in late 1965 or 

early 1966 using the first American divisions to arrive in Vietnam, the 

cordon would in theory have blocked North Vietnam’s movement of 

large troop units and major quantities of supplies into South Vietnam, 

thereby limiting the escalation of the fighting there. With American 

advisers and air support, the South Vietnamese forces could then have 

dealt with the Viet Cong and the few North Vietnamese who managed 

to slip past the barrier.10

Although in retrospect the cordon appears to be a commonsense 

solution to the problem of infiltration, its implementation entailed 

formidable practical problems. Establishment and maintenance of the 

line across Laos would have required lengthy diplomatic negotiations 

and extensive logistical preparations in South Vietnam and probably 

in Thailand as well. Hence, Westmoreland, although he endorsed the 

cordon idea in principle, declined in 1965 to recommend it as an immediate measure. He preferred to use his American divisions within South 

Vietnam.11 As the Ho Chi Minh Trail system and its defenses expanded, 

so did the military difficulty of attacking them, well illustrated by the 

limited results of Lam Son 719. Throughout the war, the U.S. Embassy 

in Vientiane and the State Department vigorously opposed all but the 

smallest allied ground incursions into Laos, claiming that such operations would destroy what remained of that country’s neutrality. Intent 

on containing rather than expanding the war, President Johnson 

rejected MACV’s proposals for even short-term cross-border incursions 

in both Laos and Cambodia. Nixon authorized them, but only as spoiling attacks to gain time for Vietnamization and U.S. withdrawal.

Given the diplomatic constraints on American action, the geography 

of Indochina, and the limited capabilities of South Vietnam as a state, 

Press, 1989). Television and laser-guided bombs became available during the last days of Rolling

Thunder but did not play a significant part in that campaign. See Wayne Thompson, To Hanoi and 

Back: The U.S. Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966–1973 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution 

Press, 2000), pp. 65–66, 230–31. 10

 An argument for the cordon strategy is made in Harry G. Summers, Jr, On Strategy: A Critical 

Analysis of the Vietnam War (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1982), especially pp. 122–24; and 

Palmer, Twenty-Five Year War, pp. 183–88. 11 Westmoreland’s views are summarized in Cosmas, Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, ch. 11, p. 

379.
425

Conclusion: MACV in Retrospect

there seemed to be no alternative but the strategy the United States 

actually followed: to pursue attrition and pacification in the South, 

harry the enemy’s Laotian supply line, and punish North Vietnam with 

a carefully measured campaign of aerial bombing. At some point, so the 

official reasoning went, Hanoi’s leaders would realize that they could 

not drive U.S. forces out of South Vietnam or overthrow the Saigon 

government and that the attempt to do so was costing them too much. 

At that point, negotiations to end the war might be possible. Failing 

that, the United States might at least reduce enemy strength in South 

Vietnam and build up Saigon’s forces to the point where American 

troops could gradually withdraw.

Although the war in South Vietnam was thus probably not winnable within the means the United States was willing to use, it also was 

not losable as long as America was willing to pay the price of supporting its ally. Indeed, not losing appears to have been President Johnson’s 

unpublicized objective in expanding U.S. involvement in the war. On 

18 June 1965, as the administration was approaching its decision to 

send American combat units to Vietnam, Secretary McNamara told a 

Cabinet meeting that the U.S. objective was to convince the North 

Vietnamese Communists that they could not win in the South. He 

continued:

We think [we] can achieve that objective by moving toward a stalemate, convincing [Hanoi] 

that the situation in the South will not lead to a military victory, that they can’t win while 

the stalemate continues, they are being forced to absorb the penalty in the North as a result 

of our bombing of their military targets. So that is our basic strategy. We think that if we 

can accomplish that stalemate, accompanied by the limited bombing program in the North, 

we can force them to negotiations . . . that will lead to a settlement that will preserve the 

independence of South Vietnam.

The basic question, the military question is, how can we accomplish a stalemate, and 

how can we move from a situation in which they believe they are winning, to one in which 

they see that there is no hope for the victory that they are endeavoring to accomplish.12

As an objective, a military stalemate in Vietnam was consistent with 

the U.S. global strategy of meeting localized Communist encroachments upon the “Free World” with equally localized force to maintain 

or restore the status quo. The United States had done this successfully 

in the Korean War and in other crises that were resolved without actual 

hostilities. In South Vietnam, the United States simply had to keep a 

non-Communist government in being in Saigon and help it control the 

major cities and dominate or at least contest as much of the countryside 

as possible. For practical purposes, MACV accomplished these objectives 

12

 Minutes of the meeting of the President’s Cabinet, in the Cabinet Room, the White House, at 

11:10 a.m., Jun 18, 1965, folder Cabinet Meetings 6/18/65, p. 43, box 3, Cabinet Papers file, LBJL. 

I am indebted for this citation to Dr. Edward J. Drea of the Historical Office of the Secretary of 

Defense.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

426

throughout its eleven-year existence. In addition, in 1973, President 

Nixon negotiated an agreement that would have allowed the United 

States and South Vietnam to perpetuate and stabilize indefinitely the 

political and military stalemate.

Why, then, did containment in Vietnam fail? One reason was the 

fact that the North Vietnamese, contrary to McNamara’s expectations, 

never accepted the proposition that they could not win in the South. In 

the view of the leaders in Hanoi, the existence of a battlefield stalemate 

simply meant that they had taken the heaviest American blows and 

survived; and the United States with its many commitments around 

the world could not sustain indefinitely the level of effort that it was 

making in Southeast Asia. All the Communists had to do, then, was 

keep the struggle going and make it as expensive for the Americans 

as they could—objectives well within their capabilities as enhanced 

by aid from the Soviet Union and China. Combined with the extravagant American approach to fighting the war, and with the well-publicized incompetence and corruption of the Saigon regime, the North 

Vietnamese strategy had its intended effect. Ultimately, American 

officialdom and the American public decided that defending South 

Vietnam was no longer worth the cost.13

A second reason for the failure of containment in Vietnam was the 

Johnson administration’s inability to connect its actual political goals 

with its military means. During the years of escalation, Johnson and 

McNamara, while speaking of stalemate in private, talked to the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, CINCPAC, and COMUSMACV in terms of a “victory” 

the dimensions of which the civilians and the military never precisely 

defined. Repeatedly, Johnson through McNamara told his commanders 

to ask for what they needed to prevail and told them not to “nickel 

and dime” the effort. This inconsistency may have stemmed from the 

early U.S. view of the conflict in South Vietnam as primarily an internal 

insurgency. Pacification, after all, was aimed at the total eradication of 

the Viet Cong and the securing of the Vietnamese people’s allegiance for 

Saigon, not at a stalemate. As the conflict became a real war after 1965, 

officials never restated with sufficient clarity their political goals and 

their corollary military objectives. Even Nixon’s announced war aim, 

to secure the South Vietnamese people’s right to determine their own 

political future without outside interference, required battlefield success 

more complete than the president’s military strategy could deliver.14

America’s senior military leaders, including those at MACV, either 

did not understand or refused to accept that the president was in fact 

playing for a draw. Hence, they made no attempt to shape a low-cost, 

sustainable military effort. Instead, they promoted and acquiesced 

13

 Turley, Second Indochina War, pp. 86–87, summarizes the North Vietnamese leaders’ view of 

the meaning of stalemate. 14 The difficulty of linking political goals to military operations is discussed in Colin S. Gray, 

“Why Strategy Is Difficult,” Joint Force Quarterly, 34 (Spring 2003): 80–87.
427

Conclusion: MACV in Retrospect

in an incremental escalation that still fell short of their own vaguely 

defined concept of victory. Simultaneously, they maintained in their 

reports and evaluations that the insufficient strategy was succeeding.15

Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs, and COMUSMACV thus cut off 

the option of holding on at minimal cost. They left the United States 

with a military commitment to South Vietnam that was at once too 

expensive in blood and treasure to sustain for very long and too limited 

in scope to produce a battlefield decision. When Secretary McNamara 

belatedly attempted to scale back the effort in favor of a manageable equilibrium in South Vietnam, the military leaders resisted him. 

After Tet, Wheeler and Westmoreland joined in a huge reinforcement 

request that finally priced the war off the market. Recognizing political 

reality, President Nixon took up in earnest the effort to cut the cost of 

America’s commitment so as to sustain South Vietnam over the long 

run. The continuing decline of domestic political support turned his 

policy into one of rapid disengagement that set the stage for Saigon’s 

abandonment by the United States and ultimate downfall.

Within the limitations of U.S. policy and the situation in Southeast 

Asia, MACV accomplished about as much as was possible. At minimum, 

MACV kept the Republic of Vietnam afloat as long as the United States 

considered that objective worth pursuing. It can be argued that in the 

long run, the command’s efforts were not in vain. The United States 

delayed the fall of South Vietnam for about a decade. During that time, 

the neighboring countries achieved sufficient political stability and 

economic prosperity to halt the spread of revolution in Southeast Asia. 

Meanwhile, China turned away from its militant promotion of the 

people’s revolutionary war toward a rapprochement with the United 

States. Because of these changes, when Saigon’s collapse came in 1975 it 

had minimal effect on the global balance of power. Whether this result 

justified the terrible cost of the Second Indochina War to all the societies 

involved, and whether the war was even necessary to achieve the result, 

will long remain subjects of historical speculation and debate.

During the course of the war, more than two million American men 

and women served in Vietnam, most of them in MACV and its subordinate commands, and more than 50,000 lost their lives there. For those 

who came home, there were no victory parades but instead an often 

bitter legacy of questions about the purpose and worth of the struggle 

in which they sacrificed so much. MACV’s war remains deeply controversial three decades after General Weyand folded the command’s 

colors for the last time and shows little sign of becoming less so. The 

one certainty is that those who served, at every rank and position, did 

the best they knew how for their country.

15

 An examination of the dysfunctional relationship between Johnson and McNamara and their 

Joint Chiefs is H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam (New York: HarperCollins, 1997).

Bibliographical Note

This account of a joint headquarters engaged in the making of theater-level policy and strategy, the conduct of joint and combined 

military operations, and the provision of advice and support to the 

South Vietnamese government and armed forces of necessity draws on 

a wide range of sources. The work is based primarily on the message 

traffic and other papers of the successive MACV commanders, principally those of Generals William C. Westmoreland and Creighton W. 

Abrams. These materials are supplemented by documents from the 

MACV records in the National Archives; from the national security 

files of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon; and from 

the records of the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the American armed services.

Unpublished Sources

National Archives and Records Administration

Major record groups bearing on MACV are located in the National 

Archives and Records Administration (NARA) facility at College Park, 

Maryland. Record Group (RG) 472 (Records of the United States Forces 

in Southeast Asia, 1950–1975) now contains the main body of MACV 

headquarters material. This record group also includes the records of 

the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), Vietnam, and those 

of many agencies subordinate or related to MACV. These include headquarters U.S. Army, Vietnam; the Army corps, divisions, brigades, and 

support organizations; the Army and Air Force advisory groups; the 

regional assistance commands; the U.S. Military Assistance Command, 

Thailand; the Defense Attaché Office, Saigon; the Military Equipment 

Delivery Team to Cambodia; and the U.S. Delegation to the Four-Power

Joint Military Commission. Also useful are records of the Army Staff 

(RG 319), U.S. Army commands (RG 338), and Interservice Agencies 

(RG 334). Located at College Park are the Richard M. Nixon presidential 

papers, including the national security files covering Southeast Asia. 

Most of the State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, and Joint 

Chiefs of Staff documents for the 1969–1973 period cited in this study 

were consulted in the Nixon national security files.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

430

U.S. Army Center of Military History

The U.S. Army Center of Military History in Washington, D.C., 

holds a large and varied mass of documents collected by the historians 

preparing the Center of Military History’s multivolume history of the 

Army’s role in Southeast Asia. Many of these are copies or duplicates 

of material in other repositories. The Center of Military History will 

transfer these materials to the National Archives upon completion of 

the U.S. Army in Vietnam series. 

Most important of these for the historian of the Military Assistance 

Command, Vietnam, are the papers of Generals Westmoreland and 

Abrams. The Westmoreland Papers are photocopies of those held by 

the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Texas. They consist of 

two main collections. The first is a historical diary that the general 

dictated at intervals to members of his staff describing his day-to-day 

activities and decisions, supported by copies of messages, memorandums, reports, staff studies, and other documents. The second is a 

chronological file of the messages between Westmoreland and other 

senior commanders in Vietnam and between him and his superiors 

in Hawaii and Washington. Through these messages, the historian 

can follow the policy dialogue between the theater commander and 

higher authorities. Less extensive than the Westmoreland collection, 

the Abrams Papers at the Center of Military History consist entirely of 

messages which, as in Westmoreland’s case, illuminate General Abrams’ 

views and role in the making of U.S. policy and strategy for Southeast 

Asia. Unfortunately, comparable collections do not exist for Abrams’ 

successor, General Frederick C. Weyand, though the Center of Military 

History’s files contain scattered messages and other documents for his 

period in command.

Besides the Westmoreland and Abrams papers, the Center of 

Military History’s holdings include more than one hundred linear feet 

of CORDS documents provided by Ambassador Robert Komer. These 

messages, memorandums, and reports detail the pacification effort 

under both Ambassador Komer and Ambassador William E. Colby. The 

Center possesses a large body of material on the Army’s race, drug, 

and discipline problems that was assembled in support of a projected 

but never completed study of the American soldier in Vietnam. Other 

Vietnam holdings include an extensive body of province pacification 

reports, a complete run of the annual combined campaign plans, manuals for MACV’s automated data processing systems, message files of 

U.S. Army, Vietnam, deputy commanders, and numerous unit operational reports.

U.S. Army Military History Institute

The U.S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, 

Pennsylvania, holds important collections on the history of MACV. 
431

Bibliographical Note

These include a block of records retired directly from Saigon to the 

Military History Institute, covering the period 1969–1973, as well as 

numerous MACV Periodical Intelligence Reports and officer end-oftour debriefings. Besides these paper documents, the Institute possesses 

a microfilm collection of documents used to support the annual MACV 

command histories with a printout of a computer-generated finding 

aid. 

The Military History Institute holds the main body of General 

Abrams’ papers, which include messages, news clippings, and miscellaneous documents, and also a set of microfilms of Abrams’ special 

category (SPECAT) messages. These collections contain many items not 

found in the Abrams Papers at the Center of Military History. The Army 

War College, also located at Carlisle Barracks, possesses tape recordings 

of Abrams’ Weekly Intelligence Estimate Updates (WIEUs), but these 

remain too highly classified for use by most researchers.

Other personal papers collections at the Military History Institute 

bear on the history of MACV. Most useful for this volume are the 

papers of Arthur S. Collins, William R. Peers, John P. Vann, Gilbert H. 

Woodward, and Melvin Zais. The Institute also holds a duplicate set of 

the Westmoreland historical and message files.

Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps Documents

This volume draws from materials held by the other service historical offices in the Washington, D.C., area. The Office of Air Force 

History contains copies of documents and oral histories held at the Air 

University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. The Naval Historical 

Center at the Washington Navy Yard possesses the records of the 

Commander, U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam. Among the collections of the 

Marine Corps Historical Center, also at the Washington Navy Yard, the 

III Marine Amphibious Force message files, the Marine Corps headquarters file on single management, the Victor H. Krulak Papers, and 

the Keith B. McCutcheon Papers were of special value for this study.

Other Manuscript Collections

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library holds the national security 

files of the Johnson administration. More useful for this volume were 

the Richard M. Nixon Papers, now located in the National Archives at 

College Park, Maryland.

The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford 

University contains the papers of Maj. Gen. John R. Chaisson, USMC, 

the officer who headed the MACV combat operations Center from late 

1966 until well into 1968. Chaisson’s letters to his wife and the notebooks he used during his travels and meetings with Westmoreland provide a rare glimpse of the personalities and inner workings of MACV 

headquarters during a critical period of the war. They are especially 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

432

useful when read in conjunction with Westmoreland’s history and 

message files.

Oral History Interviews

Most of the principal figures in this study—the successive Pacific 

Command and MACV commanders and the ambassadors to South 

Vietnam—were interviewed at different times by various institutions. 

While uneven in coverage and candor, these materials are an indispensable supplement to the documentary record, especially for the details 

they provide concerning official and personal relationships among the 

senior leaders. For Admiral Sharp, the Naval Historical Center holds the 

transcript of a lengthy reminiscence. This interview was the basis of 

Sharp’s published memoir, Strategy for Defeat; but the transcript contains 

blunt comments on events and personalities that do not appear in the 

book. A briefer interview with Sharp by the Air Force’s Project Corona

Harvest is available at the Office of Air Force History in Washington, 

D.C. An interview with Sharp’s successor, Admiral McCain, done by the 

Military History Institute as part of a project to memorialize General 

Abrams, contains useful information on the working relations between 

those two strong personalities. The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library has 

an interview with General Earle G. Wheeler conducted in 1969.

Of the MACV commanders, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library 

conducted an interview with General Westmoreland, which is available at the library. An extensive interview with Westmoreland, done 

for the Senior Officer Debriefing Program, is available at the Military 

History Institute. The Center of Military History possesses a copy of the 

Military History Institute interview and also the notes that Army historian Charles B. MacDonald took while assisting Westmoreland with the 

writing of his memoirs. As with Admiral Sharp’s reminiscences, these 

notes include revealing material that did not appear in the published 

volume. General Abrams died while still on active duty; hence, he 

never was interviewed on his tour as COMUSMACV. To date, General 

Weyand has declined to discuss his experiences. However, Weyand’s 

Senior Officer Debriefing at the end of his tour as commander, II Field 

Force, which is available at the Center of Military History, includes 

insightful comments on the nature of the war.

As to the ambassador, the Military History Institute possesses an 

interview with Ambassador Bunker concentrating on Bunker’s relationship with General Abrams. The Institute also has a similar interview 

with Bunker’s deputy, Samuel Berger.

The Military History Institute contains career and topical interviews 

with Army officers who played significant roles in the latter period of 

MACV’s history. They include Donald H. Cowles, Harold K. Johnson, 

Theodore Kanamine, Walter T. Kerwin, Frank T. Mildren, Bruce Palmer, 

William R. Peers, William B. Rosson, Donn J. Starry, James W. Sutherland, 

and Elias C. Townsend. Copies of transcripts of many of these inter-
433

Bibliographical Note

views are available at the Center of Military History. The Center also 

possesses a copy of an interview of Ambassador Robert Komer by the 

Rand Corporation on pacification organization and management, as 

well as tapes and transcripts of interviews the author conducted with 

Lt. Gen. William E. Potts (U.S. Army, Ret.) bearing on aspects of intelligence and military operations.

Interviews of value to this study are contained in other service historical collections. The Office of Air Force History possesses transcripts 

of key officers of Seventh Air Force and other air commands involved 

in Southeast Asia, including Generals George Brown, David Jones, John 

Lavelle, John McConnell, and John Vogt. The Naval Historical Center’s 

holdings include the aforementioned reminiscences of Admiral Sharp. 

The Marine Corps Historical Center contains interviews with almost all 

the important Marine commanders of the period, as well as numerous 

lower-ranking Marine officers. Most useful for this study were those of 

John Chaisson, Robert Cushman, William K. Jones, Victor H. Krulak, 

Keith B. McCutcheon, and John N. McLaughlin.

In the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, the interview of General 

Earle G. Wheeler contains his view of the 1968 reinforcement request. 

For insights into the interaction of State Department officials with 

MACV and the military in Southeast Asia, at every level from the 

embassy to CORDS district offices, researchers should consult the growing collections of the Foreign Affairs Oral History Program, Association 

for Diplomatic Studies and Training, located at the National Foreign 

Affairs Training Center, Arlington, Virginia. Nearly 900 transcripts of 

these interviews have been published on CD-ROM.

Published Primary Sources

Heading the list of published primary sources is the so-called 

“Pentagon Papers,” initially classified histories of Defense Department 

policymaking on Vietnam from 1945 through early 1968, prepared 

at Secretary McNamara’s direction and leaked to the press in 1971 by 

Daniel Elsberg. The narrative in these volumes is supplemented by 

extracts and complete reproductions of many high-level official documents. Throughout, this study cites the original Defense Department 

version of the papers, which was published as: U.S. Congress, House 

Committee on Armed Services. United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–

1967: Study Prepared by the Department of Defense. 12 vols. Washington, 

D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1971.

Second in importance for the story of MACV are the command’s 

own annual histories, comprehensive, highly detailed multivolume studies prepared by the headquarters’ Military History Branch. 

Although these histories generally conform in their interpretation to 

the progress-oriented MACV view of the war, they contain occasional 

candid observations and large quantities of raw historical data. They are 

indispensable sources for study of the Military Assistance Command’s 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

434

many functions. Most of them include a special annex, which was published and distributed separately, covering activities of the Studies and 

Observations Group. Complete citations for the histories consulted for 

this volume are:

Military History Branch, Headquarters, United States Military Assistance 

Command, Vietnam (MACV), Command History, 1967. Volumes 

1–3. Saigon, 1968.

MACV History, 1968. Volumes 1–2. Saigon, 1969.

MACV History, 1969. Volumes 1–3. Saigon, 1970.

MACV History, 1970. Volumes 1–4. Saigon, 1971.

MACV History, 1971. Volumes 1–2. Saigon, 1972.

MACV History, 1972–73. Volumes 1–2. Saigon, 1973.

From 1964 to 1968, Admiral Sharp and General Westmoreland 

directed the preparation of an overview of their stewardship, the 

U.S. Pacific Command, Report on the War in Vietnam (as of 30 June 

1968). Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1969. While 

it contains useful information, this report is very much a defense of 

its authors’ conduct of the war and should be read as such. Covering 

most of General Abrams’ tenure, MACV headquarters prepared a similar summary: “ ‘One War’: MACV Command Overview, 1968–1972,” a 

copy of which is available at the Center of Military History.

The office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff prepared its own official histories of the Joint Chiefs of Staff role in the Southeast Asia conflict. Now 

declassified and in the process of editing and preparation for publication, these histories illuminate the higher level policy context within 

which MACV operated and record the Saigon command’s exchanges 

with its overseers in Washington. The critical volumes for the history 

of MACV are:

Historical Division, Joint Secretariat, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The 

Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1960–1968.” Parts 1–3. 

The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Washington, D.C., 1970. 

__________. “The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969–

1970.” The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Washington, D.C., 

1976. 

__________. “The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–

1973.” The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Washington, D.C., 

1979.

In addition to these histories, the Joint History Office has compiled 

a series of as yet unpublished studies of how the chairmen of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff responded to various Cold War–era crises. One of these, 

“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Crises: Response to the 

North Vietnamese Offensive,” was of particular use in preparing the 

account of MACV’s conduct during the 1972 Easter Offensive.
435

Bibliographical Note

Pacific Command also issued annual official histories of the Vietnam 

War period. These volumes are less useful than the MACV and Joint 

Chiefs of Staff histories for study of the Military Assistance Command 

since they concentrate heavily on Pacific Command’s responsibilities 

outside the Southeast Asian theater of war and largely duplicate the 

MACV histories in coverage of the conflict itself.

In 1984, General Westmoreland sued the Columbia Broadcasting 

System (CBS) for libel in response to a CBS documentary, “The 

Uncounted Enemy,” which charged Westmoreland with falsification 

of intelligence during the 1967 order of battle controversy. The trial, 

which ended inconclusively, resulted in the declassification and publication of a large mass of documents, affidavits, and testimony concerning not only the immediate issue of enemy numbers but also the 

entire intelligence prelude to the 1968 Tet offensive. The Center of 

Military History possesses copies of the memoranda of law and affidavits assembled by both sides. These are:

U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. William C. 

Westmoreland, Plaintiff, v. CBS, Inc., et. al., Defendants. 82 Civ. 7913 

(PNL). Plaintiff General William C. Westmoreland’s Memorandum 

of Law in Opposition to Defendant CBS’s Motion to Dismiss and for 

Summary Judgment.

__________. William C. Westmoreland, Plaintiff, v. CBS Inc., et. al., 

Defendants. 82 Civ. 7913 (PNL). Memorandum in Support of Defendant 

CBS’s Motion to Dismiss and for Summary Judgment.

__________. William C. Westmoreland, Plaintiff, v. CBS Inc., et. al., 

Defendants. 82 Civ. 7913 (PNL). Plaintiff’s Counter-Statement of 

Undisputed Material Facts Pursuant to Local Rule 3(g) and Appendix 

B—Important Documents Cited in Support of Plaintiff’s Opposition to 

Defendant’s Motion.

In addition, the testimony and documents of the trial are available 

on microfiche as Vietnam: A Documentary Collection—Westmoreland vs 

CBS, Clearwater Publishing Company, Inc., 1985. Copies of this collection exist, among other places, in the Library of Congress and the 

U.S. Army Military History Institute. The original documents are in the 

National Archives.

Two sets of studies prepared under Department of the Army auspices contain primary elements. The first series, the Vietnam Studies, 

consists of monographs by active and retired Army officers who served 

in Southeast Asia on subjects of which they had special knowledge. 

While authored in some instances by subordinates instead of the principals, these studies provide information on many aspects of the war. 

The monographs of most use in this volume were:

Eckhardt, George S. Command and Control, 1950–1969. Washington, 

D.C., 1974.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

436

Ewell, Julian and Hunt, Ira A., Jr. Sharpening the Combat Edge: The Use of 

Analysis to Reinforce Military Judgment. Washington, D.C., 1974.

Kelley, Francis J. U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971. Washington, D.C., 

1973.

Larsen, Stanley R., and Collins, James L., Jr. Allied Participation in 

Vietnam. Washington, D.C., 1975.

The second set of studies, the Indochina Monographs, helps to fill 

in the South Vietnamese side of the history of the war. A series of twenty 

narratives prepared by former South Vietnamese, Cambodian, and 

Laotian military leaders under the supervision of Lt. Gen. William E. 

Potts (U.S. Army, Ret.) and the staff of the General Research Corporation, 

the monographs are based on records available to the authors but also 

include much personal comment and experience, thereby acquiring 

to some extent the character of primary documents. The Center of 

Military History published these studies for limited distribution and 

retains copies of them. For this volume, the following monographs 

were the most useful:

Hinh, Nguyen Duy. Lam Son 719. Washington, D.C., 1979.

Lung, Hoang Ngoc. The General Offensives of 1968–1969. Washington, 

D.C., 1981.

____________. Intelligence. Washington, D.C., 1982.

Tho, Tran Dinh. The Cambodian Incursion. Washington, D.C., 1979.

Vongsavanh, Soutchay. RLG Military Operations and Activities in the 

Laotian Panhandle. Washington, D.C., 1981.

Since the end of the Cold War, published source documents on the 

North Vietnamese and Viet Cong conduct of the Vietnam conflict are 

gradually becoming available. The Center of Military History is accumulating a growing body of translated official People’s Army of Vietnam 

operational histories. While highly propagandistic in some respects, 

especially their handling of statistics, these histories contain valuable 

information on enemy plans, order of battle, and combat operations. 

Of direct use in preparing this history of MACV were translations of 

two other accounts from the revolutionary side which treat high level 

policy and strategy. They are:

Tra, Tran Van. Vietnam: History of the Bulwark B2 Theater. Vol. 5. 

Concluding the 30-Years War. Ho Chi Minh City: Van Nghe Publishing 

House, 1982. Trans. by Foreign Broadcast Information Service. Joint 

Publications Research Service, Southeast Asia Report no. 1247, 

1983.

War Experiences Recapitulation Committee of the High-Level Military 

Institute. Vietnam: The Anti-U.S. Resistance War for National Salvation, 

1954–1975: Military Events. Hanoi: People’s Army Publishing House, 
437

Bibliographical Note

1980. Trans. by Joint Publications Research Service. Doc no. 80968, 

1982.

Published Official Histories

U.S. Army

The Center of Military History’s U.S. Army in Vietnam series 

currently consists of eight published major histories and a pictorial 

volume, with additional volumes in progress. The following have been 

published: 

Bergen, John D. Military Communications: A Test for Technology. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1986.

Carland, John M. Combat Operations: Stemming the Tide, May 1965 

to October 1966. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 2000.

Clarke, Jeffrey J. Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965–1973. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1988.

Cosmas, Graham A. MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Escalation, 

1962–1967. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

2006.

Hammond, William M. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1962–

1968. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

1988.

__________. Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1968–1973. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1996.

MacGarrigle, George L. Combat Operations: Taking the Offensive, October 

1966 to October 1967. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 1998.

Meyerson, Joel D. Images of a Lengthy War. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army 

Center of Military History, 1986.

Spector, Ronald H. Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983.

U.S. Air Force

The Office of Air Force History is publishing a series on The United 

States Air Force in Southeast Asia, one volume of which was drawn 

upon:

Schlight, John. The War in South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive, 

1965–1968. Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1988.

In addition, the author had access to a manuscript study, Wayne 

Thompson’s “From Rolling Thunder to Linebacker: The Air War over 
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

438

North Vietnam, 1966–1973.” This study has now been published as 

To Hanoi and Back: The U.S. Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966–1973. 

Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000. 

U.S. Navy

Two volumes of the Naval Historical Center’s series, The United 

States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict, have been published. The 

volume bearing on Military Assistance Command, Vietnam is:

Marolda, Edward J. and Fitzgerald, Oscar P. From Military Assistance to 

Combat, 1959–1965. Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 

1986.

The Naval Historical Center also has published an illustrated overview of the Navy’s role in Southeast Asia:

Marolda, Edward J. By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the 

U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington, D.C.: Naval 

Historical Center, 1994.

U.S. Marine Corps

The Marine Corps History and Museums Division has completed 

publication of its chronological series on U.S. Marines in Vietnam. The 

following volumes in this series were of special value:

Cosmas, Graham A. and Murray, Terrence P. Vietnamization and 

Redeployment, 1970–1971. Washington, D.C.: History and Museums 

Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1986.

Dunham, George R. and Quinlan, David A. The Bitter End, 1973–1975. 

Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, 

U.S. Marine Corps, 1990.

Melson, Charles D. and Arnold, Curtis G. The War that Would Not End, 

1971–1973. Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division, 

Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1991.

Shulimson, Jack, Blasiol, Leonard A., Smith, Charles, R., and Dawson, 

David A. The Defining Year, 1968. Washington, D.C.: History and 

Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1997.

Smith, Charles R. High Mobility and Standdown, 1969. Washington, 

D.C.: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine 

Corps, 1988.

Joint History Office

Cole, Ronald H., Poole, Walter S., Schnabel, James F., Watson, Robert 

J., and Webb, Willard J. The History of the Unified Command Plan, 
439

Bibliographical Note

1946–1993. Washington, D.C.: Joint History Office, Office of the 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1995. 

Poole,Walter S., “Lam Son 719: The ‘Moment of Truth.’ ” Draft Paper, 

Washington, D.C.: Joint History Office, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2001. 

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Andrade, Dale. Trial by Fire: The 1972 Easter Offensive, America’s Last 

Vietnam Battle. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1995.

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___________. Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975. New York: Oxford 

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Vietnam 1973. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University 

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MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

442

Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. Garden City, N.Y.: 

Doubleday and Co., 1976.

Wirtz, James J. The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War. Ithaca, N.Y.: 

Cornell University Press, 1991.

Zaffiri, Samuel. Westmoreland: A Biography of General William C. 

Westmoreland. New York: William Morrow and Co., 1994.

Zhang, Xiaoming. “The Vietnam War: A Chinese Perspective, 1964–

1969,” Journal of Military History 60 (October 1996): 731–62.

Unpublished Secondary Works 

Carland, John M. “The Tet Offensive of 1968: Desperate Gamble or 

Calculated Risk?” Unpublished paper, U.S. Army Center of Military 

History, 2001.

Ford, Ronnie E. “Tet 1968: Understanding the Surprise.” Master’s thesis, 

Defense Intelligence College, 1993.

Hammond, William M. “Preparations Begin.” Unpublished paper, U.S. 

Army Center of Military History, 2002.

Latimer, Thomas K. “Hanoi’s Leaders and their South Vietnam Policies, 

1954–1968.” Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University, 1972. 

Rosson, Gen William B. “Four Periods of American Involvement in 

Vietnam: Development and Implementation of Policy, Strategy and 

Programs, Described and Analyzed on the Basis of Service Experience 

at Progressively Senior Levels.” Ph.D. thesis, New College, Oxford, 

1979. 
Glossary

AAR After Action Report

ARVN Army of the Republic of Vietnam (South 

Vietnam)

CBS Columbia Broadcasting System

CIA Central Intelligence Agency

CICV Combined Intelligence Center, Vietnam

CIDG Civilian Irregular Defense Group

CIIB Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Bureau

CINCPAC Commander in Chief, Pacific

CJCS Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

CMH Center of Military History

COC Combat Operations Center

COMUSMACV Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, 

Vietnam

CORDS Civil Operations and Revolutionary 

Development Support

COSVN Central Office for South Vietnam

CRIMP Consolidated RVNAF Improvement and 

Modernization Plan

CTZ Corps Tactical Zone

DA Department of the Army

DAO Defense Attaché Office

DIA Defense Intelligence Agency

DMZ Demilitarized Zone

DoD Department of Defense

FANK Forces Armées Nationales Khmères

FFV Field Force, Vietnam

FMFPAC Fleet Marine Force, Pacific

FWMAF Free World Military Assistance Force 

GVN Government of Vietnam

HQMC Headquarters, Marine Corps

JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff (U.S.)
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

444

JGS Joint General Staff (South Vietnam)

JUSPAO Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office

LBJL Lyndon Baines Johnson Library

LOI Letter of Instruction

LRPTG Long Range Planning Task Group

MACV Military Assistance Command, Vietnam

MAF Marine Amphibious Force

MAP Military Assistance Program

MAW Marine Aircraft Wing

MCHC Marine Corps Historical Center

MFR Memorandum for the Record

MHI Military History Institute

MiG Mikoyan & Gurevich (Russian aircraft designers)

MR Military Region

NARA National Archives and Records Administration

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NAVFORV (U.S.) Naval Forces, Vietnam

NSC National Security Council

NSDM National Security Decision Memorandum

NSSM National Security Study Memorandum

NVA North Vietnamese Army

NVN North Vietnam

OPLAN Operations Plan

P&D Pacification and Development

PAVN People’s Army of Vietnam (North Vietnam)

PFIAB President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board

PLAF People’s Liberation Armed Forces (Viet Cong)

PROVN Program for the Pacification and Long-Term 

Development of South Vietnam

PSDF People’s Self-Defense Force

RVN Republic of Vietnam

RVNAF Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (South 

Vietnam)

SACSA Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and 

Security Activities, JCS

SAM Surface-to-Air Missile

SEER System for Evaluating the Effectiveness of 

RVNAF

SNIE Special National Intelligence Estimate

SOG Studies and Observations Group
445

Glossary

SVN South Vietnam

TOW Tube launched, optically tracked, wire guided

USARPAC U.S. Army, Pacific

USARV U.S. Army, Vietnam

USIA U.S. Information Agency

USSAG/7AF U.S. Support Activities Group/Seventh Air Force

VAC Vietnam Assistance Command

VAG Vietnam Assistance Group

VC Viet Cong

WIEU Weekly Intelligence Estimate Update

Index

A Shau Valley: 75, 117, 246, 255, 257, 333

Abrams, General Creighton W.: 95n70, 107, 

129, 276, 368, 385, 417

and Accelerated Pacification Campaign: 

133

on advisers’ role: 273

and air operations: 168–69, 188–89, 259, 

290, 350, 364, 366–67, 369

becomes Army Chief of Staff: 375–76

and Army scandals: 220–23, 229, 235–

36, 238

background of: 181–83

budgetary issues: 160–61

relations with Bunker: 193

reaction to Cambodian coup: 295

operations against sanctuaries in 

Cambodia: 282, 284, 296–98, 301–02, 

304, 411

quarantine of Cambodian ports: 282

on casualties: 184, 227, 257

chain-of-command issues: 183, 184–85

and communications channels: 183–85

on CORDS, 187, 188, 215

and contingency planning: 185–86, 283

and Cushman: 75

“cut and try” withdrawal criteria: 161

and action in DMZ: 128, 282, 289, 343, 351

develops “dynamic defense”: 259

and herbicide program: 261–63

operations in I Corps: 46

and infiltration: 155

and importance of intelligence: 206

and interdiction: 305, 311

confers with President Johnson: 106

and Kissinger: 365

on Kham Duc: 112, 117

and Khe Sanh: 75, 116–17, 131

relations with Komer: 186–87

and Laird: 147

on Laos: 281, 313, 314–16, 322–23, 411

on Lavelle: 351

commands MACV Forward: 48, 72, 76

and Firebase Mary Ann: 223

relations with McCain: 195

member of Mission Council: 193

and My Lai: 225

on NSSM 1: 142, 147

and Nixon: 153, 197, 365, 366

and bombing North Vietnam: 126, 128, 

318, 360, 412

One War approach of: 128–39, 169, 182, 

188, 206, 240–41, 244, 247, 278, 410

and Operation Lam Son 719: 166, 325, 

327, 332–37, 341, 365

and Operation Menu: 287–89

and pacification program: 129, 133, 188, 

245, 248, 264, 410

and Paris negotiations: 125–27, 129

and Paris Agreement: 383–84

protective reactions: 295, 342

and PROVN: 133

approach toward public information: 

217–19

and redeployment: 146, 151–52, 154, 161–

63, 165, 168–69, 170–79, 210, 350, 

353–55, 360

and rules of engagement: 227, 228, 342

on RVNAF: 123–24, 135, 156–58, 271–

75, 339, 349, 362–63, 392

Saigon defenses: 113–14

single management of airpower: 189

and Special Forces, 223

and Tet offensive, 68, 88, 114

and Thieu: 193

and III Marine Amphibious Force: 75, 

134, 173

and transitional support force: 156, 173, 372

and troop morale: 234

and urban combat: 114–15, 184

relations with U.S. Army, Pacific: 190–91

VAC plan: 213, 355

relations with General Vien: 193–94

approach to Vietnamization: 195, 275, 277

and war games: 185–86

succeeds Westmoreland: 3, 101, 105, 412–13

and Wheeler: 94, 148

continues WIEU conferences: 185, 193

relations with Zumwalt, 191
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

448

Accelerated Pacification Campaign: 119, 

124, 127, 133–34, 187, 264. See also

Pacification campaign.

Accelerated Phase II Improvement and 

Modernization Plan: 156

Adamson, Maj. Gen. James B.: 238

Advanced Research Projects Agency, 

Vietnam: 198, 202

Advisers: 108, 195, 227, 231, 273, 419

Advisory group (IV Corps): 8

Agent Blue: 262–63

Agent Orange: 262–63

Agent White: 262–63

Agnew, Spiro T.: 197, 218, 363

Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring 

Peace in Vietnam. See Paris Peace 

Accords.

Air operations, airpower: 350. See also

Seventh Air Force; Single management.

control systems: 78, 417

against Ho Chi Minh Trail: 169

importance of: 364, 416–17

for South Vietnamese Army: 167

Americal Division: 333

use of Agent Orange: 262

reinforces Da Nang: 74

and Firebase Mary Ann: 221, 223

and My Lai: 220, 224, 225, 229

redeployment of: 176

American Association for the Advancement 

of Science: 262–63

An Loc: 357–58, 360, 363, 367

Anti-infiltration barrier: 15, 17, 37, 40, 45. See 

also McNamara, Robert S.

Antiwar movement, antiwar protests: 18–19, 

136, 141, 143, 153, 232, 346

and Buddhists: 25

impact of operations in Cambodia on: 

301–02

and civilian casualties: 226

Johnson responds to: 123

in news media: 220

and North Vietnam: 25

and Phoenix program: 231

Arc Light (B–52) raids: 64, 287, 299, 313–14

Area Security System: 138, 421

Clearing and Border Surveillance Zones: 137

and CORDS: 138

Security and Consolidation Zones: 137

zones of: 255

Armed Forces Radio and Television Service: 198

Army Advisory Group: 373

Atrocities: 221, 229–30, 278

Australia: and Abrams: 193

tactics of: 47

troops in Vietnam: 11, 177, 229, 353

B–52 bombers: 290, 342, 364, 367, 393

Abrams and: 129, 190, 369

analysis of sorties: 203

strikes on Barrel Roll: 315

strikes in Cambodia: 189, 197, 260, 296, 

298, 305

Commando Hunt: 311

attack COSVN : 286–87

attack Hanoi: 368, 384

strike Haiphong: 360, 368

strikes against Ho Chi Minh Trail: 311

and evacuation of Kham Duc: 112

operations at Khe Sanh: 43, 73

Laird cuts operations of: 168

sorties in Laos: 260, 314, 318, 340, 402

in Military Region 2: 358

Nixon on employment of: 367

and Operation Menu: 288

and Operation Niagra: 40

strikes against Plain of Jars: 313

support for South Vietnamese Army: 257

Bardshar, Rear Adm. Frederick A.: 290–91

Bartley, Lt. Col. Hugh J.: 77

Bautz, Maj. Gen. Edward, Jr.: 171–72

Ben Het: 254, 257, 272

Bennett, L. Howard: 235

Bien Hoa: 176

protection of: 259

Directorates for Resettlement and 

Reconstruction at: 398

preparations for Tet Offensive: 55

Blackmarketeering: 222, 236

Bolovens Plateau: 321–22

Border Defense Ranger Battalions (South 

Vietnamese): 271

Brown, General George S.: 188, 190

Bu Prang–Duc Lap: 254, 257

Bundy, William P.: 267

Bunker, Elsworth: 16, 21, 105, 241, 345, 347, 412

and allied troops: 177

and Abrams: 193, 350, 368

and antidrug efforts: 238

and bombing halt: 127

and action in Cambodia: 295, 297, 301

on bombing COSVN: 284–85

on escalation: 21

and herbicide program: 261–63

on evacuation of Khe Sanh: 117

and Laird: 147

on Lam Son 719: 334–36

and Laos: 313

and Operation Menu: 288

and My Lai: 225

meets with Nixon: 153, 197

respond to NSSM 1: 142

and pacification: 133, 264, 269
449

Index

Paris Peace Accords: 376, 395

Paris peace talks: 125, 146, 385

and the press, 218

and redeployments: 162, 172, 372

on Rolling Thunder: 21

South Korean troops: 230

on South Vietnamese leaders: 363

and Tet offensive: 51, 56, 65, 67–68, 88–89

relations with Thieu: 193

and Weyand: 214–15

attends WIEUs: 185, 193

Bureau of Intelligence and Research: 142

Cambodia: 145, 278, 415, 422

Abrams on: 129, 282, 414

air campaign in: 253, 296, 305, 364, 388, 

399, 402

and antiwar protests: 301

B–52 strikes in: 189

Communist sanctuaries in: 94, 126, 131, 

157, 252, 401, 410

COSVN headquarters: 284, 287, 297

Daniel Boone reconnaissance program: 

280

Dorsal Fin program: 281

expansion of FANK: 306

Freedom Deal: 305

Giant Dragon program: 281

ground campaigns in: 181, 252, 255–56, 

293–308, 311, 320, 340–41, 411

and Johnson administration: 283

Military Equipment Delivery Team for: 

308, 399

neutrality of: 383

and news media: 219

Nixon begins secret bombing in: 145

rules of engagement in: 279

Salem House reconnaissance program: 280

overthrow of Sihanouk: 162, 293, 306

South Vietnamese operations in: 163, 165, 

272, 321, 338, 343, 350

Westmoreland on: 15, 21, 88

Cambodian Army. See FANK.

Capital Military Assistance Command: 112

Capital Military District. See South 

Vietnamese Capital Military District.

Carver, George: 31

Casualties: in Cambodia: 302

civilian: 225–26, 260, 264

and operations in Laos: 316

campaign to minimize: 258

CBS: on Abrams and new mission statement: 

252

exposé of Herbert: 224

Cease-fires: 383, 384–93. See also Truces.

Central Highlands: 14, 36, 272, 350, 358

Central Intelligence Agency: 5, 35, 414

communications channels: 162, 183, 198

and Green Beret Case: 223

and status of irregulars: 12–13

and Communist order of battle: 86, 87, 

130, 143, 207

and NSSM 1: 141

and NSSM 36: 149–50

and Phoenix program: 231

and secret negotiations: 385

and Sihanoukville: 283, 304

on South Vietnamese weaknesses: 124

and Studies and Observations Group: 12

predictions of Tet offensive: 31, 53

on success of Vietnamization: 267

and Washington Special Action Group: 196

and WIEU: 185

Central Office for South Vietnam. See 

COSVN.

Central Pacification and Development 

Council: 119, 265

Central Party Military Affairs Committee. See

Communist Party (North Vietnam).

Central Recovery Committee: 68–69, 114

Chaisson, Brig. Gen. John R.: 47, 63, 76, 

106, 107

on Abrams: 48, 75

and press reports on Tet: 85

on Wheeler: 94

Chemical agents: 73

Chieu Hoi (amnesty) centers: 48, 48n46, 265

China: 287, 347, 382, 410, 422, 424, 427

arms Communist forces: 13, 14

agreements with North Vietnam: 30

uses port of Sihanoukville: 303

U.S. negotiations with 343, 345, 351, 360, 

367, 423, 427

Christmas bombing: See North Vietnam.

Chup Plantation, Cambodia: 322, 339

CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency.

Civic Action program: 251

Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG): 

10, 296

corruption in: 222

incorporated into RVNAF: 271

Special Forces advise: 271

Clark Air Force Base: 63, 100, 105

Clarke, General Bruce C.: 85

Clay, General Lucius D., Jr.: 188

Clifford, Clark M.: 79, 94, 108, 159

on Abrams: 184

and communications channels: 183–84

advocates de-escalation: 98–99, 122, 245

disillusionment of: 109

public relations, public information: 86, 218

on redeployments: 154
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

450

Clifford, Clark M.—Continued

reinforcement and reserve question: 97, 99

and urban tactics: 115, 184

on transferring burden to South 

Vietnamese: 122–23

Colby, William E.: 187, 214, 264, 269

Collins, Lt. Gen. Arthur S.: 275, 301

Columbia Broadcasting System. See CBS.

Combat Operations Center (COC): 47, 63

Combined Campaign Plans: 421

for 1968: 16–17, 66

for 1969: 130–31

for 1972: 201

Combined Document Exploitation Center: 206

Combined Intelligence Center, Vietnam: 6, 205

pinpoints COSVN location: 284

enemy base area studies of: 205–06

and predictions of Tet: 31, 31n13, 34–35

Commando Hunt: 311, 313, 318, 321

Commando Hunt V: 340

Commando Hunt VI: 340

Commando Hunt VII: 340

Communist Party (North Vietnam): 242, 268

Central Party Military Affairs Committee: 

26–27, 29

Central Resolution Fourteen: 27, 29

Fourteenth Plenum: 27

and General Offensive–General Uprising: 

24–26, 28n10

Politburo: 26–27, 28n10

and strategy: 25, 28–29

approve Tet holiday for new offensive: 26

Community Defense and Local Development 

Plan: 265

Con Son Island: 221

Consolidated RVNAF Improvement and 

Modernization Plan. See CRIMP.

Contingency Plan 208: 165–66

Contingency Plan J208: 167

Contingency Plan J208A: 167

Contractors: 318, 400

Cook, Col. Robert M.: 199, 222

Complaints Division of: 234

and Hackworth: 224

and Firebase Mary Ann investigation: 223

Corcoran, Maj. Gen. Charles A.: 364–65

CORDS: 118, 186, 255–56, 262, 398

and Area Security System: 138

and communications: 183, 187

district advisory teams: 266

established: 7

Hamlet Evaluation System: 71, 119, 202, 

204, 266

and Kissinger: 204

Komer: 7, 187

mobile training teams: 266

organization of: 214–15, 416

and pacification campaign: 7, 16, 70, 265, 

412

personnel: 198, 210, 266

and relief efforts after Tet: 69

Territorial Security Directorate and 

CRIMP: 270

and III Marine Amphibious Force: 192

Vann and: 211, 267

and WIEU conferences: 185

COSVN: bombing of: 286–87

and General Offensive–General Uprising: 

24, 65

pursuit of: 284–85, 297, 298, 302

Resolution Nine, 242–43, 254

and Tet offensive: 31, 64–65

Cowles, Maj. Gen. Donald H.: 364

CRIMP: 270, 277

MACV implementation of: 159

statistical goals of: 271

Crop-destruction missions: 261. See also

Herbicides.

Currency manipulation: 222, 224, 236

Cushman, Lt. Gen. Robert E.: 46, 74, 76, 78, 

80, 110

relationship with Abrams: 75

and Americal Division: 76

and 1st Cavalry Division: 44

on Kham Duc: 112, 117

evacuation of Khe Sanh: 116–17

and Marine aircraft: 42–43, 79

and MACV Forward: 47–48

and McNamara barrier: 45

operational control of Provisional Corps: 76

Wheeler meets with: 94

Da Nang: 77, 94, 134, 138, 175–76, 210, 256

Americal Division reinforces: 74

protection of: 259

racial incidents at: 235

and redeployment: 372

Directorates for Resettlement and 

Reconstruction at: 398

and Tet offensive: 27, 36, 53, 55, 72, 336

Dak To: 29–30, 34, 129

Daniel Boone: 280, 281

Dao, Brig. Gen. Le Minh: 405

Data Management Agency: 6, 374

Davidson, Maj. Gen. Phillip B.: 35, 46, 65, 204

on marines at Khe Sanh: 45

and reinforcement requests: 95

and Tet: 31, 49, 53–55, 63–65, 85

Davison, Lt. Gen. Michael S.: 301, 322, 338–39

Defectors: 266

Defense Attaché Office, Saigon: 388–90, 397, 

399, 407–08
451

Index

and contractors: 400

liaison with Joint General Staff: 398

Defense Intelligence Agency: 283

and Communist order of battle: 87, 130, 207

on Tet offensive: 53

Defoliation: 263. See also Herbicides.

Delta Military Assistance Command: 192, 

205, 211, 295

Delta Regional Assistance Command: 211

Demilitarized Zone. See DMZ.

Demographic frontier system: 244, 255

DePuy, Maj. Gen. William E.: 93, 95

Diem, Ngo Dinh: 15–16, 392, 396, 404, 

410, 412

Dien Bien Phu: 37–38, 40, 72, 257, 410

Directorate of Construction: 212, 214

Directorate of Intelligence: 398 

Directorate of Logistics: 389, 394, 398

Directorate of Operations: 6, 202–03, 386, 398

Directorate of Training: 212, 214, 270

Directorates for Resettlement and 

Reconstruction: 398

DMZ: 14, 37, 71, 127, 318, 343, 423

air strikes in: 108, 351

amphibious feint above: 74

anti-infiltration barrier along: 17

attacks above: 94, 324, 369

B–52 strikes on: 289, 350

build-up above: 126, 321, 340, 342

Communist assault through: 360

and Easter offensive: 356

infiltration through: 124, 128

Marine positions below: 36

operations in: 29, 41, 73, 279–80

use of sensors: 132

and Tet offensive: 27

III Marine Amphibious Force shifts toward: 37

Westmoreland on: 10, 15, 51

Dolvin, Maj. Gen. Welborn G.: 211

Draft: 163–64

Drug abuse: 224, 236, 278, 346

amnesty program for: 238–39

in Army: 190, 238

heroin: 236–38

marijuana: 236–37

rehabilitation programs: 237–39

Reporting System: 237

statistics: 236

Suppression Council: 237–38

testing: 238

Duck Hook: 290, 292

Dung, Col. Gen. Van Tien: 331

Dzu, Maj. Gen. Ngo Dinh: 172, 211, 363, 394

Easter offensive: 356, 412–14, 420–21

82d Airborne Division, 3d Brigade: 90, 91, 

95n70

deployed to Vietnam: 93, 101

in I Corps: 120

redeployment of: 154

11th Light Infantry Brigade: 32

Eighth Air Force: 393

Enhance Plus: 392

Ewell, Lt. Gen. Julian J.: 138, 257

F–4 Phantoms: 81, 317, 350

FANK: 306–07, 309

force structure of: 307

South Vietnamese assistance to: 295

5th Marine Division: 95

5th Infantry Division (Mechanized): 95, 120

5th Special Forces Group: 220, 223, 307

Firebase Mary Ann: 221, 222

Firebase Ripcord: 257

1st Cavalry Division: 37, 98, 259

at Bien Hoa: 176

and communication equipment: 44

and 1st Marine Aircraft Wing: 44

deployed to Hue–Phu Bai area: 39, 44

at Khe Sanh: 116

and Provisional Corps: 76

redeployed: 372

moves to III Corps: 117, 131, 132n51

I Corps: 8, 39, 52, 277, 320, 415–16

Abrams and: 46, 75, 129, 132

and airpower: 77, 80, 83

Army surgical hospital in: 40

Army–Marine Corps coordination in: 76, 

80, 192

casualties: 258

crop destruction in: 262

Direct Air Support Center: 78

attack on Kham Duc: 112

and Khe Sanh: 35

and Korean brigade: 179

marines in: 45

northern: 32, 36, 37, 48, 64, 90, 113, 117, 

126, 224

redeployments: 173, 175–76

reinforced: 39, 57, 74, 92, 101, 117, 120

and Tet offensive: 54, 56, 65, 108

XXIV Corps: 209

U.S. forces in: 46

Westmoreland and: 74–75

I Field Force: 76, 257, 296

and Battle of Ben Het: 257

and Battle of Bu Prang–Duc Lap: 257

in Cambodia: 300

and intelligence collection: 205

and II Corps: 8
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

452

I Field Force—Continued

becomes Third Regional Assistance 

Command: 211

and WIEUs: 185

1st Infantry Division: 155

1st Logistical Command: 209–10

1st Marine Aircraft Wing: 43–44, 46, 82, 174, 

188, 209

1st Marine Division: 209, 260

north of Hai Van Pass: 39

in Quang Nam Province: 256

First Regional Assistance Command: 356

Fleet Marine Force, Pacific: 10, 79

Forces Armées Nationales Khmères 

(Cambodian Army). See FANK.

Ford, Gerald R.: 407, 413

Four-Party Joint Military Commission: 386–

87, 393–94, 398

Communist participation in: 395

U.S. delegates to: 400

IV Corps: 131, 161, 192, 211, 254, 297, 309–10

Advisory Group in: 8

Tet cease-fire: 53

Westmoreland on: 52

4th Infantry Division: 151, 155

Fracture Jaw: 41, 73

“Fragging”: 233–34, 346

Free World allies: 15, 353

Free World Military Assistance Office: 374

Froehlke: Robert F.: 259

Fulbright, J. William: 226, 245

Gavin, Lt. Gen. James M.: 244

General Offensive–General Uprising: 14, 24, 

25, 56, 59, 65, 104, 242

Geneva Conventions, Geneva Protocols: 229, 

263

Gia Dinh Province: 112–13

Giap, Vo Nguyen: 29, 242

Godley, G. McMurtrie: 312, 321, 328

requests Arc Light strike: 314

requests air strikes against Pathet Lao: 340

on U.S. involvement in Laos: 313

Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986: 416

Goodpaster: General Andrew J.: 107, 125, 

127, 186, 245

Graham, Col. Daniel: 31

“Green Beret Case”: 220, 223, 231–32

Group 559: 330–31

Gulf of Tonkin: 393

Habib, Philip C.: 93

Hackworth, Col. David: 221–24

Hai Van Pass: 36–37, 39, 46–47, 71, 76, 93

Haig, Brig. Gen. Alexander M.: 166, 322, 

325–26, 372

and Lam Son 719: 335

visits Vietnam: 198, 302, 361, 367, 372

Haines, General Ralph E.: 191

Haiphong: 350, 367

air operations against: 316, 360, 368

and Christmas bombing: 384, 393

mining of: 290–91, 316, 360

Haldeman, H. R.: 337

Hamburger Hill, Battle of: 245–46

Hamlet Evaluation System: 266, 266n49, 274. 

See also CORDS.

Hanoi: air strikes against: 368, 384, 393

Harassment and interdiction fire: 260

Harkins, General Paul D.: 411–13

Harriman, W. Averell: 125, 245

Hay, Maj. Gen. John H.: 112

Helms, Richard: 327

Herbert, Lt. Col. Anthony: 221–22, 224

Herbicides: 261

Agent Blue: 262–63

Agent Orange: 262–63

Agent White: 262–63

impact of studied: 263

phased out: 260

Heroin: 236–38

Hiep, Brig. Gen. Phan Hoa: 394

Highway 1: 71

Highway 7: 322, 339, 341

Highway 9: 324, 330, 332–33, 356

Ho, Lt. Gen. Lee Sae: 362

Ho Chi Minh: 14

Ho Chi Minh Trail: 254, 313–14, 318, 330, 

334, 402

air operations against: 108, 169, 189, 311, 

319–20, 350

expansion of: 424

ground attacks on: 94

and Group 559: 330

and interdiction operations: 276, 343

and Lam Son 719: 336

through Laos: 13, 304

SOG operations: 12

Operation Steel Tiger: 280, 298

South Vietnamese raids against: 392

attack near Tchepone: 323, 324

and preparation for Tet: 29

Hoi Chanhs: 48n46

Hollingsworth, Maj. Gen. James F.: 363

Horner, Lt. Gen. Charles A.: 417

Hue: 36, 48, 72, 91, 117, 138, 360

Abrams and: 47

attack on: 358

bombing of: 367

civilian casualties at: 226

infiltrated: 27

marines at: 75
453

Index

recapture of: 75

South Vietnamese airborne battalions at: 39

Tet offensive: 53, 58, 59, 62, 71, 336

Humphrey, Hubert H.: 20

Huong, Tran Van: 119, 146

Infiltration: 48, 57, 62, 124

routes: 37, 50, 109, 113

during redeployment: 155

technological deterrents: 132

prior to Tet: 34, 35

Intelligence: 23, 181, 204–08

and airpower: 366

from captured documents: 34, 116

on Communist movements: 35, 48, 349

from defectors: 116

on general uprising: 53

MACV: 204–08

and One War concept: 206

from prisoners of war: 34

from radio intercepts: 34

signal: 48

prior to Tet: 34, 35, 49, 53

Vietnamization of: 207

International Commission for Control and 

Supervision: 394–95

Johnson, General Harold K.: 3, 105, 324, 414

Johnson, Lyndon Baines: 11, 62, 101, 156, 

424–25

and antiwar movement: 18, 123

on bombing halt: 22, 84, 102, 127–28, 141

on Cambodia: 283

relations with China: 15

and chain of command: 5

establishes CORDS: 7, 416

operations in DMZ: 128, 282

concern over Khe Sanh: 35, 38, 72–73

and Komer: 187

on incursions into Laos: 15

leveling off U.S. involvement: 18, 22–24, 

88–89, 96–97, 99–100, 102

and McNamara: 22

and nuclear weapons: 73

on incursions into North Vietnam: 15

pacification: 22

Paris peace talks: 105, 125, 141, 282

and public opinion: 19

and reserves: 21, 92–93

on reinforcements: 100, 102

and Rolling Thunder: 15, 21–22, 109, 

369, 411

single management of aircraft: 79

relations with Soviet Union, 15

impact of Tet on: 58, 61, 88

on Vietnamization: 123, 420

and Westmoreland: 108

confers with Wheeler: 106

Joint Chiefs of Staff: 152, 250, 293, 402, 426

and Abrams: 337, 350

and advisers: 273

and airpower: 168, 281, 299, 393

and American withdrawal:123

bombing operations: 145, 283, 368

budgetary issues: 160–161, 164

and Communist order of battle: 87

“cut and try” withdrawal plan: 150

on DMZ operations: 289

and draft reductions: 164

Duck Hook: 290

and herbicide program: 261, 263

and intelligence: 206

Khe Sanh: 72

on Lam Son 719: 335

Menu operations: 287–88, 299

and negotiations: 385

and NSSM 1: 142

response to NSSM 36: 150–51

and Pacific Command: 181

sends military assistance group in Phnom 

Penh: 308

on Program Five: 88

on redeployments: 150–51, 161–65, 174, 

209, 354

and reinforcements and reserves, 89, 92, 

97, 100

and reorganization of MACV: 356

and RVNAF: 122, 157, 158

and SAMs: 318, 341

and single management of aircraft: 79, 81

Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency 

and Security Activities: 184

strategy assessments: 247

and Tet offensive: 89

and troop deployments: 88, 165

and Vietnamization: 156, 180, 392

Joint Customs Group: 237

Joint General Staff (South Vietnamese): 47, 

193, 276, 331, 398, 417, 420

and advisers: 419

and Area Security System: 137–38

Assistant to the Chief of Staff for 

Planning: 270

and Cambodia: 307, 322

and cross-border operations: 296

and expansion of forces: 271

requests heavy weapons: 271, 277

and Hue: 39

Inspector General: 222

intelligence operations: 53, 205, 207

counterpart of MACV: 6, 202, 415

and NSSM 36: 171
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

454

Joint General Staff (South Vietnamese)

—Continued

and Paris negotiations: 127

and Program Six: 123

and RVNAF: 270–71, 349

rules of engagement in Cambodia: 300

and Tet offensive: 54

impact of urban warfare: 114

and U.S. disengagement: 146, 403

Joint Narcotics Investigation Detachment: 237

Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office (JUSPAO): 

198, 215, 262

Kennedy, Edward M.: 226, 245–46

Kennedy, John F.: 5

Kennedy, Robert F.: 100

Kerwin, Maj. Gen. Walter T.: 54, 199, 284

Kham Duc: 117

Khang, Lt. Gen. Le Nguyen: 55, 114

Khe Sanh: 37, 45, 64, 84, 90, 244, 326

air support of: 73–74, 80

artillery support of: 74

attack on: 39–40, 50

ammunition dump explosion: 40, 45

enemy approaches: 35

evacuated: 116–17, 118, 131, 217

Johnson concerned for: 72

and marine aircraft: 42, 43

marines at: 45, 224

and Operation Pegasus: 110

outposts attacked: 71

and public opinion: 257

reinforced: 40, 74

relief of: 74–75, 100

and resupply: 89

and SOG teams: 39

Westmoreland on: 38–39, 52 

Khmer Rouge: 293, 304, 404

Kissinger, Henry A.: 141, 388, 392, 402, 421

on Abrams: 337, 365, 368

and airpower: 167–69, 367, 370

and allied troops: 179

and budgetary constraints: 160–61

and Communist attacks: 358

covert operations: 285, 287

on cross-border attacks: 321, 351

and de-escalation: 245

Duck Hook: 292

and Easter offensive: 381

seeks independent channels of information: 197–98

relations with Laird: 196

on Lam Son 719: 334–35, 337

and MACV mission: 259

and Menu targets: 287

Moscow trip: 347

mission statements: 251

and mutual withdrawals: 143, 245

issues NSSM 36: 149

and Paris Peace Accords: 383–84

and peace talks: 143, 360, 376, 396

and Pruning Knife: 291–92

and the press: 218

on redeployment: 149, 151, 153, 166, 180

relations with Rogers: 196

secret talks with Le Duc Tho: 360, 367, 

381, 384

quarantine of Sihanoukville: 293

on Thieu’s regime: 268–69

establishes Vietnam Special Studies 

Group: 197

Komer, Robert W.: 16, 89, 187

relations with Abrams: 186–87

and CORDS: 7, 416

on pacification campaign: 52, 70, 119

and Tet offensive: 65, 67–69, 85, 88

and urban fighting: 114

Kontum: 52–53, 358, 359, 360, 363, 367

Korean War: 78–79, 425

Koster, Maj. Gen. Samuel W.: 225

Krulak, Lt. Gen. Victor H.: 10, 79

Ky, Nguyen Cao: 25, 109, 121

and operations in Cambodia: 300

and post-Tet relief efforts: 68–69

Wheeler meets with: 94, 146

Ladd, Col. Jonathan F.: 307–08

Laird, Melvin R.: 197, 319, 347, 351, 388, 

392, 399

and Abrams: 195, 249, 365

and advisers: 231

air operations: 342, 366

on artillery use: 260

and Cambodia: 285, 294, 302

communications within administration: 

198, 368

Communist order of battle: 207

and CRIMP: 270

de-escalation: 246

and DMZ: 289

funding issues: 151, 157, 160

and herbicide program: 261, 263

Improvement and Modernization Plans: 

156, 158

and Kissinger: 160

on Lam Son 719: 326–27, 336–37

and operations in Laos: 168–69, 313–15

and Lavelle’s false reporting: 352

and MACV reporting: 203–04

Menu operations: 286–88, 295

forms Military Equipment Delivery Team 

for Cambodia: 308
455

Index

and mission statement: 250, 253, 259

and news media: 337

and NSSM 1: 141

and NSSM 36: 150–51

and bombing North Vietnam: 369

and operations against North Vietnam: 

283, 289–90

and Paris Peace Accords: 383

on protective reaction: 342

and Pruning Knife: 291–92

on public information: 218

redeployments: 147–48, 151–52, 159–60, 

162, 167, 209, 258, 354, 373, 377, 421

on South Vietnamese forces: 271–72

withdrawals from Thailand: 169–70

plans for transitional force: 159

visits Vietnam: 199

and Vietnamization: 144, 150, 159, 180, 

241, 257, 276

Lam, Lt. Gen. Hoang Xuan: 323, 331, 333–

34, 338, 362–63

Land reform: 264, 265, 269, 278

Lang Vei: 71, 74

Lao Dong Party. See Communist Party (North 

Vietnam).

Laos: 3, 161, 181, 278, 290, 310, 342, 410

Abrams on: 129, 253, 414

air operations in: 4, 311, 316, 318, 350, 

364, 388, 402

anti-infiltration barrier: 17, 37

Commando Hunt V: 340

Congress forbids U.S. ground combat in: 315

Communist offensives in: 52, 162, 348

Communist sanctuaries in: 14, 21, 83, 94, 

126, 145, 157, 260

and Ho Chi Minh Trail: 304, 311–12, 320

infiltration through: 124, 127

Laird on: 168

Operation Barrel Roll: 280

and Operation Lam Son 719: 166, 336, 

343, 413

neutrality of: 383

Nixon acknowledges actions in: 221

operations in: 165, 168, 219, 279, 320, 

340, 343, 411, 415

Pathet Lao: 11, 169

South Vietnamese drive in: 321–23

Thai volunteers in: 315

Lavelle, General John D.: 191, 351–53, 365, 

376

Leonard, Col. Robert: 328, 329

Lodge, Henry Cabot: 125, 412

Lon Nol: 293–94, 297, 304, 309

Long Binh: 63, 210, 223, 259

Luang Prabang, Laos: 312

Lung, Col. Hoang Ngoc: 207–08

MacMillan, William G.: 202

MACV: launches Accelerated Pacification 

Campaign: 119. See also CORDS; under individual directorates; under operation names.

Accelerated Phase II Improvement and 

Modernization Plan: 123

and Phase III Improvement and 

Modernization Plan: 158

advisers: 108, 195, 227

airpower: 108, 188, 190, 320, 340–41, 364, 393

anti-drug campaign: 236–39

Area Security System: 137

establishes Army Advisory Group: 373

Assistant Chief of Staff for Economic 

Affairs: 200, 269

Assistant Chief of Staff for Military 

Assistance: 7, 201–02, 212, 214, 

270, 354

and bombing halt: 127

and Cambodia: 295–96, 298, 306–08, 341

Command Center: 201

and Combined Intelligence Center: 6

communications channels: 183

and component commands: 7, 374

Contingency Plan 208: 166

Contingency Plan J208: 167

Contingency Plan J208A: 167

implementation of CRIMP: 159

crop destruction program: 262–63

Current Intelligence Branch: 31

and Data Management Agency: 6

Deputy Chief of Staff for Economic 

Affairs: 212

Directive 190–4: 237

Directive 525–13 revision: 228

Directive 600–12: 235–36

Drug Abuse Control Coordinator: 238

Economics Division: 200

and Four-Party Joint Military Commission: 

394

Free World Military Assistance Office: 

11, 193

Geographically Phased Counterinsurgency 

Plan of 1961: 410

Inspector General: 222, 229–30, 236

intelligence: 191, 204–08

International Affairs Division of: 125

and Lam Son 719: 335, 337

liaison officers in Paris: 385

Long Range Planning Task Group: 136–37

mission statement changed: 251–52, 259, 409

My Lai: 224

NSSM 36: 149

Office of Information: 218, 234, 398

Office of the Science Adviser: 202
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

456

MACV—Continued

Operations Research/Systems Analysis 

Office: 203

develops OPLAN 183–69: 171

develops OPLAN 186–69: 171

OPLAN J198: 211

question of Communist order of battle: 86–

87, 143, 207

and negotiations: 124–25, 127

Psychological Operations Division: 34, 201

and redeployment: 88, 148, 150–51, 170, 

219, 354–55, 371–77

rules of engagement: 227, 300

and RVNAF: 122–23, 171, 270

and SAMs: 319

science adviser: 6

and Seventh Air Force: 370–71, 373–74

Special Troops: 373

Strategic Objectives Plan: 136, 139

structure of: 199–201

Studies and Observations Group: 12, 281

Support Command: 374

and Systems Analysis Division: 6

Tactical Air Support Element: 78

and Tet offensive, 61–63, 66, 69, 86, 104, 

114

and III Marine Amphibious Force: 41–48

TOW antitank missiles: 362

urban combat tactics: 114–15

and interim Vietnam Assistance 

Command: 21, 354

Vietnamization: 145

MACV Forward: 47–48, 72, 75–76

Mao Tse-tung: 14

Marijuana: 236–37

Marine Amphibious Brigade: 174–75

Marine Regimental Landing Team: 155

Marshall, Lt. Col. Donald S.: 136, 139

Marshall Committee: 255

area security system: 137–38, 225, 410, 421

Martin, Graham: 407

Matak, Sirik: 293–94

Mataxis, Brig. Gen. Theodore C.: 308

McCaffrey, Lt. Gen. William J.: 190

McCain, Admiral John S., Jr.: 171, 319, 324, 

328, 365–66

relations with Abrams: 350, 364

advisers’ role: 273

airpower: 168, 188, 285, 342, 360

budgetary constraints: 160

and Cambodia: 282, 293, 295, 301, 304, 

307–08, 322

and communications: 184

contingency plans, 283

and Duck Hook: 290

on herbicide program: 262

and incident reporting: 229

and intelligence: 206

and interdiction campaign: 311

on Lam Son 719: 336

and Laos: 313–15, 321–22, 340

allocations for Linebacker: 369

MACV mission statement: 251

My Lai: 225

meets with Nixon: 153, 197

offensive operations: 244, 281, 318

Operation Menu: 287–88

and Prairie Fire zone: 320

and Pruning Knife Alpha: 292, 317

redeployments: 146, 148, 151, 154, 161–

64, 170–79, 373

reorganization plan: 356

and Rolling Thunder: 195, 281

use of route package system: 369

rules of engagement: 228

on RVNAF: 158, 271

on strategy: 247–48

and troops in Thailand: 169–70

U.S. command structure: 370

and Vietnam Assistance Command: 355

Vietnamization: 180, 277

McCarthy, Eugene: 73, 100

McConnell, General John P.: 81

McCutcheon, Lt. Gen. Keith B.: 188–89

McGovern, George: 382

McNamara, Robert S.: 6, 20–21, 159, 414, 426

orders anti-infiltration barrier: 15, 37, 45

advocates bombing halt: 20

and chain of command: 5

and CORDS: 416

on escalation 20, 97

and President Johnson: 22, 94, 109

question of reserves: 92–93

on Rolling Thunder: 20, 423

skeptical on war: 18, 20

and Tet offensive: 51

confidence in Westmoreland: 108

McNamara barrier line. See under McNamara, 

Robert S.

Mekong Delta: 343, 358, 405, 423

Communist buildup in: 48, 267

Mobile Riverine Force in: 91

9th Infantry Division in: 148

relief committees in: 68: 

Meo guerrillas: 280, 312, 340

Mildren, Lt. Gen. Frank T.: 185, 190–91

Miles, Maj. Paul L., Jr.: 387

Military Assistance Advisory Group: 158

duties of: 208–09, 211

and Vietnam Assistance Command: 212

Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. See

MACV.
457

Index

Military Assistance Program (MAP): for 

Cambodia: 305–07

Military Equipment Delivery Team: for 

Cambodia: 308, 399

Military Region 1: 275, 321, 338, 342, 361, 

363, 365, 368, 378, 399, 401, 404

Easter offensive in: 356

impact of Lam Son 719 on: 336

U.S. evacuates personnel from: 407

Military Region 2: 275, 348, 350, 362, 404

Communist assaults in: 358

U.S. evacuates personnel from: 407

Military Region 3: 275, 322, 339, 341, 348, 

362–63, 404

Military Region 4: 275, 358, 363, 405

Military Region 5: 53–54

Minh, General Duong Van: 404

Minh, Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van: 338, 363

Mining campaign: 291, 316, 360, 368–69, 

378, 384, 423

Mission Council: 33, 114, 193

Mobile Riverine Force: 91, 156

Momyer, General William W.: 84, 188

on evacuation of Kham Duc: 117

on evacuating Khe Sanh: 116–17

and control of Marine fixed-wing aircraft: 

41–44, 77–78, 82–83

Moorer, Admiral Thomas H.: 195, 325, 361, 

378, 388, 400

and Abrams: 334, 337–38, 365, 367, 413

and Lavelle’s false reporting: 352

and South Vietnamese attacks on 

Cambodia and Laos: 321, 326

on redeployments: 372–73

and U.S. command structure: 370

Morris, Col. Charles: 35

Murray, Maj. Gen. John E.: 397

My Lai case: 220–21, 224–31, 232

Nakhon Phanom Air Base: 388, 389, 397

Nam, Maj. Gen. Nguyen Khoa: 405

National Liberation Front: 24, 27, 30, 32, 126, 

144, 384

National Police (South Vietnam): 10, 70, 266

National Security Agency: 205, 208, 414

National Security Council: 149, 196, 274, 

290, 368

and intelligence: 206

and private negotiations: 385

and Senior Review Group: 196

on success of Vietnamization: 267, 274

and U.S. command structure: 369–70

National Security Study Memorandum 1. See

NSSM 1.

National Security Study Memorandum 36. See

NSSM 36.

NATO: 89, 163

Naval Advisory Group: 212, 374

Naval Forces, Vietnam: 212, 306, 356

Navy Task Force 77: 320

New York Times: 100

New Zealand: 11, 177, 193, 229

News media: 215, 249, 253, 349

Abrams and: 217–18, 219

administration attempts to manage: 222

and Agnew: 218

and antiwar movement: 220, 226

and atrocities: 230

and Bunker: 218

operations in Cambodia: 219, 303

on civilian casualties: 226

and COSVN raid: 287

and Kissinger: 218

and Lam Son 719: 335, 337

operations in Laos: 219, 315, 328

and pacification: 218

and redeployment: 219

skepticism of: 219, 413

on Tet offensive: 104, 218

and Westmoreland: 218

Nhon, General Pham Huu: 208

1954 Geneva Agreements: 396, 410

9th Infantry Division: 148–49, 151–53

9th Marine Amphibious Brigade: 407

Nitze, Paul H.: 123

on airpower controversy: 83–84

review of reinforcement and reserve question: 97

Nixon, Richard M.: 197, 245, 368, 392

and Abrams: 249, 337, 365–66, 375, 414

airpower: 167–69, 314, 343

and allied troops: 177, 179

and antiwar movement: 302, 358

on bombing of North Vietnam: 286, 345, 

358, 360, 364, 367, 381, 411

and Cambodia: 279, 287, 293, 298, 304–05

on casualties: 258

calls for cease-fire: 144

congressional pressure on: 164

approves COSVN bombing: 286

on cross-border attacks: 321

accepts “cut and try” approach: 162

importance of disengagement: 141, 152

diplomacy of: 143, 279, 292, 343, 345, 

349, 351, 358, 369, 385

and drug use in military: 237

on Easter offensive: 381

calls for monitored elections: 144

seeks independent channels of information: 

197–98

relations with Laird: 196

and Lam Son 719: 328, 334, 337
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

458

Nixon, Richard M.—Continued

on actions in Laos: 221, 279, 319, 314, 343

initiates Linebacker: 368

and Menu operation: 287, 289

and Moscow summit: 360, 367

on new mission statement: 248, 251–52, 

259, 409

and National Security Council: 196

news media and: 218, 219, 222, 259

objectives of: 247

and Paris Peace Accords: 383

use of term protective reactions: 319

and Pruning Knife: 291–92, 316

and redeployments: 136, 149, 162, 164, 

166, 171–72, 177, 349, 353–54, 372–

73, 377, 413

relations with Rogers: 196

on leaks in State Department: 285

meeting with Thieu: 153

visits Vietnam: 199

on Vietnamization: 143, 160, 199, 252, 

292, 358

and Westmoreland: 190, 412

Nixon doctrine: 153–54, 304–05

North Korea: 52, 89, 385

North Vietnam: 127, 138, 156–57, 287, 378, 

392. See also Ho Chi Minh Trail; 

North Vietnam Communist Party; Tet 

offensive.

antiaircraft defenses: 13, 348

on antiwar opposition in United States: 25

bombing of: 11, 17, 25, 51, 84, 102–03, 

124, 126, 279, 318, 358, 360, 417

bases in Cambodia: 254–55, 358

on Cambodian coup: 293

Central Military Party Committee: 331

agreements with China: 30

Christmas bombing of: 384

cross-border sanctuaries: 124

DMZ violations: 126

Four-Party Joint Military Commission: 394

prepares for General Offensive–General 

Uprising: 24–25, 104, 241

herbicide program used for propaganda: 261

intelligence operations in: 279

troops attack Kham Duc: 112

leave Khe Sanh: 84

and Lam Son 719: 329–30, 336

bases in Laos: 254–55, 313

mining of harbors: 219, 316, 345, 360

and negotiations: 103, 105, 111, 142, 144, 

321, 346, 381

offensives of: 111, 116, 241, 254, 278, 

285, 345, 348, 356, 404

Politburo in: 111, 311

reconstruction of: 242, 393, 401, 403

and Resolution Nine: 242

and Rolling Thunder: 4, 16

SAM batteries: 340, 401

importance of Sihanoukville: 303

agreements with Soviet Union: 30

strategy of: 347

tactics of: 23, 242, 244

reinforce Viet Cong: 267

Norton, Maj. Gen. John: 182

NSSM 1: 141–43, 147, 219

NSSM 36: 154, 157

and residual American force: 156

command structure: 209

headquarters consolidation: 210

basis for redeployment planning: 150

and transitional support force levels: 164

two-year schedule: 155, 159, 162

timetable for Vietnamization: 149, 151

Nuclear weapons: 41, 73. See also Fracture

Jaw.

O’Shaughnessy, Lt. Col. Jack: 63

Office of Civil Operations and Revolutionary 

Development Support. See CORDS.

Office of Information: 234, 374

Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for 

Intelligence: 204. See also MACV.

Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for 

Military Assistance: 201–02. See also

MACV.

Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for 

Economic Affairs: 200. See also

MACV.

Office of the Secretary of Defense: 83, 87. 

See also United States Department of 

Defense.

101st Airborne Division: 32, 39, 93, 259, 332

Battle of Hamburger Hill: 245–46

and Provisional Corps: 76

redeployment of: 176, 354

evacuates Firebase Ripcord: 257

units to Thua Thien Province: 66, 74

108th Artillery Group: 332

173d Airborne Brigade: 30

196th Infantry Brigade: 176, 259

198th Light Infantry Brigade: 32

199th Light Infantry Brigade: 53, 243

One War concept: 128–39, 247, 278

Operation Barrel Roll: 280, 312–16

Operation Countdown: 390, 397

Operation Dewey Canyon II: 326–27

Operation Dong Tam: 114

Operation Dorsal Fin: 281

Operation Fracture Cross Alpha: 342

Operation Freedom-Bait: 320
459

Index

Operation Giant Dragon: 281

Operation Hobby Horse: 51

Operation Lam Son 719: 166, 327, 332–34, 

338, 340, 343, 414, 421

and Abrams: 365–66, 413

and allied security breaches: 330

losses: 329, 335

news media on: 328, 335

North Vietnamese response: 330, 339

outcome of: 346, 424

Operation Linebacker: 360, 369–70, 378, 

415, 423

Operation Louisville Slugger: 342

Operation Menu: 286–89, 293, 299

Abrams on: 289

assessments of: 299–300

resumed after Cambodian coup: 296

Operation Moose (Move Out of Saigon 

Expeditiously): 199

Operation Niagra: 40–44

Operation Patio: 296

Operation Pegasus: 110, 116

Operation Prairie Fire: 280, 316, 320–21, 340

Operation Prize Bull: 343

Operation Proud Deep Alpha: 343

Operation Pruning Knife: 290–91

Operation Pruning Knife Alpha: 292, 

316–17

Operation Ranch Hand: 261

Operation Recovery: 68

Operation Salem House: 296

Operation Steel Tiger: 280, 298, 311, 316

Operation Thunderbolt: 390. See also

Operation Countdown.

Operation Toan Thang: 110

Operations Plan 34A: 279

OPLAN 183–69: 171

OPLAN J208A: 186, 208, 353–54

OPLAN J215: 390

Order of battle (Communist): 87, 130

controversy among U.S. agencies: 86–88

Pacific Air Forces: 291, 369–70

Pacific Command: 181, 370, 399, 414–15

functions of: 415

and redeployments: 170–71

MACV under: 4

strategic reserve of: 174

Pacific Fleet: 291, 369, 388

Pacification campaign: 57, 129, 264–70, 346, 

410, 425–26

and Abrams: 135, 245, 278, 339, 411, 413

Accelerated Pacification Campaign: 119–

20, 124, 127, 133–34, 187, 264

American embassy to support: 390

Combined Campaign Plan for 1969: 130

CORDS: 7, 187, 188

cross-border attacks impact: 302, 321, 343

enemy impact on: 254

Hamlet Evaluation System: 204

and interdiction campaign: 311

Johnson on: 22

and Laird: 158

marines and: 10

Military support of: 67, 71, 110, 131, 256, 

271

and mission statement: 251, 409

impact of redeployment on, 148, 164, 173, 

181, 241

territorial forces assume: 255

impact of Tet offensive: 65, 70, 84–85

Vietnam Special Studies Group on: 197

Westmoreland and 15, 17, 108, 412

Weyand and: 215

Palmer, Lt. Gen. Bruce: on Tet: 63

on proposed troop increases: 96

Pao, Maj. Gen. Vang: 312, 314

Paris Peace Accords: 384, 389–90, 393

Paris peace talks: 123–24, 126, 142, 389

and air operations: 311, 360

and cease-fire agreement: 381, 387

collapse: 384

deadlocked: 144, 290

and Kissinger: 245

secret meetings: 143, 343, 360, 381

impact of Tet offensive: 84

U.S. concessions: 346

Pathet Lao: 11, 169, 312, 314, 340

PAVN. See People’s Army of Vietnam.

Peers, Lt. Gen. William R.: 226

and My Lai cover-up: 220–21

Peers Commission: and My Lai: 224–25, 229

People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN): 12

People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF). 

See Viet Cong.

People’s Self-Defense Force: intelligence 

source: 266

operations of: 255–56

and pacification: 118, 264, 268

recruiting for: 265

Phase III Improvement and Modernization 

Plan: 158, 161

Philippines: 63, 355

forces in Vietnam: 11

withdrawal of troops: 397

Phnom Penh: 304, 341, 404

Phoenix program: 230–31, 265–66

Phu Bai: 39, 76, 91, 93, 209

Abrams headquarters at: 47, 48, 72

PLAF (People’s Liberation Armed Forces). 

See Viet Cong.

Plain of Jars: 189, 260, 311–14, 318, 340, 348
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

460

Pleiku: 52–53, 350

Potts, Maj. Gen. William E.: 204

daily briefings by: 206

and Vietnamization of intelligence: 

207–08

President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory 

Board: 56

Press briefings (Five O’Clock Follies): 218

Press corps: and dissent toward war: 18

on South Vietnamese: 19

and Tet offensive: 84–85

implication of troop increases: 96

Prisoners of war: 383, 402

exchanges: 395, 397

intelligence from: 34

mistreatment of: 221

Program Five: 32, 88, 90–91, 95

civilianization program: 99

troop strength: 100–01

Program for the Pacification and Long-Term 

Development of South Vietnam. See

PROVN.

Program Six: 102, 120–21, 123, 131, 156

Project Enhance: 377

Protective reaction strikes: 316, 319, 342, 351

Provincial Reconnaissance Units: 231, 255–56

Provisional Corps, Vietnam: 80, 117, 186, 

192. See also XXIV Corps.

and Abrams: 76

and airpower issues: 77–78

and Cushman: 76

and III Marine Amphibious Force: 76–77

Provisional Revolutionary Government: 383, 

386, 394, 400, 404

continues low-level action: 399

and negotiations: 384

and Two-Party Joint Military Commission: 

396

PROVN: 128–29, 133, 136

Psychological warfare: 34, 69

Public opinion: 19, 96, 100, 278

Pueblo crisis: 52, 89, 385

Quang Nam Province: 192, 210, 229, 256, 330

Quang Ngai Province: 220

Quang Tri City: 91, 326, 358, 361, 377–78

Quang Tri Province: 41, 72, 74, 126, 324, 

362, 366

Communists seize: 358

defense of: 84, 117

Marine base in: 37, 45

South Vietnamese leadership: 363

and war games: 36

Racial tensions: 190, 232, 278, 346

and Directive 600–12: 235–36

MACV Inspector General investigates: 236

Racketeering: 220

Redeployment: 10, 163, 181, 353, 385, 421

Abrams on: 147, 163

acceleration of: 354

and air support: 168, 260

and budget issues: 161, 163, 170, 180, 

253, 260

and cease-fire agreement: 381

congressional influences on: 180

and Contingency Plan 208: 165–66, 167

“cut and try”: 180

implementation of: 170–79, 255, 372

increments: 354, 371, 373, 377

intelligence units withdrawn: 208

Laird on pace of: 163

logistical troops: 371

and NSSM 36: 171

Phase I: 154

Phase II: 154

Phase III, 154–55, 161

Phase IV planning: 161

political implications and influences: 

179–80

of South Korean troops: 231

transitional support force level: 174, 258

Regional and Popular Forces: 69–70, 119, 

121, 131, 391

battle for An Loc: 358

artillery of: 271

and CORDS mobile training teams: 266

expansion of: 156, 266

operations of: 255–56

and pacification: 15, 118, 120, 264

Regional Assistance Command: 390

Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces. See

RVNAF.

Reserves (U.S.): 89, 92–96, 99

Johnson refuses to call up: 21

mobilization question: 88–89, 92

Resolution Nine: 254

and Communist operations in South 

Vietnam: 242

U.S. captures copy of: 243

Resor, Stanley R.: 225, 231

Revolutionary Development cadres: 70, 264

and pacification campaign: 15

success of teams: 70–71

Rheault, Col. Robert B.: 220–21, 223

Richardson, Elliot L.: 399

Riot gas: 115

Riverine units: 91, 156

Rogers, William P.: 141, 162, 196, 283, 

288, 297

and allied troops: 179

and Cambodia: 294
461

Index

on defoliation program: 263

and operations in Laos: 313–14, 327

and troop levels: 166

visits Vietnam: 199

and Vietnamization: 258

Rolling Thunder: 16, 21, 292, 317–19, 360, 

415, 420, 423

antiaircraft defenses against: 13–14

end of: 195, 279

Johnson on: 109, 369, 411

and McCain: 318

McNamara on: 20

reduction of: 99, 103

Sharp directs: 4, 11

Vogt and: 365

Westmoreland on: 102 

Rosson, Lt. Gen. William B.: 76–77, 117–

18, 186

Rostow, Walt W.: 79

Route Package 1: 317, 320, 369

Rules of engagement: 227–28, 231, 279, 342

in Cambodia: 300

and Lavelle: 353

Rusk, Dean: on Rolling Thunder: 21

and Tet cease-fire: 51

on troop increases: 97

RVNAF: 124, 251, 257–58, 276–77

Abrams on: 156, 192

and advisers: 273

Cambodian incursion: 272, 296, 298, 300, 

306, 341

chain of command: 271

conscription: 272

deficiencies of: 10–11, 339, 392, 405, 420

desertion control: 270, 275

18th Division: 404–05

enlistments: 272

expansion of: 121

5th Division: 338

1st Division: 323, 333, 363

IV Corps: 296, 300

Improvement and Modernization Plans for: 

122, 135, 143, 153, 156, 158

and Lam Son 719: 333, 335, 336

in Laos: 272

mobile operations: 272

mobile reserve of: 277, 400

pacification efforts of: 71

promotions in: 275

rearmament of: 121–22, 391

Regional and Popular Forces: 10

and rules of engagement: 228

II Corps: 300

2d Division: 333

III Corps: 296, 298, 300, 322

U.S. support of: 257, 349, 361, 382

Ryan, General John D.: 352

Saigon: 27, 53, 112, 116, 138

Cholon: 114, 184

and MACV headquarters: 5

protection of: 259

Tet offensive in: 48, 55, 58, 63, 68

Salem House: 305

in Cambodia: 280, 296

after Menu strikes: 288

Special Forces: 281

SAMs: 318–19, 340–41

Saravane, Laos: 304

Schwarzkopf, General H. Norman: 417–18

II Corps: 8, 37, 131, 192, 211

Communist troop concentrations in: 14

engagements in: 29, 254

and Korean brigade: 179

reinforcement of: 176

Special Forces camps: 52

Tet offensive: 53–54

II Field Force: 49–50, 66–67, 112, 215, 257, 

275, 295–96, 322. See also I Field 

Force, Third Regional Assistance 

Command.

and Area Security System: 138

in Cambodia: 200

and enemy radio traffic: 49–50

and intelligence collection: 205

Tet offensive: 55, 61

and WIEUs: 185

Second Regional Assistance Command: 211

Second Regional Assistance Group: 211

SEER. See System for Evaluating the 

Effectiveness of RVNAF.

Seignious, Maj. Gen. George: 125n38

Seith, Maj. Gen. Louis T.: 169

Sensors: 15, 40, 132. See also anti-infiltration 

barriers.

Seventh Air Force: 7–8, 56, 188, 271, 311, 

352, 356, 365–66

and Abrams: 191, 364

and marines: 8, 10, 41–42, 44, 75, 189

headquarters reduction: 212, 355, 370–71, 

373–74

and intelligence: 191, 374

operations in Laos: 313–14, 320, 332

supports Meo guerrillas: 280

and mining operations: 368:

Operation Barrel Roll: 280

Operation Fracture Cross Alpha: 342

Operation Louisville Slugger: 342

Operation Niagra: 40, 44

Operation Prize Bull: 343

Operation Proud Deep Alpha: 343

Operation Steel Tiger: 280

and protective reaction strikes: 351
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

462

Seventh Air Force—Continued

and single management of aircraft: 80, 82–83

Tactical Air Control Center: 78, 355, 364

and targeting: 189–90

Seventh Fleet: 10

Shakespeare, Frank: 215

Sharp: Admiral Ulysses S. Grant: 10, 17, 102, 

188, 195

and airpower: 42–43, 77–80, 82, 84

on bombing halt: 52, 126

and Kham Duc: 112

on operations in Laos: 40, 52, 324, 325

and Operation Fracture Jaw: 41, 73

on reinforcement issue: 90, 95, 98

and Rolling Thunder: 4, 11, 98–99, 109

and Tet offensive: 49, 52, 54, 70

and troop requests: 92 

and truces: 33

Sidle, Brig. Gen. Winant: 85, 112

Sihanouk, Prince Norodom: 306

resumes diplomatic relations with United 

States: 287

overthrow of: 162, 293

Sihanoukville: 293, 296, 309, 320, 346

supply route for Communists: 143, 283, 

294, 303–04

Single management (of fixed-wing aircraft): 

79–83

Snuol: 338–39, 341

SOG teams. See Studies and Observations 

Group.

South Korea: 52, 89, 95, 417

and Abrams: 193

forces in Vietnam: 11, 39, 90–91, 131, 

229, 350, 362

withdrawal of troops: 94, 177, 179, 353, 

388, 397

South Vietnamese Air Force: 271, 338, 341, 

388, 391, 405

South Vietnamese Army. See RVNAF.

South Vietnamese Capital Military District: 

55, 66

South Vietnamese Marine Corps: 175

South Vietnamese Navy: 191, 258, 270, 391

South Vietnamese Rangers: 114

Souvanna Phouma: 313, 315

requests B–52 strikes: 314

and Operation Dewey Canyon II: 328

Soviet Union: 285, 289, 382, 410

arms Communist forces: 13–14, 30

hostility toward China: 347, 422

Nixon’s relations with: 346

and Paris peace talks: 143

and U.S. diplomacy: 343, 345, 351, 360, 

368, 423

Special Forces: 281

training Cambodian troops: 306

advise Civilian Irregular Defense groups: 

271

attacked at Kham Duc: 112

Prairie Fire in Laos: 280

Starry, Col. Donn A.: 146

Stilwell, Lt. Gen. Richard G.: 107

Strategic Air Command: 10, 291, 388, 393

Strategic Hamlet Program: 411

Strategic Objectives Plan: 137–39

Studies and Observations Group: 12, 198, 288

disbanded: 373

operates against Ho Chi Minh Trail: 37

at Khe Sanh: 39

and Prairie Fire operations: 340

and South Vietnamese Strategic Technical 

Directorate: 356

Sullivan, William H.: 312, 324

Surface-to-air missiles. See SAMs.

Sutherland, Lt. Gen. James W.: 322, 326

on Abrams: 192

and Lam Son 719: 323, 332–33, 336

Swank, Emory C.: 308

Tactical air operations: 114, 165, 342, 358, 

360, 364

in Cambodia: 298, 305

in DMZ: 351

against Ho Chi Minh Trail: 311

and evacuation of Kham Duc: 112

in support of Khe Sanh: 73

Laird cuts: 168

in Laos: 318, 340, 402

Tactical nuclear weapons: 41, 73. See also

Fracture Jaw.

Tan Son Nhut Air Base: 44, 106, 238, 374, 

400, 408

MACV headquarters at: 5, 389, 397

and Tet offensive: 55, 61

Task Force Oregon: 37, 76. See also

Americal Division.

T-Day: 145, 147, 171, 176, 208

Territorial forces: 50, 64, 131n50, 268, 276

Tet offensive: 59, 129, 321, 336, 414

allies preparation for: 55, 57, 108

allied response to: 59–66

casualties: 59, 226, 267

and cease-fire: 49, 50–51, 53

Communist analysis of: 268

Giap opposes: 29

and intelligence: 36, 49, 53

leads to negotiations: 84

North Vietnamese strategy: 27–28, 69

and pacification: 118

psychological defeat for United States: 58, 

84, 411–12
463

Index

reconstruction efforts: 67–68, 84, 114

issue of reserve mobilization: 88–89, 96

and Vietnamization: 420

Thailand: 150, 170, 297, 305, 313, 372, 415

and Abrams: 193

air operations from: 10, 169, 260, 350, 360

Congress forbids U.S. ground combat in: 315

joint headquarters based in: 388

in Laos: 315

forces in Vietnam: 11, 177

withdrawal of troops: 353, 397

Thieu, Nguyen Van: 25, 105, 110, 158, 394, 396

and Abrams: 375

and antidrug efforts: 238

and Cambodia: 295, 301, 322

creates Central Pacification and 

Development Council: 119, 265

and chain of command: 271

on poor commanders: 121, 275, 363

on disengagement: 146, 148, 162, 164, 

171–72

economic reforms: 201

and elections: 144, 221, 268

Four No’s policy: 403

and Lam Son 719: 323–27, 331–34, 337

and land reform: 268

mobilization decree: 121

and Nixon: 153–54, 156

and Operation Menu: 288

and pacification efforts: 70–71, 118, 

264–65

and Paris Peace Accords: 376, 383–84, 

394, 402

and Paris peace talks: 346

resigns: 404

unifies South Vietnamese military command: 112

and territorial forces: 131n50

and Tet offensive: 51, 54, 68–69

on troop levels: 166

3d Division (South Vietnamese): 277

III Corps: 8, 50, 93, 176, 192, 254, 256, 285, 297

Abrams and: 131, 161

casualties: 114

Communist troop concentrations in: 14

Menu reduces threat to: 289

Tet offensive: 53

shift of Communist troops: 309–10

Westmoreland on: 52

3d Marine Amphibious Brigade: 210 

III Marine Amphibious Force: 10, 47–48, 82, 

93, 188, 415

and Abrams: 75

and airpower: 8, 41–42, 43–44

command arrangements: 41–48

along DMZ: 15, 37

and Fracture Jaw: 73

and I Corps: 8, 76, 126, 192

and intelligence collection: 205

and Khe Sanh: 38–40

and My Lai: 224

organizational modifications of: 46

and racial incidents: 235

and redeployment: 173–74, 209–10

single management controversy: 78–80, 83

and Tet offensive: 61, 65

Westmoreland on: 45, 74, 76

WIEUs: 185

3d Marine Division: 76, 117

at Khe Sanh: 47, 116

and troop withdrawals: 148–49, 151–54, 173

Tho, Le Duc: 360, 367, 381, 384–85, 396

Tiger cages: 221

Tompkins, Maj. Gen. Rathvon McC.: 47

Tra, Lt. Gen. Tran Van: 25, 29

Transitional support force: 159, 164, 173, 

175, 212

Tri, Lt. Gen. Do Cao: 298, 338

Truces: 33, 51, 54. See also Cease-fires.

23d Infantry Division: See Americal Division.

XXIV Corps: 126, 192, 209, 256, 322, 332, 341

Dewey Canyon II: 326

replaced by First Regional Assistance 

Command: 356

drive into Laos: 323

and Firebase Mary Ann investigation: 223

reorganization of: 210

replaces III Marine Amphibious Force: 209

25th Infantry Division: 186, 215

27th Marine Regimental Landing Team: 93, 

100–01, 120

Truong, Lt. Gen. Ngo Quang: 363

U.S.S. Pueblo: 52, 89, 385

UC–123 spray planes: 262

Uniform Code of Military Justice: 223

United States Agency for International 

Development: 201, 398

and CORDS: 7

communication channels: 183

review of crop destruction program: 262

and post-Tet recovery efforts: 69

United States Air Force: 10, 168, 188, 260, 

290, 343. See also under individual aircraft; Seventh Air Force.

advisory group and CRIMP: 270

operations at Khe Sanh: 43

racial tensions in: 235

and Thailand: 169, 176

and evacuation of Vietnam: 407

United States Army: airmobile tactics of: 84, 

174. See also under individual units.
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

464

United States Army—Continued

impact of antiwar movement on: 232, 234

impact of one-year tour policy: 232

political and social influences on: 232

racial issues: 232–33, 235

impact of redeployments: 232

United States Army Headquarters Area 

Command: 214, 373

United States Army, Pacific: 63, 190–91, 204

United States Army, Vietnam: 8, 56, 63, 75, 

190, 204, 210, 221, 271, 355, 361

discipline: 217

headquarters: 6, 62

and My Lai: 224

redesignation of: 374

Westmoreland commands: 8

United States Coast Guard: 10, 235

United States Congress: 100, 141, 163

and atrocities: 230

on ground troops in Laos: 315, 320, 326, 328

and military spending: 160, 259

and military assistance to South Vietnam: 

403, 407

on ground combat in Thailand: 315

and withdrawal deadlines: 346 

United States Department of Defense: 79, 

122, 188, 366, 375, 392, 414, 418

and ammunition expenditures: 260

budgetary concerns: 161, 164

and Cambodia: 308

and civilian casualties: 263

and communications: 183

and crop destruction program: 262–63

and Laos: 314–15

and NSSM 36: 149

peace negotiations: 385

and redeployment: 173

reinforcement and reserve question: 92, 97

and Washington Special Action Group: 196

United States Department of Health, 

Education, and Welfare: 262

United States Department of State: 5, 34, 61, 

283, 316, 389, 414, 424

and Cambodia: 308

and civilian casualties: 184

and CORDS: 7

on bombing of COSVN: 284–85

and Laos: 314, 327

leaks from: 285

and NSSM 1: 142

and NSSM 36: 149–50

order of battle conference: 87

and peace negotiations: 385

pessimistic view of: 142

on holiday truces: 33

and Washington Special Action Group: 196

United States Department of the Army: 63, 

190, 210

and Hackworth case: 223–24

and investigation of My Lai: 220

United States Embassy, Phnom Penh: 287, 

294, 306, 399

United States Embassy, Saigon: 34, 201, 408

communication channels: 183–84

and NSSM 36: 149

optimistic view of: 142

and Tet offensive: 61, 86

United States Embassy, Vientiane: 312–13, 424

and air support: 340

and Laotian targets: 314–15

rules of engagement: 280

United States House of Representatives: 

Armed Services Committee: 352–53

United States Information Agency: 215

United States Marine Corps: 100, 229, 260, 388

and airpower: 78–80, 83, 188–89, 416

positions below DMZ: 36

at Hue: 59, 75

at Khe Sanh: 35

on MACV Forward: 75

on redeployment: 173–74, 210

United States Naval Forces, Vietnam: 7–8

United States Navy: advisory group and 

CRIMP: 270

and air operations: 43, 260, 290, 343

hospital ships: 40

racial tensions: 235

strength of in Vietnam: 10

United States Senate: 376

Armed Services Committee: 258, 352–

53, 376

Foreign Relations Committee: 144

United States Support Activities Group/

Seventh Air Force. See USSAG/7AF.

USSAG/7AF: 388–90, 397

and air operations in Cambodia: 399

and Communications and Electronics 

Directorate: 398

at Nakhon Phanom Air Base: 388, 390

VAC: See Vietnam Assistance Command. 

Vance, Cyrus R.: 125

Vann, John P.: 211, 214, 267, 363

Vien, General Cao Van: 47, 105, 424

and Abrams: 193

operations in Cambodia: 295, 301, 305

and cease-fire: 385–86

and Lam Son 719: 323–25, 332–34

and NSSM 36: 171–72

pacification: 70

and redeployment: 146

and Tet offensive: 51, 66–67
465

Index

and Vietnamization: 276

Vientiane, Laos: 11, 169, 189, 324

Viet Cong: 109, 122, 126, 133, 144, 156, 227, 

254, 378, 395

bases in Cambodia: 254, 256

bases in Laos: 254

response to Cambodian coup: 293

casualties of: 302

and cease-fire: 387

crop destruction program: 261

and General Offensive–General Uprising: 

24, 104, 241

impact of Lam Son: 336

and negotiations: 127, 142

impact of pacification campaign: 16, 254

and Resolution Nine: 243

impact of Rolling Thunder: 16

importance of Sihanoukville: 303

strength of: 12, 267

and Tet offensive: 31, 59, 64, 104

Viet Minh: 37, 410

Vietnam Assistance Command: 211, 214, 

354–55, 374

under CINCPAC: 212

and planning: 211–13

and reduction of component and regional 

commands: 212–13

Vietnam Special Studies Group: 197

Vietnamization program: 145, 156, 199, 276, 

292, 336, 343, 347–48, 392, 399, 419, 

421

impact of actions in Cambodia: 253, 297

and cease-fire agreement: 381

of intelligence efforts: 207–08

and Joint General Staff: 171–72

and Laird: 144, 150

and MACV planning: 145, 192

of pacification campaign: 265

and redeployment: 169, 171, 173, 181, 372

results: 277, 420

Westmoreland on: 17–18

Weyand on: 413

Vogt, General John W.: 366, 374, 393, 397

on allied success: 378

replaces Lavelle: 352

Vy, General Nguyen Van: 171–72

Wagstaff: Maj. Gen. Jack J.: 339

War crimes: 229

Warnke, Paul C.: 97

Washington Special Action Group: 196, 

327, 402

Watergate scandal: 402–03

Watkin, Brig. Gen. William: 200–01

Weekly Intelligence Estimate Update. See

WIEU.

Westmoreland, General William C.: 4, 129, 

180, 182, 205, 411–12, 417

and Abrams: 46–47

achievements of: 108

airpower: 40, 44, 80, 126

becomes Army Chief of Staff: 105–07, 

188, 190

and Cambodia: 21, 88, 282

on cease-fires and truces: 32–33

issue of civilian casualties: 225, 227

and chain of command: 5

development of Combined Campaign Plan 

for 1968: 66

contingency plans of: 39, 96

and CORDS: 416

plans for DMZ: 10, 15

Green Beret case: 223

on bombing Haiphong: 102

and infiltration barrier: 15, 45, 424

and intelligence: 34

and President Johnson: 108

and Khe Sanh: 38–39, 72, 117

and Laos, 15, 21, 52, 88, 91

and MACV Forward: 76

Marine aviation: 77–78, 416

and My Lai: 225

National Press Club speech, 17, 21

threat to northern I Corps concerns: 37

optimism of: 16–18, 414

Communist order of battle controversy: 87

on pacification program: 15, 17, 65, 70, 

108, 110, 245

press conferences of: 19, 61, 85

press corps on: 19, 218

on redeployment: 174

on replacements and reinforcements: 52, 

89, 91–92, 96–97, 99–101, 105

on reserves: 89, 95, 95n70, 131

supports Rolling Thunder: 16, 102

and Seventh Air Force: 12

and single management practices: 42–43, 

79–84

strategy of: 135, 410

and tactical nuclear weapons: 41

and Tet offensive: 32, 50–51, 54–56, 58, 

61, 64, 108

and post-Tet reconstruction: 91, 114

on III Marine Amphibious Force: 41, 44–

45, 48, 65

on Vietnamese commanders: 275

on Vietnamization: 17–18, 88

and Wheeler: 94, 100

Weyand, Lt. Gen. Frederick C.: 125n38, 186, 

215, 376, 381, 407, 418

replaces Abrams: 375

and bombing campaign: 412
MACV: The Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973

466

Weyand, Lt. Gen. Frederick C.—Continued

and Cambodia: 308

and cease-fire: 385–87, 393

and intelligence: 49

on Lam Son 719: 322, 332, 336

inactivates MACV: 400, 427

pacification campaign: 215

peace accord implementation: 396, 401, 413

at peace talks: 370, 376–77

redeployments: 388

on South Vietnamese: 257, 392, 399–400

Tet offensive: 50, 55, 64

and Thieu: 386

Wheeler, General Earl G.: 4, 86, 105, 195

and Abrams: 94, 203, 249–50

impact of antiwar sentiment: 101–02

on bombing North Vietnam: 52

reaction to Cambodian coup: 295

Cambodia operations: 298, 301

and casualties: 132, 184

and striking COSVN: 284–86

and operations in DMZ: 71, 127, 282

and Duck Hook: 290

on Fracture Jaw: 73

and Khe Sanh: 35, 39–40, 72

and marines: 45–46

and NSSM 36: 171

and Operation Menu: 288

and peace talks: 125

on Phase III Improvement and 

Modernization Plan: 158

and Pruning Knife: 290–92

redeployments: 148, 161–62, 172–73

reinforcement issue: 92, 94–96, 244, 414

and reserves: 89–99

and single management: 81–83

on Tet offensive: 85, 94

need for U.S. residual force: 157

and Westmoreland: 62, 91–92, 100–01, 106

Wickham, Brig. Gen. John A.: 201, 394–95

WIEU (Weekly Intelligence Estimate Update) 

conferences: 53, 185, 202, 206

Woodward, Maj. Gen. Gilbert H.: 396, 401

and cease-fire: 385, 397

and Four-Party Joint Military Commission: 

393–95, 398

and Paris peace talks: 387

Woolridge, Cmd. Sgt. Maj. William O.: 

220, 222

Xuan Loc: 404–05: 421

Zais, Maj. Gen. Melvin: 246, 256–57

Zumwalt, Vice Adm. Elmo R., Jr.: 191