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ARE WE AT WAR IN VIETNAM?

Senator CAPEHART. Are we at war now in Vietnam? In other words, are U.S. troops killing other people or are they killing our people?

Mr. NOLTING. No, sir. I think the answer to that is no.

Senator CAPEHART. Have any American boys been killed?

Mr. NOLTING. One, Sergeant Davis of Tennessee, who was helping train communications units of the Vietnamese Army, was killed about 4 weeks ago.

Senator CAPEHART. Are our boys killing others?

Mr. NOLTING. Not as of now, sir.

Senator CAPEHART. Up until now?

Senator SPARKMAN. Sergeant Davis stepped on a mine, didn't he? Mr. NOLTING. No, he was riding on a truck with 11 Vietnamese soldiers. The truck was blown up by a hand mine. That is one activated by hand, and they were shot. All of them were killed.

Senator CAPEHART. How many men do we have in Vietnam in uniform?

Mr. NOLTING. In uniform now, something over 2,000.
Senator CAPEHART. What are they doing?

Mr. NOLTING. The majority of them are training Vietnamese units in the Army, Air Force, Rangers, and Marine Corps. Some of them are in units which are supplying mobility to the Vietnamese forces, helicopter units, some C-123's which have just arrived. They are manned by American pilots and crews, and they are transporting Vietnamese troops to give them mobility to attack Vietnam concentrations.

Senator CAPEHART. Did you see a television show a few days ago, an hour long NBC show, in which the representative from Vietnam said that American boys were being killed and wounded?

Mr. NOLTING. I didn't see it.

Senator CAPEHART [continuing]. And that the casualty list next year, this year now, would be great, and that there was going to be another Korea in Vietnam? Did you hear about it?

Mr. NOLTING. I heard about it and I talked to Robinson, the NBC broadcaster in Saigon, before this was made.

Senator CAPEHART. Robinson is the man who made the statement?

Mr. NOLTING. Yes.

Senator CAPEHART. What he said, then, is not true?

Mr. NOLTING. I think it was greatly exaggerated. It is not true. Senator CAPEHART. How much exaggerated?

Mr. NOLTING. I don't think there is going to be a Korean type

war.

Senator CAPEHART. Will we have a lot of casualties this year? Mr. NOLTING. I don't think anyone can say that for sure, Senator, but my guess is, and my belief is, that we will not.

I think we will have an occasional casualty, because when a helicopter is transporting Vietnamese troops to a theater of action and lands on the ground, it is likely, in some cases, that while it is on the ground the Viet Cong will fire on it and some of our people in the helicopter will probably get shot.

MORE TROOPS TO VIETNAM

Senator CAPEHART. Do we have plans for moving more troops and more equipment over there?

Mr. NOLTING. Yes, sir; we have plans for another squadron of helicopters-we have two there now-and for a squadron of C123's, which is short take-off aircraft.

Senator CAPEHART. One more quick question. Who are these guerrillas that are infiltrating? Are they from North Vietnam, are they from China, are they from Russia; where are they from?

Mr. NOLTING. They are from the armed forces of North Vietnam. Senator CAPEHART. They are not Chinese?

Mr. NOLTING. No, sir.

Senator CAPEHART. They are, of course, supported by the Chinese and the Russians?

Mr. NOLTING. Yes.

Senator CAPEHART. So we have a situation, then, where we are technically at war. We are on the sidelines furnishing men, ammunition, and training, and they are doing the same thing in North Vietnam. Other people are doing the fighting for both the Chinese and the Russians, and the other people are doing the fighting for us?

Mr. NOLTING. This is about the situation, yes.

Senator SPARKMAN. May I ask one thing? Were you referring to that broadcast on NBC about New Year's Day, making predictions? Senator CAPEHART. Yes.

Senator SPARKMAN. That was Cecil Brown.

Senator CAPEHART. No, it was Robinson who made the statement. Senator SPARKMAN. I know, but in the predictions-anyhow it is the same panel.

Senator CAPEHART. It was Robinson who made the statement in substance. I just asked the Ambassador if he had heard or seen it. It was Robinson who made those predictions.

Senator SPARKMAN. There was a panel of them.

Senator CAPEHART. Yes.

Senator SPARKMAN. I will say this: Every one of them was quite pessimistic. That is true in the Far East generally. It is true in Southeast Asia.

Senator CAPEHART. I just tried to repeat what he said; I wasn't passing judgment. I wanted to know if the Ambassador agreed or disagreed with him.

TREMENDOUS INFILTRATION FROM THE NORTH

Senator LAUSCHE. I want, if you can, to proceed in informing us of the developments that have taken place. My belief is that the last testimony given to us was that there was tremendous infiltration from the north. In the south there were jungle men who made sporadic attacks, and when it was sought to run them down, they retreated back into the swamps and jungles. The testimony was that if Laos went, that would open the west flank and there would be infiltration from the west. There was then fighting within South Vietnam.

I would like to have you report to us what has been the development since you have been there. It was bad according to the testi

mony given here by the last witness, and I want to know now whether there has been a disintegration or an improvement, and what the causes are.

Mr. NOLTING. May I start from 9 months ago when I arrived?
Senator LAUSCHE. All right, that is fine.

Mr. NOLTING. This was in early May. For a while, perhaps several months, the military situation was going better from the point of view of our side. There were some victories, mostly in the delta area in what is known as the Plaine de Jonc, in which about four battalions of Viet Cong were hit, and hit hard, by government forces. They took heavy casualties and were broken up as fighting units. As a result of that, in the delta area, things looked up.

A great deal more intelligence information flooded in from the peasants, from the villages, because they figured that the government was winning. Rice supplies came back into Saigon in normal quantity again. Before that, there had been a shortage. We thought that things were going better.

Immediately following that, in August and September, there were large infiltrations of Viet Cong into the northern part of South Vietnam across the Laotian frontier. This was facilitated by the fact that the southern part of Laos, in what is called the panhandle, is held principally by Pathet Lao forces reinforced by North Vietnamese. It is very easy to infiltrate from that area across into the mountainous jungle area of South Vietnam in Kontum and Pleiku provinces, and this was done as a result of those infiltrations and local recruitments after they got there. The military situation in that area went badly. There were a number of civil guard posts that were overrun, and there were engagements with the regular forces which at the best were a draw. The morale dropped as a result. In an area near Saigon there was a major attack on the province seat and that was overrun and the province chief was killed, and so forth.

Senator LAUSCHE. Now we have two areas. The delta area first and now the area in which the infiltration came from, Laos.

DETERIORATING SITUATION

Mr. NOLTING. That is right, sir. The attack moved up to the north, and therefore I am trying to describe this in some detail, because when you ask how the overall situation is, you can't answer in an overall way. It is spotty and it goes from area to area. But if I can generalize, it would be that as a result of the more recent victories of the Viet Cong which I have just described, the situation deteriorated from what it was in late summer, in terms of morale, in terms of the prospects of victory by the army and in terms of the government's popularity, because that popularity depends to such a great extent on how much protection it can give the people throughout the country.

Following that situation, in the fall the President sent the Taylor mission. There was a new and very detailed survey, in which our

2

2 At the request of President Kennedy, Gen. Maxwell Taylor led a mission to South Vietnam in October 1961.

permanent mission there participated fully, to determine what needed to be done on our side as well as theirs to bolster this situation which seemed to be slipping.

I think you are familiar with the results. The decision was taken to extend additional help, to accelerate our training program, and to send these units of our armed forces which would fill in certain of the essential gaps in their forces, mainly in the fields of intelligence, communication, and mobility. And with one addition: a sea patrol mounted by, I believe, five U.S. vessels, minesweepers, and four or five Vietnamese vessels in cooperation to try to block off infiltration by seas. As a result of those latest moves, which are already becoming effective in terms of the efficiency and effectiveness of the Vietnamese Armed Forces, I think the thing is moving up again. When I left there President [Ngo Dinh] Diem said to me he thought they had wind in their sails again, thanks to our effort and our cooperation, and they were moving forward again.

It is however, I might add Senator, a thin and fragile situation. It is one that could go up or down rapidly in terms of morale and in terms of actual control of territory.

As I said at the outset――

MORALE OF THE MILITARY

Senator LAUSCHE. Let me put that question. The morale of the military men of the government began to disintegrate, is that correct?

Mr. NOLTING. No, sir. If I said that, I misspoke. I meant public morale.

Senator LAUSCHE. The public morale. Now what about the morale of the military?

Mr. NOLTING. I think that has remained high. I am impressed with how these units will fight when they can find the enemy to fight, and the government morale and determination has remained absolutely high and unshaken.

LOSS OF TERRITORY TO THE COMMUNISTS

Senator LAUSCHE. What is their loss of territory to the Communist forces?

Mr. NOLTING. Loss of territory in the sense that they knocked out a civil guard post but didn't hold it. It was retaken, and when that happens the villages in that area, in that district, become more prone to do what Viet Cong tells them to do, rather than to do what the central government tells them to do.

When you speak of holding territory, it doesn't apply exactly to this situation..The Viet Cong doesn't hold any territory in a permanent sense. What they do is to exert control over areas mainly by terror and leave the administration either non-functioning or functioning as a facade which doesn't really control the people, that is to say, doesn't collect taxes; doesn't keep control of the harvest, and doesn't exercise what would normally be considered the governmental control in that district.

Senator LAUSCHE. Then let's summarize again. The military morale remains sound. The public morale began to lose confidence

in the ability of the government to continue, and the government itself became helpless because of these spasmodic attacks.

Mr. NOLTING. The governmental apparatus in some provinces and districts and villages was weakened. The central government continued and continues to function very strongly.

Senator LAUSCHE. And it reached the stage where it was concluded that unless the infiltration was stopped, Vietnam was likely to be lost to the Communists. Not quite that far?

Mr. NOLTING. I would say not quite that far. I was in that connection not speaking about the government's reaction, but giving my own views with respect to infiltration, which are that we can win provided the infiltration is not massive enough to swamp the gains that the country would otherwise make.

Senator LAUSCHE. All right, now proceed on your own.

Mr. NOLTING. Perhaps the next point, if I can give my personal views again——

SOVIET AND CHINESE SUPPORT OF THE NORTH

Senator WILEY. Who are the Communists, Chinese?

Mr. NOLTING. No, sir; they are North Vietnamese under the government of Ho Chi Minh. You will remember the country was divided in 1954. The Communists took the northern half; Ho Chi Minh, the great national hero, set up the government in Hanoi.

Senator WILEY. Where do they get their arms? Who furnishes the arms to the Communists?

Mr. NOLTING. The new arms are coming mainly from Russia and Eastern Europe. Czech arms are coming in.

Senator WILEY. Are Russian officers in there?

Mr. NOLTING. No Russian military advisers in the sense that we have them in the south, that I know of. There was a Chinese military mission there for the past month. They left just before the new year. This would indicate to my mind that the Chinese are going to give them more military advice and advisers than they have had before.

Senator AIKEN. Did the North Vietnamese start their attack or infiltration for purely political reasons or was it partly economic? Mr. NOLTING. I think partly economic also. The political reasons, the avowed intention to unify the country under Ho Chi Minh is a big compulsion, but there is also an economic factor which is that the south is the rice bowl and the north is suffering for food.

Senator AIKEN. And the North Vietnamese have been maintaining a much larger army than South Vietnam?

Mr. NOLTING. That is right.

Senator AIKEN. I bring this up because President Diem told some of us 3 years ago that if they didn't attack in 3 years, their economy would collapse because of the size of the army they were maintaining. I suppose they get outside help when they start this infiltration, just as South Vietnam gets more outside help, too.

Mr. NOLTING. Yes, I think it was undoubtedly an economic compulsion, too.

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