STOPPING THE INFILTRATION

Senator SPARKMAN. Mr. Chairman, before he leaves that infiltration subject, may I ask this? You say unless we can effectively stop, or some such statement as that, that infiltration-can we?

Mr. NOLTING. I think we have a reasonably good prospect, Senator Sparkman.

Senator SPARKMAN. How will it be done? Our help is to train and equip their men, isn't it?

Mr. NOLTING. Yes, sir, but one of the factors, internally, in South Vietnam that will help to cut down on this if not stopped is the mounting of a very active ranger border patrol. This would be 5,000 to 6,000 Vietnamese rangers. We have trained those people.

Senator SPARKMAN. To stop them from coming across?

Mr. NOLTING. Hit them as they come in. The effectiveness of this depends on intelligence, and we are getting better organized on the intelligence side, so that we know what is coming in and where they will be at a certain time.

The third factor which we have supplied, or are in the process of supplying, is mobility to this force so that they can go from one area to the other and hit the enemy at the time we know he will be there. There are other factors, also including the settlement in Laos which would have a lot to do with it on the other side of the border.

Senator LAUSCHE. Proceed.

A LONG, DRAWN-OUT CAMPAIGN

Mr. NOLTING. Going on, sir, in my judgment this is going to be a long, drawn-out, hard campaign without prospects of dramatic victories in the military sense. I visualize it more like the Malayan campaign, which as you know lasted for about 10 years. I think it combines a whole combination of efforts, not only military but the whole range of civic actions, social actions, political actions, economic actions, information actions, as well as military. I think from our point of view if we could visualize this as a long pull we would be in a much better psychological frame of mind than if we look to short range victories, which are, I believe, not in the cards in any dramatic sense. But I do believe we can win on the long pull if we stick with it.

Senator CARLSON. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question there? Are your troops under the command of General [Lionel C.] McGarr at the present time? Is he the ranking military man?

Mr. NOLTING. Yes, sir.

Senator CARLSON. Did he not succeed General Williams?

Mr. NOLTING. Yes, sir.

Senator CARLSON. Is it not true that General Williams, who was here for many years, also carried on this same type of program of training their troops, and I think very effectively training them, and is the point reached now where we must just continue to expand it? Is that the problem we are faced with?

Mr. NOLTING. That is part of the problem, Senator. The training has been going on a long time. It originated, however, as training of Vietnamese soldiers, practically from scratch, in more of the classical pattern of warfare, individual organization, and with

equipment intended to stop a major attack from the north in divisional strength.

The transformation has been, and I think wisely, in the direction of anti-guerrilla training, smaller units, lighter equipment, more aggressiveness, more mobility, and this continues as they build up their forces. They are approaching 200,000 regular forces now, and they have about 120,000 paramilitary forces comprising the civil guard, as they call it, and the self-defense corps units.

Senator CAPEHART. You said it would be a long pull. What are you thinking of 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 years?

Mr. NOLTING. I hate to put a date on it, Senator, but I am thinking in terms of 5 years or more.

Senator SYMINGTON. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a couple of questions?

Senator LAUSCHE. I think we had better get along in our regular order here. Do you have anything further you want to say generally before we begin in our order of asking questions?

Mr. NOLTING. Just one more point, if I may make it very briefly, sir. Senator LAUSCHE. Yes.

SUPPORT FOR PRESIDENT DIEM

Mr. NOLTING. There is a great deal of talk and speculation as to whether we are backing the right horse, President Diem. It is my opinion after going with an open mind, and considering as many of the factors as I could on as much information as I could get, that we are. The best way to win, the best way to maintain the independence of South Vietnam is to give his government full backing, and out of the confidence which we create by that, to work toward the ameliorations in the political, social, and economic realms that we hope to achieve. I think this is the way to do it, and I think we have made some progress approaching it from this point of view. Senator LAUSCHE. Senator Symington.

SENDING FIGHTING TROOPS

Senator SYMINGTON. Thank you, sir.

First, Mr. Ambassador, it is a privilege to see you. I visited with you last November or whenever it was in South Vietnam. It is a privilege to have anybody grasping any subject, as in my opinion you did, and as I know General Taylor felt you did, whom I saw last night and with whom I was with out there. I would like to ask a couple of questions if I may, the premise being that I do not think we can hold a position in Asia unless we hold South Vietnam; do you agree with that?

Mr. NOLTING. Yes, sir.

Senator SYMINGTON. Therefore, what we have to do is whatever is necessary in order to hold South Vietnam; do you agree to that? Mr. NOLTING. Whatever we

Senator SYMINGTON. We should do whatever is necessary to hold South Vietnam?

Senator SYMINGTON. Do you think that necessarily involves the sending of fighting troops?

Mr. NOLTING. I do not think it necessarily involves that.

Senator SYMINGTON. Are there now any North Vietnamese troops openly billeting in Laos?

Mr. NOLTING. Yes, North Vietnamese troops.

Senator SYMINGTON. Yes, openly billeting in Laos?

Mr. NOLTING. We know they exist there.

Senator SYMINGTON. In what strength, in what size?

Mr. NOLTING. The last rough figure that I knew of was about 2,000. They are supporting the Pathet Lao forces along the Vietnamese frontier.

Senator SYMINGTON. My final question, while waiting for my turn: Do you think we are doing enough there to hold the country at this time?

Mr. NOLTING. I think that the wisest policy, Senator, would be to see how this works, and I am quite sanguine that this is going to put their forces on the offensive in a way which will commence to turn the tide. If it does not, then I think we have to look for some other alternatives.

U.S. ADVISERS TO DIEM

Senator SYMINGTON. I would like to add one further question to that. When I was there talking with Diem, there was great resistance to the desire of our Government to see changes made in his echelons and so forth, especially the military echelon, and I read about that in the paper after getting back. Is he now adjusted to working with us more than he was, and to your satisfaction?

Mr. NOLTING. Yes, I think he is much better adjusted and willing to work with us, including having U.S. advisers in his military units down to battalion size and perhaps even company size. He agreed to have this. His one condition was that we do it inconspicuously and not talk too much about it, because the more we talk about it, the more this undermines his nationalist stand and gives a monopoly on nationalism to Ho Chi Minh. So if we handle this carefully, we can do it. But the more we talk about doing it, the harder it is to do it.

Senator SYMINGTON. Thank you very much. I think the committee would be interested to know that the North Vietnamese army has more divisions than the Army of the United States. Thank you. Senator LAUSCHE. Mr. Chairman, do you desire to ask some questions before I call on the committee members to do the questioning?

Senator FULBRIGHT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I will defer, because I missed the first part of the story. I don't want to be repetitive. If there is anything that doesn't come out, I will ask questions.

Senator LAUSCHE. Senator Sparkman.

A ONE-MAN GOVERNMENT

Senator SPARKMAN. Mr. Chairman, I think the Ambassador has answered a question that I was going to ask. The thing that has been difficult for me to understand about Vietnam is how this situ

ation developed, because if there was any one country in all the world that we helped freely, it was this country, following the Geneva conference, and we even helped France before that time. We were pleased with the resettlement of their people in the happy way in which it seemed to work out. We have been generous in our military aid, in our economic aid, and for a long time it seemed everything was moving along well, and then all at once this thing broke on us.

I know what you said about supporting Diem, and I think you are right. Yet it seems to me that there is-and isn't this trueisn't there a considerable discontent because of his failure to, shall I say, democratize his government? Isn't it largely a one-man government?

Mr. NOLTING. There is considerable discontent. I don't think that it is a one-man government, and I think some fairly recent moves are decentralizing it more than it was a few months ago.

Senator SPARKMAN. I was going to ask you if any move was being made to that end.

Mr. NOLTING. Yes, moves are being made to that end, and I will go into them in detail if you would like. I wonder if I could answer your general question as to why or how this sort of broke upon us all at once in a rather critical situation. It seems to me that after 1954 the Communists in the north, Ho Chi Minh, thought that the south would come to them without any further struggle. They expected elections and they expected those elections to be won by the great national hero against the French, Ho Chi Minh.

Senator SPARKMAN. And under the Geneva Conference, elections were supposed to be held within a year's time.

Mr. NOLTING. That is right.

Senator SPARKMAN. That is one instance which we didn't want. Mr. NOLTING. Neither the Diem government nor the United States signed that accord, as you know.

Senator SPARKMAN. Yes, that is right.

COMMUNIST EFFORTS TO DISRUPT DIEM GOVERNMENT

Mr. NOLTING. Even after the elections were postponed, the odds on Diem's success were very low everywhere, and particularly in Hanoi. He did, however, make some successes, and from 1955 to about 1957 or 1958, things were going up. They resettled almost a million refugees from the north. They did some land redistribution and reform. They got some economic progress going, and it is a rich country and they didn't have any major catastrophes like floods and so forth.

They were making progress, and the Communists decided, I think, that they weren't going to win simply by having the fruit drop from the tree. And so they stepped it up, making use of cadres that they had already left in the south against this possible eventuality. But they began to step it up rather mildly, and up to 2 years ago you could drive all around the country without being shot at. That didn't work.

They began also to create difficulties for the government by rumors, innuendoes, charges of corruption, and a lot of other things, a part of which fell on fertile ground, and was picked up

and repeated even by people who are non-Communist. However, the government continued to make progress, and about late 1959 or early 1960 they began really to pour it on in the way of infiltrations, assassinations, terror to the point that the village, district, and provincial officials were being murdered at a considerable rate. They were trying very hard to disrupt the government before they had made the improvements, mainly in the economic sphere, which would have made the Communist take-over even more difficult. And that has been continuing with a crescendo up to the present.

They publicly announced that they were going to take the government over in 1961, and this got the public backing of Russia and China. They haven't done it. The real question in my mind is whether we can back them down from this public commitment to reunify the country. I think we can, and I think we must.

Senator SPARKMAN. I certainly agree with you, and I think it is all important that South Vietnam be sustained as an independent government. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Senator LAUSCHE. Senator Wiley, you are on the subcommittee.

WHAT IS THE ANSWER TO THIS MESS?

Senator WILEY. I want to say I am very glad to see Ambassador Nolting here.

What is the answer to this mess?

Mr. NOLTING. Senator, I think it is to do what we are doing and do it better and harder. I am satisfied with the degree of commitment that has been taken. I want, if possible to make that pay off in terms of reversing this situation, and as I said at the outset, I am reasonable sanguine that we can do that, but I certainly can't guarantee it.

Senator WILEY. How many American boys have we there?

Mr. NOLTING. On the military side now, around 2,000. It will go up, I think, to 4,000 or 5,000 before we are finished. These are not combat forces; they are service forces.

Senator WILEY. Why is this revolution, why is it? Is it because there is the case of the haves and the have-nots? Is it a case where some group has everything and others haven't anything? You say the Chinese aren't in there, the Russians aren't in there. It is a sort of fight between themselves, a family fight. Is that what you mean?

Mr. NOLTING. I think the compulsion for this comes from the Communist bloc as a whole. I think it is a direct demonstration of the expansionism of the Communist bloc in Asia, and I think that if it were not for that, the local discontent could fairly rapidly be cured. I think the spark plug for this is the expansionism of Communist China, exercised through Hanoi.

SUPPORT FROM AMERICA'S ALLIES

Senator WILEY. If that is the case, why is it our battle and not the battle of the Allies, or is it? Have we support from them?

Mr. NOLTING. Yes, sir, we are getting increasing support from our allies.

Senator WILEY. Who?