16 January 1971
Department of the Army
Office of the Chief of Staff
Washington
General Westmoreland,
The summarizes my paper on using foreign aide (sic) and military assistance as leverage to improve GVN performance which you saw in another form several years ago. It might be useful background material for your session with the East Asian Bureau tomorrow.
It's interesting to note that, with the exception of their leader Amb Sullivan, the SEA group at State has always opposed the use of any form of advisors in Vietnam or any other developing country. They are convinced that we "made a big mistake" in Vietnam when we brought advisors into the country; they are unable to see that if we "made a big mistake" it was when we let equipment, not people in, for it soon became obvious that if equipment goes, advisors must go with it if there is to be any hope whatever of its effective employment. That's a lesson the Russians learned years ago, but unfortunately everyone in the US Government was not as perceptive.
This, of course, ties in with the PACOM cable I flagged separately which is predicated on the premise that the Nixon Doctrine permits assistance only in the form of material and prohibits advisors in any form. This is a very disturbing element, not only because it leaves the Army completely out in the cold while acknowledging possible need for air and sea power (alone, without land-power" "if our vital interests are threatened." But because it simply will not work, as we proved in Vietnam and are proving again in Cambodia, which may yet prove a good test case of the futility of providing equipment without advisors to insure its good use.
You might like to try to make some these points tomorrow.
V.F. Warner