University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 2000 John F. Kennedy, the development of counterinsurgency doctrine and American intervention in Laos, 1961-1963 Daniel C. Koprowski University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses Koprowski, Daniel C., "John F. Kennedy, the development of counterinsurgency doctrine and American intervention in Laos, 1961-1963" (2000). Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014. 1682. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/1682 This thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. JOHN F. KENNEDY THE DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTERINSURGENCY DOCTRINE AND AMERICAN INTERVENTION IN LAOS 1961-1963 A Thesis Presented by DANIEL C. KOPROWSKI Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2000 History JOHN F. KENNEDY, THE DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTERINSURGENCY DOCTRINE AND AMERICAN INTERVENTION IN LAOS, 1961-1963 A Thesis Presented by DANIEL C. KOPROWSKI Approved as to style and content by Stephen E. Pelz, Chair Kevin G. Boyle, Member ne M. Rausch, Member Mary Wilson, Department Head Department of History CONTENTS Chapter Page 1 . KENNEDY AND THE NEED FOR COUNTERINSURGENCY DOCTRINE 1 Introduction 1 Post War Lessons 13 Kennedy's Increased Emphasis on Limited War 25 The Special Group For Counterinsurgency 36 2. THE POST-WAR QUAGMIRE IN LAOS 42 Introduction 42 From French Colony To Independent Nation 45 Early United States Intervention 54 Kong Le's Coup 63 The Situation as Kennedy Found It 66 3. KENNEDY'S COUNTERINSURGENCY OPERATIONS IN LAOS 72 Introduction 72 Kennedy's Beliefs Confirmed 73 Ongoing Operations In Laos 75 Evolving Intervention 77 Geneva Changes the Rules in Laos 95 CI Efforts in a Neutral Laos 97 Conclusion 108 4. EPILOGUE Laos After Kennedy 108 Laos' Connection to Vietnam 110 BIBLIOGRAPHY 113 • • • in CHAPTER 1 KENNEDY AND THE NEED FOR COUNTERINSURGENCY DOCTRINE Introduction In January 1961, when John F. Kennedy raised his right hand and swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, he had in his mind a very different conception of some of those enemies than many of his contemporaries. Like many politicians of his day, he believed strongly in the American doctrine of containment articulated by George F. Kennan, a strategy designed to arrest the advance of communism around the world by political, economic, diplomatic and, when required, military means. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Kennedy did not believe that America's reliance on its vast nuclear arsenal was equal to the task. He believed, rather, that the foremost threat facing the Western world was communist insurgency, not overwhelming conventional or nuclear force. Therefore, he reasoned, America required a strategy that could meet a broad 1 range of challenges throughout the spectrum of conflict. was the John F. Kennedy's belief in the need for a flexible response War. Kennedy believed product of several influences. The first was the Korean in Korea, coupled with a general that America's inability to win a decisive victory was an unnecessary sacrifice, feeling among the American people that the war Congress during the McCarthy had doomed Truman politically. He had been in of an Appropriate 1 Warfare: The Development Christopher M Lehman, "Protracted Insurgent U.S.-Sov.et ™cy>n *eT£d World, " Guernlla Warfare and Counterinsurgency: U S Doc me in 121-123. D.C. Heath and Company, 1989), Richard H. Schultz, etal. (Lexington, MA: 1 era and had seen first-hand the perils for a politician who allowed himself to be perceived as soft on communism. Part of Kennedy's belief, then, arose from political pragmatism. More important, however, were his experiences and those of his closest advisors. In 1951, during his years in the Senate, Kennedy visited Vietnam. He returned with a new conception of how best to execute a global containment strategy. What he had witnessed in Southeast Asia was the failure of French military strategy that relied on conventional weapons and tactics against a dedicated communist insurgency. From that point forward, Kennedy's rhetoric consistently stressed the need for a new level of capability, a strategy that would allow for a flexible response to communist expansion without resorting to nuclear war. "In practice", Kennedy argued in 1959, "our nuclear retaliatory power is not enough. It cannot deter Communist aggression which is too limited to justify atomic war. It cannot protect uncommitted nations against a Communist takeover using local or guerrilla forces. It cannot be used in so-called brush-fire at the wars... In short, it cannot prevent the Communists from nibbling away 2 fringe of the free world's territory or strength." Kennedy was arguing for the development of a counterinsurgency (hereafter abbreviated CI) capability to fight communism in the Third World. quest to Kennedy would often find himself fighting an uphill battle in his views, as did create a viable CI capability. Most of his inner circle shared his 2 and Speeches Made During His John Fitzgerald Kennedy, A Compilation of Statements Representatives, (Washington, D C: U.S. Government Service in the U S. Senate and House of Blaufarb, The Counterinsurgency Era: U.S. Printing Office, 1964): 288, quoted in Douglas S. (New York: The Free Press, 1977), 53. Doctrine and Performance, 1950 to the Present 2 several prominent officers in the U.S. Army. But, as a review of his early policies by his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff points out, he had to develop this capability in the face of fifteen years of momentum in the defense establishment, momentum aimed at creating an "unchallengeable, absolute capability" in nuclear 3 weapons." He would have to change the mindset of much of his Defense Department, as well as reorganizing and retraining its units for CI. Kennedy's conviction that such a capability was imperative was bolstered by events of the late 1950s that served to heighten an already acute public fear that Communism was on the march. In 1956 the Soviet Union had supported a victorious Nasser regime in Egypt against the combined power of Britain, France and Israel. In 1957 the Soviets had beaten America into space by launching Sputnik. In 1960 the Soviets shot down an American U-2 spy plane over Soviet 4 territory, capturing its pilot and embarrassing the United States. In the same period, America had witnessed communist insurgencies in Laos, Vietnam, Cuba and Malaya. While the outcome of the uprisings in Southeast Asia was still in doubt and the insurgency in Malaya had been defeated, the sheer quantity of communist guerrilla activity was cause for concern. The startling success of guerrilla actions in Cuba added a sense of urgency and credibility to Kennedy's calls to develop counterinsurgency capability as a weapon in the arsenal of containment. 3 Accomplishments Since January, 1961", 21 General L.L. Lemnitzer, "Summary of Military CI July 62, NSF, M&M, Box 319, JFKL 4 Khrushchev, Castro and Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, "One Hell of a Gamble": 77-78. Kennedy, 1958-1964, (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1997), 3 Taken together, the events of the 1950s fanned the flames of domestic anticommunism and created a political climate that made dedication to the strategy of containment an imperative for those seeking office. Such an environment provided fertile ground for Kennedy's appeals for a new level of capability, and he capitalized on the fact during his presidential campaign. His attacks on the Eisenhower administration's focus on nuclear weapons, at the expense of conventional forces, had been steady and severe throughout his 5 campaign. Kennedy's claim that America needed new tactics to stem the tide of global communism was well received by most Americans. He used the doctrine of flexible response as an example of such a tactic. The ability to both describe the problem and provide a solution carried great weight in the election of 1960. The suspicions of the American public and the young President-elect deepened when, on January 6, 1961, Nikita Khrushchev delivered his so called sacred wars speech in which he intoned that "The Communists support just 6 wars. ..and they march in the van of the peoples fighting for liberation." Kennedy ordered his top foreign policy advisors to "Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest" the Soviet Premier's words. It was clear that from the beginning that Kennedy intended to make containment a priority, and on his terms. He answered that the Khrushchev's rhetoric in his inaugural address with his famous promise any U.S. would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support 5 Army, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Russell F. Weigley, History of the United States Press, 1984), 526. 6 Fursenko and Naftali, 78. 4 7 friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty." With those words, Kennedy ushered in not only a "New Frontier" for America, but also a new phase of the Cold War, one that promised to be characterized by resistance to communism on many new fronts. From his earliest days in office, Kennedy demonstrated that he intended to back up his rhetoric with action, and he immediately began making waves in the defense establishment. Among his first directives to his national security staff was to "examine means for placing more emphasis on the development of 8 counter-guerrilla forces." James Reston of The New York Times noted the stir caused by Kennedy's innovations on March 1, 1961, writing "There was a big flap in Washington today 9 over reports that the Kennedy Administration was changing its military strategy." Reston apparently found the "flap" unnecessary, arguing that every new administration reviews its military strategy.