INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter 6ce, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproductionis dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & Howell Information Compare 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 THE “OTHER WAR”: AN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF AMERICAN NATIONBUILDING IN SOUTH VIETNAM, 1954-1975 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Jefferson P. Marquis, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1997 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Allan R. Millett, Adviser Professor Michael J. Hogan Adviser Associate Professor John F. Guilmartin Department of History UMI Number: 9731673 Copyright 1997 by Marquis, Jefferson Peter All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9731673 Copyright 1997, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Jefferson Peter Marquis 1997 ABSTRACT This study contributes to a post-revisionist synthesis of the Vietnam War by making two basic points about Americans involved in the multifarious US and South Vietnamese government activities that fell outside the realm of large-scale combat operations (the so-called “Other War”) from the mid 1950s to the early 1970s. Like some revisionist scholars, the author concludes that US “Other Warriors” provided their superiors with generally balanced accounts of the current activities and standings of the various contending parties in South Vietnam. He finds, however, that this group exuded an unjustified optimism regarding the prospect of constructing a strong, prosperous, independent, and democratic Government of Vietnam. The author also agrees with revisionists that, to a certain extent, “Other War” experts understood the nationalist and revolutionary character of the Vietnam War. Still, they never developed a coherent alternative to the dominant US-South Vietnamese model of attrition warfare. Thus, in the author’s view, the root problem with counterinsurgency and nationbuilding in Vietnam was with the concepts themselves. American proponents of the “Other War” largely failed to confront the heterogeneous assumptions that underlay their ad hoc attempt to build a nation in the midst of war. 11 The evidentiary basis for this dual thesis is the Vietnam-era writings of the “Other Warriors” themselves. This includes the published memoirs, interviews, journal articles, congressional testimony, and research reports as well as the unpublished bureaucratic analyses, end-of-tour reports, letters, memoranda, speeches, and essays of important “Other War” figures. The inspiration for the author’s decision to treat this group of middle-level military ofBcers and civilian bureaucrats and government-sponsored social scientists as a loosely-knit nationbuilding/counterinsurgency coalition derives fi’om two sources; the coiporatist model of US foreign relations, championed by historians such as Michael Hogan and Ellis Hawley, and the “revisionist” model of US civil-military relations introduced by political scientist Richard Betts. In order to capture the complexity of American thinking regarding Vietnam’s “Other War,” this study also draws upon a number of intellectual historical, military historical, and sociological accounts of America’s interventionist ethos, US political development theory and doctrine, and the American or Western “Way of War.” m Dedicated to Mom, Dad, and Qin IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my advisers, Allan Millett and Michael Hogan, for their intellectual, moral, and professional support over the past four and a half years as this dissertation underwent several major thematic and organizational transformations. Both have read every word that I have written on the subject of the “Other War” and are responsible for numerous substantive and stylistic improvements to the text. I also wish to thank Richard Hunt of the U.S. Army Center of Military History for suggesting possible avenues of research on the “Other War” and for securing permission for me to use the Center’s extensive archives on US pacification and development activities during the Vietnam War. I am grateful also for the assistance provided to me by the archivists of the U.S. Army Military History Institute, the U.S. Marine Corps Historical Center, the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, the National Archives, and the University of California, Berkeley, Indochina Archive. This research was made possible in large part through the award of a dissertation fellowship by the U.S. Marine Corps Historical Foundation. VITA April 26,1958......................................Bom - San Francisco, California 1981...................................................A.B. History, University of California, Berkeley 1983................................................... M.A. International Affairs, Columbia University 198 7...................................................Research Analyst, The Center for Defense Information 1988 - 1990..........................................Research Assistant, The RAND Corporation 1990 - present...................................... Graduate Teaching and Research Associate, The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS 1. Jefferson P. Marquis, CPE Treaty Implications of Viseerad Countries' Membership in NATO (Santa Monica, CA; The RAND Corporation, December 1993). 2. Steven C. Bankes, Carl H. Builder, Jefferson P. Marquis, et al.. Seizing the Moment: Harnessing the Information Technologies (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 1992). 3. Jefferson P. Marquis, "Two Trillion Dollars in Seven Years," The Defense Monitor 16, no. 7 (Washington, D C.: The Center for Defense Information, 1987). FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History Minor Fields: US Military and Diplomatic History US History (1870 to the present) Modem European Diplomatic History vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Dedication............................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................v Vita....................................................................................................................................... vi Introduction ...........................................................................................................................1 Vietnam War and Pacification Historiography Sources and Methods Scope of the Topic Chapters: PARTI 1. The Intellectual Roots of the “Other War” ............................................................ 35 The Interventionist Ethos Nationbuilding Assumptions Counterinsurgency Assumptions The American Role PART II: Attitudes Toward the Protagonists 2. The Embattled Party: South Vietnam (The Early Years) ...................................... 93 Authoritarian Nationbuilding Interregnum Reemphasis on Pacification vu 3. The Embattled Party: South Vietnam (After Tet) ................................................. 148 Heyday of Pacification Period of Irrelevance 4. The Subversive Agent: The Vietcong ....................................................................195 Virulent, But Not Deadly Isolated, But Still Dangerous 5. The Protective Power: The United States............................................................. 238 Assuming Responsibility Settling Into the Job PART ni: Strategies and Methods 6. Variations on Nationbuilding ................................................................................ 283 Conservative Populism Liberal Nationalism Bureaucratic Authoritarianism 7. Securing the Population .........................................................................................339 The Sine Qua Non Fortifying the People Removing the Threat 8. Managing the “Other War”................................................................................... 383 America’s Responsibility Pacification Measurement Pacification Organization Conclusion ........................................................................................................................430 Epilogue: Interventionist Doctrine Since Vietnam.........................................................