On November 11, 1954, John Foster Dulles, the then Secretary of State, addressing the American Senate, declared:
“South Viet Nam must have a strong government backed up by police and security forces efficient enough to eliminate factors of agitation”.
In December 1954, during a visit to south Viet Nam, Admiral Radford, Joint Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, Navy and Air force, stated:
“The Ngo Dinh Diem Government must be given assistance to organize light army units, equipped with machine-guns and light tanks to wipe out the communist rebels.”
Speaking on June 1, 1956, about the U.S. Government’s policy with regard to south Viet Nam at the ‘Congress of U.S. Friends of Viet Nam’, Mr. W. S. Robertson, Under-secretary of State in charge of Far-eastern questions, stressed clearly in his turn that it was the intention of the U.S. to help the Ngo Dinh Diem administration in its efforts aimed at ‘mitigating and, if need be, eliminating communist subversion and influence’; and to help it ‘to sustain internal security forces’.
These precise documents suffice to show that the U.S. intends to build up in a south Viet Nam entirely under its control in all fields a police dictatorship with a view to ensuring the carrying out of its policy of intervention and war.
In this field, the U.S. has afforded considerable aid. According to still incomplete data:
a) In 1958, the U.S. gave credits amounting to about 29,000,000 south Viet Nam piastres for the reorganization of the police, security and militia forces. In addition, ‘the U.S. foreign aid programme has granted 5,500,000 U.S. dollars for the purchase of various types of modern arms, vehicles, and precision instruments for the creation of a scientific laboratory of investigation.” (1)
b) In 1957, the U.S. handed over to the south Viet Nam security and police services 272 jeeps and trucks; in 1958, it delivered to them a new contingent of 405 vehicles. In 1959, with the development of the repression, the U.S. aid granted to the south Viet Nam Directorate General of Security and Police a great quantity of equipment and material including 539 jeeps, trucks, motorcycles, etc... to the value of over 2,000,000 U.S. dollars. Mention should also be made of a supplementary credit of 176,000 U.S. dollars for the training of police agents in the U.S. in 1959 (2). According to a statement by Howard W. Hoyt, Chief of the Police section of the ‘Michigan State University Mission’, the U.S. also helped the south Viet Nam police services to set up a modern system of research on identity (3).
c) With regard to the building of concentration camps camouflaged as ‘agricultural settlements’, it must be pointed out that the U.S. has granted to the Ngo Dinh Diem administration 97,190,000 U.S. dollars and over 3,000,000 south Viet Nam piastres for the building and maintenance of the network of ‘agricultural settlements’.
The U.S. policy being to set up a police regime in south Viet Nam, the U.S. has advocated ever since the restoration of peace the sending of police experts to this region.
In accordance with this line of action, on April 19, 1955, the Ngo Dinh Diem administration signed with the ‘Michigan State University’ a so-called contract which was afterwards amended twice on June 15, 1956, and March 18, 1957, and improved twice on May 8, 1958, and May 27, 1959.
“Under this contract with a view to granting technical aid to increase the capacity and efficiency of the administration and the national police service, the Michigan State University has sent to Viet Nam a mission including professors and specialists to cooperate with the students of the Institute (National Institute of administration)” (4).
It is crystal-clear that the so-called ‘Michigan State University Mission’ is merely a signboard to cover up the Washington ruling circles plot to send to Viet Nam a number of professors and specialists to “increase the capacity and efficiency of the administration and the national police service” as has been admitted by the south Viet Nam administration itself.
Under the leadership of Ralph H. Smuckler, the ‘Michigan State University Mission’ includes many police specialists such as Colonel E. Lansdale, Howard W. Hoyt, George Kimball.
Since its arrival in Viet Nam, it has helped the Ngo Dinh Diem administration in the following main fields:
a) To study the organization of the administration and the police; for instance, its specialists have studied the questions of the reorganization of south Viet Nam villages and the administration of Saigon—Cholon, including the setting-up of a network of inter-families.
b) To take a direct part in the training of security and police cadres at the administrative section of the National Institute of Administration (‘internal security’), and at the training centres under the authority of the Directorate General of Security and Police. Since 1958, there has existed at Rach Dua (Vung Tau) a training centre which trains subordinate police agents at the annual rate of three classes of 300 each.
A secondary training centre was established in Saigon in mid 1959, meant for chiefs and deputy-chiefs of service, it gives qualification to three classes of 60 each per year. In addition, cadres have been trained for ‘mobile identity teams’ totalling 120 persons entrusted since 1959 with the task of issuing plastic identity cards.
Besides the training of police and security cadres at home, plans exist for sending to the U.S.A. cadres to undergo training or to get better qualification there. Lieutenant Ho Van Tan, the butcher selected to carry out the mass food-poisoning of 6,000 political detainees in the Phu Loi concentration camp on December 1st, 1958, was among U.S.-trained police agents.
As is known to everybody, the American Military Aid Advisory Group in south Viet Nam is in control of all the armed forces of the south Viet Nam administration from their establishment and training to their movements. From this point of view, it is really the Supreme Command in south Viet Nam and ‘blankets’ even Ngo Dinh Diem’s Defence Ministry.
But the south Viet Nam army does not only serve for the preparation of a new aggressive war in accordance with American plans. For the time being, it is also an instrument for the authorities to terrorize the people, and to carry out reprisals against former resistance members as has been pointed out above. In this connection the role of the officers of M.A.A.G. differs from that of the police specialists of the ‘Michigan State University Mission’:
a) The officers of M.A.A.G. are directly responsible for training the units of marines to be thrown into the operations of reprisal, and particularly, the ‘commando’ units well-known for their cruelty in the operations launched in south Viet Nam over the last year or more.
b) They participate directly in mopping-up operations in former resistance regions.
Here are some examples:
- In late 1958, during a large-scale mopping-up operation in West Nam Bo, hundreds of American military advisers were present, including General Samuel Williams, chief of M.A.A.G., Lieutenant-Colonel John H. Chamberts…
- Round about the same date, General Samuel Williams was also present in the repression carried out in the surroundings of the Phu Loi concentration camp after the horrible food-poisoning there.
- In February 1959, Colonel Clay and Lieutenant-Colonel Leister participated in the operation of reprisal launched in the eastern part of Bien Hoa.
- Since mid 1959, Colonel Butler has participated in the operations launched in the regions of Quang Ngai, Thua Thien, Quang Nam, etc.
- The U.S.A. has thus afforded every possible aid to the south Viet Nam administration in building a police network extending from the towns to the countryside; it has trained police cadres both in south Viet Nam and in the U.S.A., it has supplied the south Viet Nam police and security services with equipment, arms, and means of transport for the repression. It has established in south Viet Nam a police regime on the same pattern as the Syngman-Rhee regime in south Korea.
(1) Cach Mang Quoc Gia (Saigon), March 2, 1959.
(2) Tu Do (Saigon), March 19, 1959; Radio Saigon, July 3, 1959.
(3) Cach Mang Quoc Gia (Saigon), March 2, 1959.
(4) ‘Achievements of the Government over five years of activities’ (Saigon), pages 270, 271.
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