THE SITUATION IN INDOCHINA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79R00904A001500020019-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 29, 2005
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: April 6, 1970
• Content Type: MF

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY'
OFFICE OF NATIONAL ESTIMATES
6 April 1970
MEMORANDUM FOR THE DIRECTOR
SUBJECT: The Situation in Indochina
I. In South Vietnam, great progress has been made since
mid-1968 in extending governmental control and security to the country-
side, in developing military and security forces, and in restricting the
operations of Communist main force units to remote areas. But these
gains lack deep roots. The government has not engaged the positive
loyalties of the people, and the military and security forces are far
from being capable of assuming full responsibilities in the main force
war or even for countryside security. While the position of the
Communists has deteriorated, their apparatus is intact in most areas,
and their main force organization, though understrength, remains
capable of relatively rapid buildup.
2. The basic situation in Laos is far more fragile than in
South Vietnam. While over the years the fortunes of war have ebbed
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and flowed, the Communists have succeeded in maintaining their sway over
major portions of the country, including extensive areas west of the Mekong
and adjacent to Thailand. Indeed, more than half of the Thai-Lao border
has for years been easily accessible to Communist infiltration parties, and
the proportion has been rising as Allied paramilitary assets are stretched
thinner and thinner over Laos. The Laotian Army is hardly more effective
than it was in 1962. The Meo guerrillas provide the country's principal
fighting forces, and as their casualties continue to exceed their replacement
potential, they are gradually losing their capacity to fight. The indigenous
Communist Pathet Lao movement is also in dire straits, but the North
Vietnamese still can place it in a dominant position in Vientiane. Only
Hanoi's preoccupation with South Vietnam and its desire not to prejudice
its prospects there have stood in the way.
3. Until the recent overturn in Phnom Penh, Cambodia seemed
likely to escape direct involvement in the Vietnam war and to carry through
under Sihanouk into the post war period with its independence and neutrality
reasonably intact. Even so, its longer.range prospects were not considered
good if the Communists succeeded in consolidating their control in South
Vietnam.
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4. Without substantial external support, the military and political
fabric of these three states is so weak as to provide little obstacle to Hanoi's
aims, which are to extend its control over South Vietnam and its predominant
influence in. Laos and Cambodia. The United States now appears determined
to remove its fighting forces from South Vietnam. The question is whether --
through a gradual removal -- enough time can be gained to enable South
Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries to strengthen their internal
structures, to assume more responsibilities for their own defense, to engage
other Asian countries in cooperative security efforts in the region, and even
to work out some understandings that might remove Southeast Asia from the
center of contention and conflict.
5. As long as substantial US fighting forces remain in South
Vietnam, the country can surely be preserved from Communist domination.
It the bulk of these forces should be withdrawn in the next two or three years,
the chances of avoiding eventual Communist control would, in our view, be
relatively small. The effects of a more prolonged withdrawal are difficult
to estimate with any confidence, but the continuing resiliency of the Communist
effort, together with the slow pace of South Vietnamese political and military
development, lead us to believe that the long term prospects -- after the
withdrawal of US forces -- cannot be judged as much better than even. Yet
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the course of events will still depend upon developments now unpredictable -
developments in North Vietnam, in South Vietnam, and perhaps in the arena
of international negotiations. Laos is, of course, much more vulnerable
that South Vietnam; Cambodia, in view of recent occurrences in that country,
is more vulnerable than before.
6. Hanoi's Response to Recent Events. For the moment, the
urgency for decision and action is probably greatest in Hanoi. The North
Vietnamese regime has seen its earlier military efforts in South Vietnam
effectively countered. It has reduced the vigor and extent of its fighting
operations, it is hurting from the long continued drain of the conflict, and
the overthrow of Sihanouk has confronted it with potentially grave dangers.
Hanoi surely calculates that the strategic balance in Indochina could be
critically upset if Communist forces were to lose effective control of their
border sanctuaries in Cambodia. Hanoi has moved quickly to head off the
threat, either by unseating the Lou Nol regime in favor of Sihanouk or by
coercing it into granting a similar degree of tolerance to that accorded
Hanoi's forces by Sihanouk (and Lon Nol) during 1969. At the same time,
Hanoi is moving to improve its security position in the border zones,
excluding potentially hostile Cambodian military and administrative
elements and commencing the conversion of these zones into "liberated
areas."
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E't
7. If the Communists are not promptly successful in getting
what they want from Phnom Penh, they would face some unattractive
alternatives. To apply increasingly heavy pressures in the name of some
trumped-up Khmer resistance movement could drive the Cambodian govern-
ment further from "neutrality" and encourage it to engage the non-Communist
powers more and more directly in its political, diplomatic, and military
defense. In addition, reliance on a new "liberation" war to assure VC/NVA
wartime requirements might not only be uncertain but could simply consume
too much time in the organization process. In any event, the proclamation
of a liberated area under the Khmer flag along the border would not solve
all the VC/NVA problems. Assuming that the Lou Nal government had held
together, the Communists would have to contemplate the possibility of
mounting military pressures and harassments from the Cambodian Army
as well as from GVN/US forces.
8. There remains the extreme measure of using VC/NVA forces
directly and openly against the Cambodian Army and moving against Phnom
Penh, if necessary, to force a change in the government or its policies.
This might not be a simple matter. VC/NVA units cannot move far from
their border sanctuaries without assembling in some kind of regular formation
and leaving themselves exposed to conventional attack. Under these conditions
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Hanoi could not ignore the possibility that GVN/US air and ground forces would
support the FARK and that the Communists would suffer heavy reverses?
9. Hanoi's problems are further complicated by the situation
in Laos, where government forces are, at least for the moment, putting up
a stiff resistance around Long Tieng. Further, the somnolent Thai are
finally showing signs of bestirring themselves and taking an active interest
in the military defense of Laos.
10. In these circumstances, it is possible that Hanoi may come
to an entirely new appreciation of the Indochina situation. Frustrated at
the apparent stalemate in South Vietnam and the apparent loss of momentum
of the "peace movement" in the United States, Hanoi might find merit in the
idea of putting South Vietnam on the back-burner and concentrating on Laos
and Cambodia, committing more forces there to quickly take these countries.
The probable gains: two "dominoes", a substantial political-psychological
impact in South Vietnam and Thailand, and, for the US, the disheartening
prospect of a -markedly worsening situation in Southeast Asia.
11. We cannot rule out the possibility that Hanoi will decide to
move along this sort of aggressive course, and it has the military strength
to do so. But the situation appears far more complicated for Hanoi than
would be indicated by generalizations concerning its military capabilities.
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The thrust of Hanoi's policy since mid-1968 has been to limit risks, to conserve
resources, and to concentrate on getting the US out of Vietnam primarily
through political, diplomatic, and psychological means. Hanoi is increasingly
concerned with internal problems in North Vietnam and is not well prepared
to support a wider Indochina conflict at this time. It would certainly measure
carefully all alternatives before risking action which could precipitate such
a conflict.
12. In general, we think that Hanoi will strive to keep to its low-
risk strategy of the past two years. Hanoi could live with a Cambodian
government which was unfriendly, but not actively hostile; arms through
Sihanoukville, while convenient, are not essential and Cambodian rice in
some quantities could probably be obtained without official arrangements.
Thus, the situation in Cambodia could well simmer down with the Communist
forces retaining their base areas and suffering only the burden of the extra
efforts needed to move additional arms and other supplies on the overland
routes from North Vietnam. This would place some fUrther inhibition on
large scale Communist military actions in III and IV Corps, but readjust-
ments of supply lines could be made so that the long term threat in South
Vietnam would be little reduced.
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13. But these judgments do not reckon with the unpredictable
dynamics of the Cambodian domestic situation. Lon Nol might persist in
an active policy of harassment against the Communists and seek openly or
covertly to enlist the collaboration of the Allies in these efforts. Hanoi
might not tolerate much of this before taking more extreme measures to
bring down the Lon Nol regime.
14. Finally, we cannot rule out a move by Hanoi to open
negotiations for a new Indochina settlement. In South Vietnam, the number
one target, the Communists are not in a good political or military position
in the short-term sense. But in Laos, where they control most of the
territory -- though not most of the population ? and have the precedent
of a coalition government, and in Cambodia, where Sihanouk gives them
a national figure which they have never enjoyed in South Vietnam, they
are in a considerably better bargaining position. They might reason that
in the face of a call for a new international conference -- possibly on the
old Geneva model -- to "settle" the war in Indochina, the US would find
it difficult to insist on maintaining the present Saigon regime.
15. In any event, current developments are not likely in the
long term to bring much advantage to the non-Communist cause. Even
if the Communist forces in Laos are contained through the current dry
season, RLG strength will be further drained. In Cambodia, an active
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resistance movement will almost certainly be promoted by the Vietnamese and
the seeds of eventual Communist control spread more widely in the country.
And in South Vietnam, the new uncertainties, and the questions of policy they
raise, may lead to increased tensions between the US and the GVN.
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