FOE PICKS BATTLE TIME, NIXON TOLD IN '69

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000300350069-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 13, 2000
• Sequence Number: 69
• Publication Date: April 29, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

\ C ICAGO, ILL. S TL
TRIBUNE Approved For Release 2001/01/O "NCfA.-RDP80-01601 R
M 767,793
1,016,275
APR 29 197
TITIrd.
~'tk.
BY JOHN MACLEAN I D
[Chicago Tribune Press Service]
T(91
I on - (PYV 9
ril 28-
IiINGTON A
p
WAS
Every agency of gove nment
.with any expertise in the mat- ! when the Laos-Cambodia in- to determine tie type ?of at-
ter told. President Nixon when cursions took place. Mack, ranging from a costly as-
;he took office in 1969 that it .sault on a major urban center
on- to a relatively, inexpensive 'har-'
was the North Vietnamese and The enemy basically con-'
t r o ls both sides casualty,
Viet Cong who controlled the rates," a summary of the ass:nent of a village or hamlet
rates at which Amiercans in study said. I ..:- We believe that to a con-
Southeast Asia were killed.
The principlemeans by which Under the direction of Henry siderable extent, the Commu,-
the enemy accomplished this, Kissinge , Nixon's chief advis- nists are able to control the
the agencies reported, was to er on national security, 28 r ate of attrition of' their,
strike; then slip away ? from questions were sent to various forces."
South Viet Nam to sancutaries agencies and their replies were The Defense Department re-
across the border in Laos and summarized by the White port was. the most' detailed.
Cambodia. House. The Pentagon placed the re-
.
"Like'a criminal'in the city, "Three-fourths of the battles sponsibility for North Vietnam-
he decides when and where he are at the enemy's choice of ese, South Vietnamese, and a1
will st ike," 'Nixon was told by time; place, type and dura- lied combat death rates predo-
the Defense Department in a tion," the summary said. minately on activities of the
.
secret memorandum. "If the enemy
climate gets toohot,? he merly Enemy contacts Infrequent "Little or no relationship ex
lies low for a while." It pointed to CIA figures that ists between the tempo of al-
Nixon than one per cent of near- 1 lied operations and fluctuations J
Nixon Orfered Report ly 2 million allied small-unit in either enemy or U. S. coin-, The memorandum was part operations over a two-year pe- bat deaths," the Defense De-
of a study called National Se- iod resulted in contact with pa>:tment Reported.
curity Council Memorandum the enemy. Can't Impose Big Losses
No. 1, which Nixon ordered . "With his s afe mavens in "Allied forces cannot persist-
when he took office. The memo Laos and Cambodia, and with ently impose heavy losses on
covers virtually every aspect carefully chosen tactics, the enemy force,s except when the
of the situation in Viet Nam at enemy has been able during latter seek heavy combat.
that time. The Chicago Trib? the last four years to double "He [the enemy] tried to
tine obtained a copy of the re- his combat forces, double the a v o i d contact with allied
port this week. level of infiltration, and in- troops under unfavorable con-
The combat initiative be- crease the scale and intensity ditions by blending into the
longed so much to the enemy, of the main force war, even population or vanishing into
thePentagon eported in the, while bearing heavy easula-i jungle base oreas during large
study, that during one period ties," the summary said. allied operations.
w h e n American operations The Mate Department ? "Despite increase in allied
were intensified by more than ported that while it did no; battalion__days_ of__.t~peration,
10 per cent, enemy combat have the wealth of data availa. large and ' small operations,
deaths dropped 41 per cent. ble to the Defense Department) and force strength, the eneiny
The Defense Department ,the_NVA-CV [North Viet Nani reduced the monthly average
was joined in this assessment of his combat deoths by 41 per
by the Ceptlal Intelligence army and Viet Cong] have also cent between the 2d and 4th
Agency [OVA] and the State proven that they can often quarters of 1968. .
Department. break contact and escape into "The ability to control casu-
Altho Altho the stud Is three I base areas o sanctuaries ci- alties is an integral part of the
years old, the rporting of it at ther within or without South overall enemy strategy. His at-
this time provides an insight Viet Nam when the fighting in tacks are designed to have the
into some of the. reasons Presi- specific engagements has be- maximum psychological im-
dent Nixon chose to send come too intense." pact by inflicting heavy allied
Decides Timing and Type casulaties and projecting an
troops into Laos and Cambodia
I
two years rived dditi I he IT-44440990300350069-9
t F.c~r, The admi i ration public y
relied on some of the argu- the State Deportment report, fightr or to avoid contact rests
mmnts in this secret Memo. continued, "the enemy is able'! with the enemy.".
 1 yty WORM STATINTL
Approved For Release 200 03)[6 J A-RDP80-01601 R00
Credibility is lost
Kissinger did not have an adequate reply. The fact is
that the credibility of the Nixon Administration was lost
long ago, just as the Johnson Administration lost its,
and the Kennedy Administration is beginning to lose its
as a harder look is taken at its policies.
Another blow came this week. Tuesday the Wash-
ington Post published large sections of a study npep?sred-
by Kissinger for the etc,,, President, Richard Nixon, in
1969, dealing with-Indochina policy and perspectives.
Newsweeic'fdso tublished excerpts, Sen. Mike Gravel
(D-Alaska) tried to re:.d.(h^ document into the Congres-
sional Record but was blocked by Sen. IRooert'Griffin
(D-Mich), co-au thdr of the anti-labor Landrum-Griffin
bill, and a supporter of Nixon's war policies.
Like the Pentagon Papers, this study, National Se-
curity Study.Memorandum No. 1, reveals Administration
double-dealing.
This study showed- that so-called "pacification" of
South Vietnam could not be accomplished in less than
from 81,z to 13.4 years, that the DRV could not be elim-
',inated without the use of much greater forces than had
'so far been employed, and, in'the view-of the State De-
partment and Defense Secretary's office, "only a com-
promise settlement is possible."
The Defense Secretary's office also said that "at
least 50 percent of the total rural population is subject to
significant VC- (liberation forces) pressure and, in-
fluence."
The Central Intelligence Agency agreed with this, and
the State Department boosted the ante, estimating that
"the VC have a significant effect on at least two-thirds of
the rural population."
In line with the official reasoning, the document re-
fuses to regard the national liberation forces of South
Vietnam as a major factor but maintains the. fiction that
the fighting and direction of the war is in the hands of the
DRV. This serves to further confound the situation and in-
crease the element of deception.
The main deception, however, was that Nixon refused
to acknowledge the real situation in Indochina and con-
tinued to destroy lives and wealth in a futile and inhuman,
genocidal war, gambling with escalation, such as the.
invasion of Cambodia and Laos, and the intensified bomb-
ing of the DRV.
For almost four years, the Nixon Administration has
woven a tissue of lies about every aspect of its war poli-
cies and activities.
The most recent move was Nixon's national address
Wednesday night, which offered no basis for negotiation
and demanded surrender of what Mme. Nguyen Thi Binh
said. Thursday at the resumed session (the 148th) of the
Paris talks on Vietnam is the basic issue of the struggle
- "respect for the national rights of the Vietnamese
people," and primarily, the right of the South Vietnarn-
ese population to self-determination. This, she said, is an
indispensable prerequisite for attaining a peaceful set-
tlement.
In brief, this means ending U.S. aggression, and let-
ting the people of Vietnam, North and South, settle their
problems among themselves, by themselves and for
themselves.
t,/
Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP80-01601 R000300350069-9