Old Eagle/Maximus
My two cents. This was, after all, the third world--and as far as third world governments and armies are concerned, Thieu's was almost certainly above average--just not good enough to beat the odds without some ongoing US help. Both army and gov't had been around for decades, unlike the Iraqi army. The ministries and their provincial branches were competent (well educated engineers, agronomists, public health officials, etc., etc...). And Thieu could not have made territorial forces and land reform the priorities that he did without "getting it." The problem was far less one of incompetence than lack of political will (as it relates to acommodation with the enemy) and the related issue of corruption. And this last failing was CORDS's greatest fault, as most of the "old timers" will agree--That is, we never tackled corruption to the extent we could have (yes, we did get some province chiefs tranferred). But no doubt US relief at finding militarily competent officers to deal with constrained us from using our leverage to the fullest extent to combat this systemic problem.
Legitimacy was in VN a function of the people's confidence in the ability of the government to prevail. In 1970 VN, the government that had legitimacy in the eyes of the people was the USG! Not the NLF or Communist Party for sure...And they believed, correctly in the event, that the GVN would fold under PAVN pressure after we left. (As the Vietnamese peasants were wont to tell me in their GI English, "[When] GI go home, VC come in."
Unquestionably, the pre-WW II French regime had legitimacy. When the communists started subversion in the North Vietnamese countryside in the1930's, they knew that no villager would dare take up arms against a Frenchman. So they began by getting villagers to sully their hands first, by having them participate in "peoples' executions" of Vietnamese village elders.
Re US civilians in VN--They were in fact all over the place. And why not? Other than Tet, Saigon was quite safe. I'm reminded of the USAID woman assigned to Saigon who did a TDY in Jamaica--She was so relieved to get back to Saigon because she found crime-ridden Kingston so dangerous. US military advisers in civilan GVN ministries?--Not during my tenure, and, I believe, not ever.
Cheers,
Mike.
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