NOTE TO THE DIRECTOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01720R000600070035-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 27, 2004
• Sequence Number: 35
• Publication Date: June 18, 1970
• Content Type: MEMO

Approved Forease 2004/12/02: CIA-RDP80R017200600070035-7
VIETNAMESE AFFAIRS STS "
CE OF THE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INT iGENCE
Appended per your request is a
copy of the notes on Cambodia that I
gave to Packard at our meeting on
Monday, 15 June.
George A. Carver, Jr.
Special Assistant for Vietnamese Affairs
The Director
ROM: GACarver, Jr.
3JECT:
Approved For Release 2004/12/02 : CIA-RDP80R01720R000600070035-7
 Approved For lease 2004/12/02 : CIA-RDP80RO172KW00600070035-7
VIETNAMESE AFFAIRS STAFF
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
DATE: 5 June 1970
The Director
FROM:
SUBJECT:
Per your request, attached in expanded
outline format is the basic line of argument
I took with Mr. McCone and have taken
with others when discussing this subject.
Geo ge A. Carver, Jr.
Special Assistant for Vietnamese Affairs
Attachment
to "
W
Approved For Release 2004/12/02 : CIA-RDP80RO172OR000600070035-7
 - Approved Forlease 20aS ~EIA-RDP80R0172I0060007 7
~?~-JUN 1970
Notes on Background Matters Pertinent
to Current ARVN and U. S. Operations in Cambodia
1. BASIC CONTEXT - THE CHANGING WAR
A. Struggle in and for South Vietnam has gone through various
developmental and evolutionary stages, each of which has involved
struggle and military operations different, in scale, style and scope.
Main evolutionary stages were:
1. 1957-1959: Resumption of armed struggle,
marked primarily by terrorism, subversion and small
scale, essentially guerrilla type military operations.
a. In late 1956 or early 1957 Le Duan, who had
been director of party operations in South Vietnam
since 1952, was called back to Hanoi to assume
Truong Chinh's former duties as Party First Secretary.
(He got the title three years later, in 1960, and still
has the job.) Decision to resume armed struggle --
and thus, in Bernard Fall's phrase, start the second
Indochina war -- appears to have been made by the
Politburo in early 1957, shortly after Le Duan's
return to Hanoi and assumption of his present duties.
2. 1959-1963: War of national liberation. (Decision
to escalate struggle to this level taken at Party Plenum in
May 1959. Creation of NLF announced at Party Congress
in September 1960.) VC develop company/battalion/regi-
mental size units, serious infiltration of cadre via Laos
and northeast Cambodia begun.
3. 1964-1967: Introduction of NVA units and evolution
of big unit war. Decision to inject NVA taken at December
1963 Party Congress. NVA units begin appearing on
battlefield in late 1964, early 1965. This created spring
1965 situation which led President Johnson to 'introduce
U. S. troops. Hanoi countered with more NVA. Military
activity spiraled upward.
Approved For Release 2004/12/02: CIA-RDP80R01720R00060Q070035-7
9?rk- C nr?M~
SECRET
 ?Approved For Lease 20 4 CIA-RDP80RO172OO00600070035-7
4. 1968: Year of the big attacks. In summer of
1967, Hanoi engaged in full dress strategy review.
Decisions emerging therefrom produced massive asset
commitment and the major Communist offensives: Tet 68
(the biggest), May 68 and August 68.
5. 1969-spring 1970: Devolution to harassment
strategy. After the costly failures (in military terms)
of the 1968 offensives, Hanoi shifted to a more cautious
strategy of harassment, probing and lessened large
scale attacks. This is the strategic wicket Hanoi is
still on.
B. Changing strategies, plus changing situation on ground
in. South Vietnam -- influenced both by Communist strategy and by
ebb and flow of Communist military fortunes -- posed Hanoi with
varying logistic and support problems and requirements.
II. THE ROLE OF CAMBODIA
A. It is in above context that one should assess role
Cambodia has played in Hanoi's plans, calculations and conduct of
the war. Cambodia has been a factor in Hanoi's equation since as
early as 1965-1966 (or even before, since northeast Cambodia has
been used as a major infiltration route since the 1962/ 1963 era).
Cambodia's importance to Hanoi's whole style of fighting, however,
has increased by quantum jumps since mid-1968. Cambodia has
become of major significance to Hanoi for three reasons. All three
are important, but without denigrating any of them, they rank as
follows in ascending order of importance.
1. A Source of Food and Other Supplies.
Over the recent years, particularly the past two
years, Vietnamese Communist logisticians and "Rear
Services" (i. e. , supply and support) units have
increasingly turned to Cambodia as a source of food
(chiefly rice) and other supplies such as medicines.
The procurement operations involved have been
extensive but frequently informal and exceptionally
difficult to quantify. Rice, for example, has been
-2-
Approved For Release 2004/12/02 : CIA-RDP80RO172OR000600070035-7
 01-1
pp
Aroved For ease 20 IA-RDP80R0172000600070035-7
obtained by requisition or purchase from individual
farmers or through informal arrangements with
Cambodian village, district or provincial officials.
Medicines and other supplies have been obtained by
a variety of techniques including that of having them
purchased by Rear Services cadre from pharmacies
and shops in provincial Cambodian towns. Cambodian
sources for this type of supply have been turned to
not so much because of absolute unavailability in
Vietnam (which, for example, produces more than
enough rice to meet the needs of Communist forces)
as for distribution requirements and problems faced
by particular Vietnamese Communist units and
command echelons. In many cases, it has simply
been easier to procure what was needed from untroubled
Cambodian sources than to attempt to move stores or
stocks around in the increasingly hostile environment
of South Vietnam.
2. A Source of Ordnance, Ammunition and Other
Major Military Supplies.
From sometime in mid-1968 until early 1970,
Cambodia constituted a major channel for the supply
of arms, ammunition and other military equipment
for Communist forces in South Vietnam, particularly
forces in IV Corps, III Corps and lower II Corps.
a. The logistic support operation considered
here involved the importation of supplies through the
port of Sihanoukville with the active and witting
collaboration of the Cambodian government and army
and full knowledge of Norodom Sihanouk.
b. There has been a continuing debate between
the Washington intelligence community (CIA, DIA and
NSA) and MACV J-2 on the amount of supplies
Communist forces in South Vietnam have received
through this channel and the time span involved.
MACV has believed that. the Sihanoukville channel
has been a major factor since about October 1966.
Approved For Release 2004/12/02: 9le-RDP80R01720R000600070035-7
SCkEf
 Approved For ease 2004I S 1Oc 1-RDP80ROl72WO600070035-7
The Washington community has felt that there is
little hard evidence for serious or significant use
of this Sihanoukville channel prior to mid-1968.
c. Some of the military supplies for Communist
forces imported via Sihanoukville were not mani-
fested as such, and others were co-mingled with
weapons and ammunition shipments from bloc
sources ostensibly consigned to the Cambodian
army. VC/NVA supplies were separated from
Cambodian stocks and diverted to Communist channels
in witting collaboration with Cambodian army officers.
The spongy nature of much of the evidence has not
permitted precise quantification of the supplies
obtained via this route. The "Ho Chi Minh Trail"
network through Laos has always had the capacity
to meet all Communist logistic needs in South Vietnam
and, in our view, has always remained the primary
logistic support channel. Sihanoukville's importance
clearly increased during 1969, however, and the
Sihanoukville route probably came to carry perhaps
as much as half of the major military supplies ear-
marked for Communist forces in the southern part
of South Vietnam.
d. Even though the Laos network was technically
capable of meeting requirements, the ability to use
Sihanoukville was clearly a major convenience for the
Communists. As a glance at the map will demonstrate,
supplies destined for Communist forces in their lower
part of South Vietnam were obviously much easier to
move by ship to Sihanoukville and thence by truck or
barge to forward depots than to carry overland via
the long and tortuous trail network through Laos.
The convenience (even if not absolute necessity)
of the Sihanoukville route became increasingly
marked when the Communists began deploying
NVA units into the Delta in the summer of 1969.
3. A Source of Sanctuary.
Over the last five and particularly over the past two
years, Cambodia has become increasingly important to
the Communist effort of a source of sanctuary and refuge.
Approved For Release 2004/12/02 : CIA-RDP80RO172OR000600070035-7
 Approved For F3gWase 2004/1 / : I'-kDP80R01720l 0600070035-7
a. The Vietnamese Communists use a mode of
logistic support for their military activities that was
adopted in the 1940s and has never changed since.
This mode, which is a hallmark of their whole style
of fighting, involving pre-positioning in forward
stockpiles all supplies deemed necessary for par-
ticular operations or campaigns. Ideally, when
Communist troops are committed to action they move
into their supplies, which'are already sited near the
target areas earmarked for attack. The supplies
brought up during an operation are normally intended
for the replenishment of stockpiles and not for direct
issuance to troops in combat.
b. During the early and mid 1960s, the Com-
munists developed, rather elaborate and reasonably
secure base areas within South Vietnam where they
stored their strategic and tactical stockpiles. Over
the past year or so, however, these base areas within
South Vietnam itself have become less secure and
increasingly vulnerable not only to aerial attacks
but to ground sweeps by allied forces. Thus, as
the Communists' ability to develop and maintain
secure strategic stockpiles within South Vietnam
itself diminished, they have perforce increasingly
resorted to Cambodia for storing these vital supplies.
This necessity, in turn, has led over the past few
years to the development of an increasingly complex
and elaborate system of base areas along the Vietnam/
Cambodia frontier from the Laos border to the Mekong.
c. As the pattern of military struggle has evolved
in South Vietnam over the past two years in a manner
generally disadvantageous to Communist interests,
sanctuaries in Cambodia have come to play an in-
creasingly important role of a different type in Com-
munist operations. This other role is also a function
of the fact that no territory in South Vietnam itself --
including such formerly secure redoubts as the Do Xa,
War Zones C and D and the U Minh -- i s now immune to
allied ground sweeps and aerial attack. Lacking
secure real estate in South Vietnam, the Communists
have developed an elaborate series of base and sanctuary
Approved For Release 2004/12/0g: CIA-RDP80RO172OR000600070035-7
. SECR T.
 'Approved For I ase 200 cf FIJ-RDP80RO1720W0600070035-7
areas along Cambodian side of the frontier to house
major headquarters, hospitals, training sites, re-
placement depots and other similar facilities. Until
the events that followed Sihanouk's deposition on 18
March 1970, these base areas were politically sac-
rosanct in a way that made them practically immune
to any serious harassment.
d. These sanctuaries have come to be an
essential element of Hanoi's whole present style of
fighting the war. While these sanctuaries existed
as such, Communist forces that found themselves
too heavily engaged in Vietnam or taking casualties
the Communist command considered unacceptable
could simply repair back across the border and, by
doing so, stop the casualty drain immediately. Thus
the sanctuaries became an important safety valve for
Hanoi, which could use and exploit them to exercise
considerable control over activity and loss rates in
South Vietnam. Battered or mauled units could be
pulled back into Cambodia to rest, refit, pick up
replacements and -- in almost perfect security --
be readied to sally forth and fight again at times
and places of Hanoi's choosing.
e. The existence of these sanctuaries, par-
ticularly the ones along the lower III Corps and IV
Corps borders, also had a major impact on the sit-
uation in South Vietnam. The Communists could
(and did) securely mass large forces in them in
close proximity to major populated areas of South
Vietnam, thus posing an actual or latent threat to
South Vietnam's internal security that no amount
of progress in pacification or Vietnamization with-
in South Vietnam itself could ever eradicate.
f. For all of the reasons outlined above, over
the past two years the steadily expanding network of
Communist sanctuaries and bases in Cambodia have
become an essential instrument to the implementation
of Hanoi'.s whole strategy.
-6-
Approved For Release 2004/12/02 : CIA-RDP80RO172OR000600070035-7
`r. R
 Approved' For?iease 200441gTCIA-RDP80R0172RJ00600070035-7
S
III. POSSIBLE IMPACT OF CURRENT CAMBODIAN OPERATIONS.
A final determination of the probable impact of current Cam-
bodian operations obviously cannot be made until the operations are
completed and one sees the type of situation that evolves after their
termination. Even at this stage, however, certain tentative con-
clusions can be drawn:
A. Current operations are unlikely to have much impact or
effect on Communist use of Cambodia as a source of food and other
such supplies acquired on the local economy. The administrative
arrangements here involved are too diffuso and too localized to be
seriously affected by Phnom Penh government policies. It is not
realistic to expect current operations to prevent Communist forces
from requisitioning or purshasing rice from individual farmers or
through intimidating local officials.
B. The type of supply operation formerly carried on through
the port of Sihanoukville simply cannot be carried out without the
witting and active cooperation of a Phnom Penh government, willing
to extend such cooperation and, almost equally important, willing
to protest violation of its neutrality if any allied effort is made to
crimp such an operation. Thus, so long as there continues to be
a Cambodian government hostile to North Vietnam, the Sihanouk-
ville route is effectively closed to Hanoi. As indicated above, the
Laos route has at least the theoretical capability to handle the
supply level formerly shipped through Sihanoukville, but even under
the best of circumstances (for Hanoi) the time required for trans-
mission will be considerably greater, the process cumbersome,
and the inconvenience considerable.
C. The damage done the Communist capabilities by the
supplies in Cambodian caches and stockpiles captured by the allies
is very much a function of the proportion of stockpiled supplies
captured more than the absolute quantity. If .our estimates of the
amount or supplies stockpiled are anywhere near accurate, the
proportionate losses of food (52-88%) and ammunition (75-125%)
are already considerable, the losses of weapons (9-15%) rather
less so. Even a preliminary trial balance cannot really be mean-
ingfully drawn in this area until current operations are completed.
Approved For Release 2004/12/02 : CIA-RDP80R01720R000600070035-7
 Approved Forlease 2~flIA-RDP80R0172qp00600070035-7
Assuming continued Soviet and Chinese aid at present levels, Hanoi
will certainly have the raw capability to replace these lost supplies,
but doing so will be a lengthy and arduous task. Given the North
Vietnamese style of fighting (i. e. the tactical reliance on pre-
positioned stockpiles outlined above), major stockpile losses will
put a severe crimp in any contemplated major military operations
in the near term future. In north Laos, the fact that most of the
Communists' forward stockpiles were captured during friendly
operations last summer appears to be a major reason why the
Communist offensive, that got off to such. a brisk start in
February 1970, stalled dead in its tracks in early March. If
the north Laos situation can be recreated on a larger scale in
Cambodia, Communist operations in lower South Vietnam over
at least the next few months should be severely hampered.
D. The impact of current operations on the sanctuary
issue hinges very much on whether or not after 1 July (when
U. S. forces have been withdrawn) the Communists have to cope
with continued aerial harassment and the threat of future ground
attacks. If not, then the Cambodian sanctuaries will probably
soon resume their former role and utility. If Hanoi finds itself
compelled to accept the fact that its Cambodian bases have per-
manently lost their sanctuary status, however, the Communists
will .have to make major strategic and. tactical adjustments. In
fact, under such circumstances Hanoi will have to develop a
new style of fighting the war. We have great respect for the
Vietnamese Communists' resiliency, determination and ingenuity,
but the need to develop a. new style of fighting would clearly pose
them a very major problem to chew on.
DCI/SAVA/GACarver: taw: 15June70
Orig. - David Packard
1 - The Director
1 - Mr. Hintz
1 - Paul Oostmeyer
j,,,h'="-GAC Chrono
1 - Cambodia - Political - Sensitive
Approved For Release 2004/12/02 : CIA-RDP80R01720R000600070035-7
0, P ~~FT