MEMORANDUM TO SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE DDO FROM WALTER ELDER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP89B00552R000100040002-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 66
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 8, 2001
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: August 26, 1975
• Content Type: MF

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Review Staff: 75/2679
26 August 1975
MEMORANDUM FOR: Special Assistant to the DDO
To prove that the world is circular, in response
to our request to the NSC staff to release the attached
documents to the SSC, the NSC is polling all interested
parties. We are one.
Do we agree to the release of these documents?
a6 z, /- & L -
Walter Elder
Assistant to the Director
Attachment:
ER 75/3958
Classified by 007789
Exempt from general
deciassif?cation schedule of E.O. 11652
exemption schedule 513 (1), (2), (3)
Automatically declassified on
Date Impossible to Defermfne
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NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506
175-395,-S
UN CLASSIFIED
SECRET ATTACHMENTS August 22, 1975
Mr. Benjamin Evans
Executive Secretary
Central Intelligence Agency
SUBJECT: Release of Material to Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence
Please inform us by close of business Wednesday, August 27, whether
or not your agency has any objection to the release of the attached,,
material, apparently originated by your agency, to the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence.
Jeanne W. Davis
Staff Secretary
1. Memorandum dated 6/ 11 /62 from 25X1A
2. Report dated 12/8/61 titled "Elements of U. S.
Strategy to Deal with Wars of National Liberation"
and attached memos from Mr. Bissel to Mr.
Bundy of 12/11/61 and Mr. Bundy to Mr. Bi s s el
of 12/ 19/61
3. Report dated December, 1960 titled "Limited
War, Part I"
UNCLASSIFIED
SECRET ATTACHMENTS
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
WASHINGTON 25. D.C.
11 DEC 1961
MEMORANDUM FOR: The Honorable McGeorge Bundy
Special Assistant to the President
for National Security Affairs
SUBJECT: Report of Counter-Guerrilla Warfare
Task Force
1. For some months a task force of senior officers, under my
chairmanship, has been discussing how best to ensure an adequate focus
within the U. S. Government on the problems of dealing with Communist
indirect aggression and subversive violence. The officers on this group
have included officials of the State and Defense Departments, the White
House, and CIA. They have, however, participated as individuals and
have not committed their respective organizations.
2. The result of our effort, unanimously approved by the task
force members, is herewith submitted for your consideration. I am
also sending copies to General Maxwell Taylor for his comments in his
capacity as chairman of the NSC Special Group, the charter of which
would be enlarged by the report's recommendations. Copies of the re-
port are also being sent to the State and Defense Departments through
their task force participants.
3. 1 suggest that after soliciting the views of the agencies con-
cerned you might well wish to take the initiative in submitting the re-
port to the NSC for Presidential review of the action recommendations.
RICHARD M. BISSELL, JR
Deputy Director
(Plans)
r SECRET
'`
12 DEC
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SF-:C r-T
MEMORANDUM I C?I;
cez ber 19. 196t
M. 111eb rd U. iaseU
I write to sckaowledge receipt of your report of the
Counter-Guerrilla Warfare Task 'orci. I have a-eked
Geaevat T,-4ylvr to conalder W report in the. SpecSat
Grroit , place this group incl .ies s+exior representatives of
the departments cohcernad. and wince the problem to which it
is acidrtcased is very nc .r to the concerns of the S?ecL;1 Grtrtxp o
I have vug eeteci to Gvner 1 eyler t: .t this may be at efficie ,tt
way of cox certing . recorxir, ndatlcu to the Natkc4aal. Lecurity
Ctutac#l, and the Prealdent.
The fr-s'tdi t h" ineac tcd to i:r.rth Cencral 7ayikr smd to =e
vtruug c cerzt for effective action in this area. an. I kn%.w he
would wazst xnt to cxprees tlda prellrninvxy egpre ;:tIon for the
v rk of y;Dur 1.Ck'"c-rce. You r{scy wieh to Worm vLiernbers
of the Tt.ek I ter; t e of this actin so that the large de. art :a?ta
cc~rtcer,.ed may aU kucw Caere the c.irreDt foctta of canal erz-
tion ita.
McGeorge Usuidy
CCs General 3'myior
Mr. f.lexia J x on
Mr. Gilpatric
Mr. McCoae
Mrtr. F.oatow
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ELEMENTS OF US STRATEGY TO DEAL WITH
"WARS OF NATIONAL LIBERATION"
Report Prepared By
Counter-Guerrilla Warfare Task Force
8 December 1961
Copy No.
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CONCLUSIONS
1 Serious Communist intent and capability to press forward with the
technique of subversive intervention, often extending to guerrilla warfare in
various underdeveloped countries or regions, confront the US with a critical
problem which will persist throughout the Sixties.
2. However, despite the clear consensus within the US Government
as to the magnitude and urgency of this problem, we are not yet organized
to help threatened countries to deal adequately with it. We have at our dis-
posal a variety of potential resources and programs for facilitating the pre-
vention of Communist subversive violence and for repressing active guer-
rillas, but these have not yet been harnessed by a unifying concept of
operations, high level focus on the problem, and greater impetus to the
development of programs commensurate to the need.
3. Such policies and programs cut across a wide spectrum of exist-
ing agency responsibilities. In particular, they will require concerted and
carefully focussed civil and military actions by the State and Defense De-
partments, AID, USIA, and CIA.
4. But there is no single high-level locus of authority and responsi-
bility within the Executive Branch to undertake this vitally needed concert-
ing of inter-agency resources. There is no present coordinating mechanism,
short of the NSC, which is empowered to provide the needed centralized direc-
tion of effort, and there is none which is devoting a significant share of its
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energies to the peculiar requirements of the guerrilla warfare challenge and to
its inter-agency program implications. Except for such country Task Forces
as have been constituted in specific instances, there are no mechanisms for
focussing Government-wide resources on identifying and finding solutions to
the unique problems of particular countries. Moreover, present Task Forces
for critical areas have lacked a source of guidance and support on the special
problems of preventing and dealing with Communist subversive violence, and
they have not always focussed .sufficiently on these aspects.
5. Therefore, the most immediate need is for adequate institutional
arrangements to ensure continuing focus on and attention to the problem at a
high governmental level. Because of its responsibilities in directly related
fields and because the agencies chiefly concerned are already represented
on it, expansion of the mandate of the NSC Special Group seems the most
effective way to carry out this function.
6. New arrangements are also needed to facilitate the stepping-up
or reorientation of existing departmental and agency programs to achieve
maximum effectiveness in those countries where the need is most critical,
and to enable us to anticipate future needs. However, action responsibility
for programs to prevent or counter subversive violence should continue to
rest with the appropriate departments and agencies. Most of these programs
also involve broader objectives. The preventive aspects of our diplomatic,
economic aid, overt informational, and certain covert programs on behalf of
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social, economic, and political progress in threatened countries are inevitably
closely related to the totality of US foreign policy toward such countries.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Accordingly it is proposed that:
1. The NSC Special Group, chaired by the Military Representative of the
President, should be given the additional responsibility of providing focus and
direction to interdepartmental programs for coping with threats of Communist
subversive intervention, actual and potential, in nations and areas abroad which
the President considers critical. Where appropriate, the Directors of the Agency
for International Development and the US Information Agency would be invited to
participate in Special Group deliberations in this field.
2. As a first step, the Special Group should recommend a directive de-
limiting and defining the new scope of its responsibility, to include the designa-
tion of the specific areas where subversive violence or guerrilla warfare is
either already a major factor (e. g. , South Vietnam; Laos, Colombia) or a
potentially serious threat (e. g. , Thailand, Iran, Bolivia). The designation
criteria should be rigorously narrow so as to focus attention and resources on
only the few most critical situations.
3. For countries or regions determined by the NSC Special Group to
be critically threatened by Communist subversive violence and approved by
the President for assignment to its jurisdiction, the Secretary of State in co-
ordination with the department heads should constitute inter-agency country
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or regional Task Forces in Washington (if not already in being), charged with
the development and review of integrated action programs to deal with Commu-
nist violence or its threat in their geographic areas. The Task Forces would
normally be chaired by senior State Department geographic officers at the
Assistant Secretary level. If the endangered country is in an active US Military
Theater of Operations or if the NSC Special Group determines that the military
aspects of the country situation predominate, the Defense Department should
assume the chairmanship. Members would be formally assigned and regard
as primary their duties on the Task Force. Task Forces would report to and
be under the guidance of the NSC Special Group on matters bearing directly on
Communist-inspired violence.
4. In countries designated as critically threatened, the Country Teams
should be charged with developing and forwarding integrated program recom-
mendations and with ensuring effective local coordination in the execution of
approved programs to counter the threat. The Country Teams would submit
their recommendations and reports through normal channels to the chairmen
of the competent Task Forces, who would keep the NSC Special Group informed
of plans and progress.
5. The Special Group should also be responsible for focussing increased
attention on those aspects of broader US Government programs which generate
resources for the prevention or neutralization of Communist subversive inter-
vention, e. g
Military Assistance Program (MAP), Overseas Internal Security
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Program (OISP), certain specialized military forces and covert action programs.
It should interest itself in the following types of problems, drawing on the in-
formational resources and special skills of the various departments and agencies
as appropriate:
a. The organization, equipment, funds, doctrine,- and techniques
required to improve the capabilities of designated threatened countries for in-
ternal security and counter-guerrilla measures. This may involve strengthen-
ing or initiating OISP activities, reorienting MAP activities to give increased
?
emphasis to the counter-guerrilla training and equipping mission, or the pro-
vision of new authority, funds, facilities, personnel and equipment for CIA
counter-guerrilla paramilitary operations.
b. Ways in which MAP and MAAG activities in threatened countries,
possibly supplemented by AID and CIA capabilities, can help realize the con-
structive economic and political potentialities of civic action by the armed
forces of the countries.
c. The adequacy of current appropriations., fiscal procedures, and
enabling legislation to satisfy indicated program needs, with possible requests
for new Congressional authority to permit inter-agency transfers of funds and
achieve greater flexibility. for counter-violence aid programs.
6. While action responsibility for programs related to preventing or
countering subversive violence would remain in existing departments and
agencies, it is appropriate that the Special Group be authorized to comment
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Dx .submit recommendations on the particular implications of such programs
.for the.critical problems of deterring Communist subversions and violence,
especially for the shorter-term purposes of winning local popular support
away from the Communists. The Special Group would provide focus on
counter-subversion implications of departmental critical area planning both
through its collective guidance to the critical area Task Forces and through
the instructions of individual Special Group members to their own area repre-
sentatives through their respective departmental and agency channels. The
Special Group would also review integrated critical area program proposals,
prepared by the Task Forces in coordination with the senior US field repre-
sentative, and would approve them for execution if they fall within existing
policy. In the event of inter-agency disagreements, or actions requiring
fresh policy determinations, the Special Group members would refer them
to their respective principals.
7. Once a critical area inter-agency program had been approved, the
Special Group would monitor its execution both through the appropriate Task
Forces and through the departmental /agency channels of Special Group
members. The main contribution of the Task Forces in the monitoring and
review process would be in providing collective judgments, by country or
region, on the adequacy of program objectives and achievements in relation to
the problems of preventing or countering subversive violence.
8. In view of the sensitivity of. covert action programs and the special
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procedures in effect for'. authorizing and reviewing them, covert aspects of
counter-guerrilla warfare country and regional program planning and execution
would be handled through special channels.
9. In considering action programs to counter Communist subversive
intervention in designated critical areas, the Special Group and Task Forces
should give attention to the possibilities for "offensive counter-measures",
as discussed on pp. 33-43 of this report.
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Page
I. Purpose of the Report 1
II. Elements of the Problem I
A. The Modernizing Process 1
B. Communist Doctrine and Tactics 3
III. Statement of U. S. Aims 9
I V. Recommended U. S. Strategy 15
A. General Observations 15
B. Inducing Needed Internal Reforms 17
1. Overt Program' 22
a. Diplomacy 22
b. Official AID Civil Economic Development
and Technical Assistance Programs 23
c. Military Advisory and Assistance
Programs 23
2. Covert Programs 26
C. Strengthening Capabilities for Internal Security
and Military Defense 30
D. Offensive Countermeasures Across International
Borders 33
V. Conclusions 44
VI. Recommendations 46
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 S E C R E T
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I. Purpose of the Report
Leaving aside the recurrent problem of Berlin, the primary problem of
American foreign policy for well over a decade has centered on the revolu-
tionary process going forward in the underdeveloped areas. Directly and
indirectly these areas have generated the major crises and anxieties of the
non-Communist world.
This report analyses situations in the underdeveloped areas where sub-
versive and guerrilla-type violence, inspired and exploited by the Communists,
now exists or threatens in the immediate future. On the basis of this analysis
elements of a US strategy are proposed for coping with threats of subversive
violence, including "wars of national liberation. "*
II. Elements of the Problem,
A. The Modernizing Process
The revolutionary process in the underdeveloped areas has consisted
in slow or more rapid transformation of the traditional societies toward
modernization. The forces and attitudes set in being by this process have
created systematic patterns of tension within the non-Communist world be-
tween its Northern and Southern halves; e. g. , between Indo-China and France,
Indonesia and the Netherlands, Egypt and Britain, Algeria and France, Congo
*Note: Krushchev used the term "wars of national liberation" in his
6 January 1961 address to CPSU theoreticians. In that address he pro-
mised full Communist support to such wars, which he described as
"struggles by all colonies and dependent countries against international
imperialism" and as "uprisings against rotten reactionary regimes. "
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and Belg(um, Angola and Portugal, Cuba and United States. These difficulties
have.. been heightened by the sober and systematic effort of the Communists to
exploit this revolutionary process for their own purposes.
The underdeveloped and former colonial nations have been undergoing
radical and fundamental change in their political, economic; and social struc-
tures. In many states the central governments have been weak and inexperienced.
They lack the attitudes and administrative machinery to meet the problems of
effective national unity, class discord, religious strife, tribal emnity, and
economic growth. They have been distracted by real or imagined indignities
from the past and deep compulsions to express themselves forcefully on the
world scene,' despite the inherent weakness of their domestic bases. Under
these circumstances, it has been extremely difficult, if not impossible--
except in a few marginal cases--to maintain at the same time the working con-
cepts of free government, law and order, reasonably steady progress towards
modernization, and a constructive stance on the world scene.
It is difficult to generalize about the characteristics of the moderniz-
ing process for several reasons. Historical and geographic circumstances
make every case unique and, additionally, no two states are at the same point
in the modernization process. Each has points of strength and vulnerability
which arise according to the degree to which it has moved forward in political,
social and economic modernization. The process of modernization is in-
herently interacting. A weak government, a situation of deeply unresolved
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class conflict, and a stagnant economy interact to produce degeneration. On
the other hand, the whole process can be moved forward by constructive im-
pulses from any direction. An additional variable is that the susceptibility to
Communist pressure of states varies not merely with their vulnerability but
with respect to their proximity to Communist borders and is.influenced by
current Communist strategy.
The only constant that applies in all cases where a state is being sub-
jected to subversive violence is that the Communists, in order to achieve their
victory, use an inherently destructive approach to weaken and eliminate or
take over existing military and official institutions. We, in contrast, in aiding
the threatened nation must seek to buttress and improve these same institutions.
Since it is easier to throw rocks than to fend them off, the Communists' task
is relatively the more simple, and the non-Communist world has the tougher
job in building and fighting to protect what is being built. Where a nation is
new and ill-prepared to meet the responsibilities of sovereignty, most essential
national institutions are inadequate or virtually non-exiset, as in the Congo.
Such states are very near the condition of chaos where a relatively small
number of Communist leaders can readily gain control.
B. Communist Doctrine.- and Tactics
There is little mystery about the basic strategy and philosophy of
successful Communist leaders in the underdeveloped areas. They have been
prolific writers and speakers, with a Hitler-like compulsion to state their
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objectives-and explain their methods with candor. Mao Tse-Tung and Che
Guevara are now widely read in both the Communist and free worlds. On the
other hand, in the heat of their battles for power the Communists are remark-
ably opportunistic and their "blueprints of aggression"have proved of little
value in forecasting specific tactics in a particular situation. Their long-
term aims of achieving and consolidating Communist power have however re-
mained consistent.
The Communists, working from a closed and virtually amoral society,
have a relative advantage over the nations of the Free World in mounting of-
fensives of subversive violence. The Communist structure is designed to per-
mit a minority to control a majority assumed to be dissident; and normal
Communist domestic control measures reduce their relative vulnerability to
externally stimulated acts of subversion. Put another way, the fundamental
social, political and human objectives of non-Communist societies render
them more vulnerable than Communist societies to induced subversive acti-
vities. This is an initial disadvantage we must accept and with whose conse-
quences we must cope.
The world has yet to see an independent state permanently elect to
go Communist. There have been "palace revolutions" which the Communists
have subsequently sought to exploit. There are also a number of so-called
neutral states now leaning toward the Communist bloc, but, as of today, it
appears that the Communists' most promising opportunity to expand into the
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Free World lies in subversive violence and guerrilla opposition to governments
which are not adequately meeting the political, social, economic, and security
requirements of their peoples.
So long as serious tensions exist within a threatened community, the
Communists can hope to develop them into serious vulnerabilities, which if
adroitly exploited, may arrest the state's forward movement and push it back
toward confusion. Serious political, social and economic tension can frequently
be created and maintained from outside of the target state. Economic pressure
and intensive propaganda are two obvious means to this end. In regions where
cities are few and far between and the economy is still essentially agricultural,
where the central government has not gripped and led the peasantry, a passive,
detached rural population, capable of being terrorized or enflamed, is the more
important and rewarding target for Communist political activity. We have seen
this situation in South Viet-Nam. Discontented urban populations may be the
most fertile ground for Communist activity if the country is in the uneasy throes
of early industrialization. Egypt is an example here.
A nation's educated and professional manpower constitute another
element of varying strength and vulnerability. The Congo today has urgent
and desperate need for citizens with legal training who can set up at. least
a rudimentary judicial structure. A few such men oriented toward the Free
World would directly influence the society and future politics of the country.
On the other hand, the Communist Party in Greece in the late Thirties and
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throughout the Forties drew a considerable proportion of its leadership from
unemployed and resentful lawyers, for that profession had been a fashionable
and socially desirable one for ambitious young men, and the country's govern-
ment and economy simply could not absorb them.
One of the Communists' most effective political warfare achievements
in the years since World War II has been to persuade many millions in the
underdeveloped countries and a disappointing number of national leaders that
our policy of preserving existing international patterns and assisting existing
governments reflects a desire on our part to freeze and preserve inadequate
standards and modes of life in many of the non-Communist states of the world.
The assumption that we oppose change and would prefer to see traditional
inequities preserved imposes a serious handicap on our foreign relations.
In underdeveloped areas where the Communists are able to exploit
various local tensions and engage in active guerrilla operations, such opera-
tions can in themselves further Communist aims in a number of ways:
1. A guerrilla opposing even a moderately unpopular regime has a
strong psychological appeal to a part of the populace because he is ex-
pressing in action emotions which they already feel and with which they
sympathize. For a government with democratic pretensions or inadequate
police or military power, suppression of guerrillas who enjoy marginal
support is a subtle and demanding political problem. Guerrillas logically
strike at the economy and the' basic social institutions of a country in order
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to weaken the government, but they are usually less in evidence than the
numerically superior government forces who swarm across the country-
side trying to catch them. Hence, the populace tends to blame the govern-
ment not only for any reprisal measures, but for their burned homes,
looted farm yards and lost occupations, without thinking-back to first
causes. The government's unpopularity tends to increase if its perform-
ance, does not guarantee security.
2. For the Communists, a well-disciplined guerrilla force is
.
also the core of an effective administrative instrument and differs main-
ly in poorer uniforms and living conditions from the elite police and
party officials who will manage matters if they achieve their victory.
The ability of a close-knit guerrilla unit to carry out assassinations as
desired and impose a suitable sense of terror and submission on any
popular opposition to them, fits neatly into the Communist theory that
a small group should direct and discipline the great mass of the people.
Guerrilla war, as the Communists wage it, enables them to combine in
one well-controlled figure a potential popular hero and an efficient
secret policeman.
3. The Communists have discovered, as many have before them,
that in suitable terrain the partisan fighter occupies the full and ex-
pensive attention of five to fifteen conventional soldiers and that, with-
out actually controlling provinces or regions, he can deny their economic
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and political support to the government.
The Communists have refined subversive violence as an instru-
ment of political warfare to apply it destructively to underdeveloped
countries in almost all stages of early growth. The inflaming of tribal
rivalries and religious hatreds, the disruption of amateurish but well-
intentioned efforts at local administration, and the murder of potential
anti-Communist leaders can prevent the working of even the most pri-
mitive government systems. If a government builds security forces
to protect its administrative efforts and to establish at least a semblance
of law and order, these in turn become Communist targets to be destroyed
or at least evicted from the more.critical areas. If existing social in-
stitutions become identified with the government and show signs of vitality
and strength, the Communists' efforts are devoted to undermining, taking
over or demolishing these bodies. For all those tasks varying sized
groups of armed irregulars drawn from disaffected elements of the popu-
lation can be highly effective. They can work from a base of general dis-
satisfaction with things as they are to create the popular sense of con-
fusion, fear, and, finally, resignation which the Communists require. By
terrorizing the peasants and defying the central government, the Commu-
nists can posture as the wave of the future.
5. The Communists are aware that subversive groups and guerrilla
units not actively supported by the population cannot long survive unless
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adequately supported from outside sources. Where such support is pro-
vided, a contest between a guerrilla force and a shaky government becomes
in effect a contest between the powers which are backing each of them.
III. Statement of U. S. Aims
American policy for the underdeveloped areas must somehow reconcile
the sometimes conflicting objectives of achieving reasonably steady progress
toward modernization, maintaining law and order, fostering the working con-
cept of free government, and encouraging the underdeveloped country to adopt
a constructive foreign policy stance on the world scene in relation to the East-
West struggle.
If these objectives are to be achieved, the pressures of subversive violence
must be stopped or at least reduced to manageable proportions. The govern-
ments, as they face these burdens, must simultaneously be enabled and per-
suaded to undertake needed social and economic programs and reforms which
will make possible a higher degree of loyalty to nationhood, social accommo-
dation, and economic progress. There is no firmer lesson in modern American
experience- -from the. turn of the century experience in the Philippines, through
wartime Nationalist China, down to Diem--than this: reform cannot safely wait
until the guerrillas are suppressed.
The principal US task is to locate, encourage and nurture those elements
of national leadership- -political, military and social--which show ability to
guide and administer the unsettled community and thus to create a measure of
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stability and' forward momentuam. In cases where the threatened nation has a
somewhat more mature and better developed institutional base, the task of se-
lecting and encouraging the elements of potential power is substantially simpler.
On the other hand, these nodes of power are equally obvious to the Communists
and will, in consequence, be subjected to a more concentrated attack. The
further along the hard road to political maturity a nation has travelled the more
flexible the program of assistance can be, for there are more and stronger foun-
dations on which to build.
At the same time the planning and administration of assistance become
more complex, and the possibilities of imbalance within the growing structure
increase, bringing new dangers of serious instability; e. g. , in Iran. Therefore,
an initial problem to be solved in coping with Communist inspired subversive
violence is to determine where the points of power and vulnerability lie at the
time in the nation under attack. Once this is done we can determine how to
strengthen those elements which most effectively support our objectives and
how best to ease the tensions which have created the dangerous vulnerabilities.
We require a doctrine which begins with a recognition of the revolutionary
situation we confront as clear-eyed as that of the Communists. And we require,
as well, an equally lucid definition of the US objective.
The American commitment of policy and of faith is roughly this: We are
dedicated to the proposition that the revolutionary process of modernization shall
be permitted to go forward in independence, with increasing degrees of human
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freedom. We seek two results: first, that truly independent nations shall
emerge on the world scene; and, second, that each nation-will be permitted
to fashion, out of its own culture and its own ambitions, the kind of modern
society it wants. The same religious and philosophical beliefs which decree
that we respect the uniqueness of each individual, make it natural that we
respect the uniqueness of each national society.
Moreover, we are confident--or we are prepared to gamble--that, if the
independence of this process can be maintained over the coming years and de-
cades, these societies will choose their':own version of what we would recog-
nize as a progressively representative and open society. We are also pre-
pared to gamble that the resulting societies will recognize the advantages of
economic and other forms of international cooperation with like-minded nations
elsewhere.
In the past there has been considerable and costly ambiguity about the
American objective. We have often assisted and subsidized governments in
states peripheral to the Communist bloc on the simple, but static grounds that
our own national security required that they resist Communist military pres-
sure. This cast of mind--on both sides of the bargain--slowed the moderni-
zation process and left our partners vulnerable to other forms of Communist
pres sure.
Moreover, we have vacillated over the years between a reluctance to inter-
vene too directly in the internal management of these states and an increasing
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sense of. alarm at the inadequate political, military, and administrative steps
that their governments have made to handle effectively their mounting problems.
We have no clear doctrine as to how our means of access and influence should
be applied.
In some instances our own representatives in the area have not perceived
clearly enough or early enough the opportunities and dangers in the developing
situation and, in consequence, our aid and advice has been ill-timed or ill-
chosen.
In addition, our government's freedom of action has been occasionally im-
peded by the more adamant sections of American political opinion which hold
that any avowed pro-American is better able to meet the particular problems of
his own country than a more independent leader with perhaps dubious socialist
tendencies.
Thus, we have seen conditions worsen in states where the leaders claim
us as brothers but reject our advice, and, if more progressive, popular or
forceful regimes replace them, it is all too easy for our enemies to make the
change appear as a diplomatic defeat for the U. S.
Against this background we now are attempting to shore-up the strength
of governments which face internal or foreign supported insurrections, and,
at the same time, we are using varying forms of influence to persuade them
to undertake or speed up overdue measures of internal reform.
This persuasion is a complex and frequently subtle business, for it must
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rest on a current diagnosis of the strengths and weak points of the state which
may be wholly at variance with the views of the government leaders. A natural
reluctance to acknowledge their own failures, a distorted view of their own
capabilities based on a long continued self-deception, and a gross misunder-
standing of their assailants' strategy and tactics lead these -leaders to disre-
gard advice of foreigners who, they feel, do not truly understand their country;
or, at best, it may lead them to postpone or to dilute changes that must be
radical and prompt to be effective.
Moreover, there are often real conflicts between the short-run interests
of a friendly regime and the imperatives of effective modernization. Reforms
per se mean a denial of previous privilege. Since the privileged usually possess
the power to promote or temporarily to prevent change, their carrying through
of reforms must result either from enlightened self-interest or desperation.
Where leaders can be persuaded to make timely and adequate moves toward
gaining popular support, there is real hope for political viability. Too often
governments delay until a real crisis is upon them, and their alternatives are
narrowed.
Various forms of rebellion against such governments are now widespread,
and the effectiveness of insurrection and guerrilla warfare against a shaky and
unpopular regime has been repeatedly proven. Where a government has lost
its basis of popular support, control of such an insurrection requires police-
state measures. If the rebels receive substantial outside support and
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encouragement, the government's task is further compounded.
The problem today is to establish and preserve the basis for progressive
political modernization, under regimes which effectively maintain their national
independence, in the regions threatened by Communist aggression below the
threshold of limited war. We must find ways to make the non-Communist
governments not only militarily effective against their ddmestic enemy but
politically attractive to a working majority of their people, and we must do this
in the face of a far too widely held belief that we stand against the forces seek-
ing change and progress.
If we are to move effectively against the threat of Communist subversive
violence against the weaker nations, we must see that our varied capabilities--
civil and military--aredirected toward practical and realizable goals, in parti-
cular cases; and the civil and military arms must be orchestrated with a full
sensitivity to the interacting character of the problem. In the face of this prob-
lem there is rarely a pure military or a pure civil action. Although each case
will be unique, it may be useful to fix on a rationale for such actions which will
make vigorous US counter-measures both feasible and acceptable to world
opinion.
While it is desirable to gain the support- of world opinion wherever possi-
ble, the final determinant should, however, be the effectiveness of the proposed
actions in furthering essential US interests.
Wherever possible, we should increase the effectiveness of our own
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resources by employing them in concert with those of members of international
organizations, such as the United Nations. We must, however, be prepared to
act bilaterally, or possibly unilaterally, in the event that we cannot readily
achieve a multilateral or bilateral consensus. Again, getting the job done in
time to be successful should be our main concern.
IV. Recommended US Strategy
A. General Observations
As discussed above, US programs to counter or preferably prevent
?
Communist subversive violence in underdeveloped areas must at the same time
bring about necessary internal reforms and repress the Communist apparatus
and its subversive activities. Where Communist subversion in a country is
being given direct material and human support from an adjacent controlled
area, it will also be necessary to consider defensive counter-measures to
make such third country support difficult or unprofitable for the Communists.
These three program areas are interrelated, as are the feasible
measures that can be taken to further them. The.blend of program activities
will depend on the assessed requirements of specific country situations.
Such requirements should take account of: (a) the magnitude or immi-
nence of the current Communist subversive threat; (b). the ability and willing-
ness of the Communists to furnish direct material, human, financial and other
support from adjacent or nearby third countries; (c) the competence of the
local government and its willingness. to undertake self-help and reform
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measures as prerequisites to multilateral or US develor_n.cubl.: aid; (d) the size
and efficiency of the country's military and internal security forces; (e) the
country'.s attainments in its modernizing process, including the literacy and
technical skills of its population, the competence of its civil service and
governmental social and economic institutions, and the degree to which its
economic resources have been developed; and (f) the homogeneity of the popu-
lation and their loyalty to the existing regime.
In view of the urgency of the remedial program tasks wherever Commu-
nist subversive violence is present or imminently threatens, all available pro-
gram resources must be imaginatively and skillfully employed to achieve a
maximum constructive impact. In the economic and institutional area, it may
be possible to supplement official and unilateral overt US economic development
and technical assistance aid by development loans and technical assistance
missions from international organizations. In the military and internal security
fields, however, it is probable that the main burden will fall on the US. Where
the underdeveloped country is allied with or friendly to the US, military and
security assistance may be furnished overtly under bilateral aid agreements.
Where Communist insurgents are being actively supported from an adjacent
third country base, due attention trust be given to the, dangers of escalation in
determining the kind and level of overt US military assistance.
Attainment of timely and effective results is, however, the main pro-
gram determinant in both the civil and military fields. Covert action measures
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should therefore be employed to supplement and reinforce feasible overt pro-
grams wherever the overt efforts appear unlikely to succeed by themselves.
As discussed below, covert measures may either be carried out bilaterally
with the host government or be unilateral US efforts. Bilateral covert
measures with the local government may be indicated to enhance the effective-
ness of overt programs and to carry out activities whose impact would be im-
paired, or which might invite escalation, were the US role generally known.
Unilateral US covert action may be required to bring pressure to bear on the
local government, its instrumentalities, or on private organizations and in-
stitutions to help overcome reluctance to adopt needed constructive change.
B. Inducing Needed Internal Reforms
In view of the reluctance of many of the governments and oligarchies of
threatened countries in underdeveloped areas to initiate reforms and help satisfy
the rising expectations of the population, we will have to devise more effective
means of combining overt civil and military with covert instruments to influence
governmental and other leaders to take the steps necessary for their country's
preservation and its progressive modernization. Our active participation in the
affairs of governments threatened by Communist subversive violence will be
effective in preventing their downfall only if we can directly influence the
policies of their leaders. Our programs in such states as Laos and South
Vietnam have involved our prestige directly and deeply, but have given us--
up to the present at least- -insufficient leverage to influence the course of
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events decisively.
This is particularly important and unfortunate in situations such as
exist-in Iran and in many South American countries where economic, social,
and political frustration of groups growing in strength encourages subversive
moods capable of hostile external exploitation. In cases 'like these the American
willingness and ability to enforce and assist in some tough structural changes
in the existing order. are the first condition for protecting the threatened country's
national interest.
In our desire to assure smooth short-run relations with transitional
oligarchies, we often tend to forget that they have no rational alternative to
going along with our recommendations, particularly if we insist on specific re-
forms as prerequisites to our continuing to provide them with aid. We must re-
cognize, however, the deepseated emotional, cultural,. and proprietary resist-
ance to any change that would lessen present powers and privileges, regardless
of how unrealistic and short-sighted this stubborness may seem when objectively
viewed. Hence, we must exert greater influence than in the past through more
concerted orchestrated use of the diplomatic, military, and covert instruments
available to us. Only thus can we speed up our friends' progress toward ending
social injustices and establishing political and economic patterns which can sur-
vive in the contemporary world.
In this process, hard-nosed realism may be more important than
diplomatic niceties. In leaning forward with the currents of history we must
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be increasingly prepared to risk the displeasure of governments currently hold-
ing power.
In bringing the needed greater influence to bear on the governments and
institutions of friendly underdeveloped areas, we have at our disposal a varied
array of overt as well as covert resources. The challenge-is to use them
imaginatively and effectively.
Before considering individual program capabilities, it is desirable
to note that vitalization of a country's political life and processes is quite
as important as introduction of the economic and social reforms essential
to meaningful modernization. Reform and enforcement of tax collection on
the basis of ability to pay, changes in land tenure and labor relationships,
more effective fiscal and monetary management, and introduction of the con-
cept of human liberty under law may have little positive impact. on popular
attitudes and loyalties if the people still regard the central government as a
remote and unapproachable alien institution not responsive to their ideas and
grievances. This sense of distance and frustration will be increased if the
electoral system is obviously rigged and if there are insufficient channels of
open communication between the government and the governed.
In many transitional societies, social and educational conditions are
insufficiently advanced to recommend broadly-based political democracy, but
.it is important that the mass of the population regard the central government
as a benevolent friend responsive to their needs and aspirations. There
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should also be ro9m for diversity of opinion, a healthy non=Communist political
opposition if possible, or at least channels for protest and means for redressing
grievances.
The post-war experience in the Philippines illustrates some political
and organizational devices that can play a highly constructive role in winning
the grass-roots popular support so necessary for frustrating a subversive guer-
rilla movement. Following the 1949 presidential election, which was widely re-
garded as dishonest, the Communist=infl uenced Huk guerrillas argued that the
only way the government could really be changed was by popular force. By
1951, the Huks had a guerrilla strength of 15, 000 and a mass base of about a
million supporters and sympathizers, mostly tenant farmers on Luzon.
Under Magsaysay's leadership, the Philippine Army undertook to win
back popular support from the guerrillas by holding a new and demonstrably
free and honest election and by inaugurating new administrative and organiza-
tional procedures to demonstrate the new Government's concern for the popular
welfare. The elections were held with secret balloting and freedom of ex-
pression and movement for candidates of all parties. The results were ac-
cepted as valid because a number of administration opponents were elected,'
and the people came to feel that the new government was their own, to be
supported against the armed rebellion seeking to overthrow it. By 1953, the
Huk guerrillas were reduced from 15, 000 to 300. Only 34, 000 Filipino troops
were employed in military operations against the Huks (as contrasted with the
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200, 000 South Vietnamese troops engaged against 20-40, 000 Viet Cong guer-
rillas, and the 150, 000 Greek troops that were employed against 25, 000 Greek
guerrillas).
Magsaysay reinforced his military and national electoral efforts with
an administrative innovation whereby any citizen who felt he had a legitimate
grievance against the central government, its local provincial officials, or
the military was encouraged to wire the details, at "a very nominal cost, to the
Philippine War Department. All such complaints were investigated without
delay and acted on as the facts indicated.
Magsaysay also initiated a program of community development in the
outlying areas to stimulate local initiative, assisted by the central govern-
ment, to find cooperative solutions to community social and economic prob-
lems. This supplemented and reinforced central government land redistri-
bution programs and other social and economic reforms. Magsaysay also
insisted that the Army seek to identify itself with the interests of the peasants
and use its resources to further social and economic development wherever
possible. These measures were communicated to the people by an effective
and imaginative information program.
The Philippine precedent. shows what can be accomplished by an
enlightened, energetic, and imaginative central government to win the
allegiance of the popular base from the Communists and thus to destroy the
foundations of Communist guerrilla. action. It is a pattern which should be
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implanted, with whatever focal modifications are necessary, wherever possi-
ble in other underdeveloped areas now facing the reality or threat of subversive
Communist violence.
1. Overt Programs
The Magsaysay program in the Philippines actually involved both 25X1C
guidance and assistance. The program was, however, made possible be-
cause of the personal attitudes and characteristics of Magsaysay, who
combined the qualities of a natural popular leader with strong anti-
Communist and pro-US convictions and openmindedness toward political
innovation and social and economic reforms. In other underdeveloped or
transitional countries under the threat of Communist subversive violence
where the chief of state or prime minister has similar attitudes and
characteristics, it should be possible for us to employ our overt foreign
affairs program resources to good effect in fostering and supporting a
Magsaysay-type program:
a. Diplomacy. Even in its narrow sense as the formal govern-
ment-to-government relations between sovereign states through their
diplomatic establishments, diplomacy can set the tone of inter-
governmental collaboration and facilitate the various forms of co-
operative association that may be undertaken. It is of great im-
portance in countries with transitional problems that our principal
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diplomatic representatives be able to establish and maintain sym-
pathic personal rapport with the chief of state and principal leaders
of the country. This rapport should be grounded on a deep under-
standing of the country's problems and traditions, but it should not
be attained at the expense of realistic objectivity toward the current
historical processes impinging on the society as a whole. If there is
sufficient mutual personal respect, our diplomatic representatives
should be able to speak bluntly and persuasively about reform needs
and to sell constructive proposals on the Magsaysay pattern.
b. Official AID Civil Economic Development and Technical
Assistance Programs. Well-conceived civil economic and technical
assistance country programs, staffed by qualified and effective
American personnel, should be able not only to advance agreed bi-
lateral project aims, but also to influence the receptivity of the
middle and lower governmental functionaries to institutional and
policy changes. As AID officers will be functioning in part among
the' population at large, the image they present and the ideas they
express can help induce a popular climate of support for construc-
tive innovation. This is the more likely to the extent that they can
help stimulate and channelize local popular initiatives into self-help
community projects and induce a sense of local responsibility.
c. Military Advisory-and Assistance Programs. In addition
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to their more conventional role in strengthening a friendly foreign
country's armed forces for defensive military and counter-guerrilla
operations and as deterrent force, our Military Advisory and Assist-
ance Groups (MAAGs) abroad have the opportunity to indoctrinate and
guide the local military forces to assume a constructive civic role in
the modernization of their country. Perhaps because of our different
Western history and educational tradition, we tend to forget that a
properly trained and utilized military arm can be extremely helpful
in advancing the national unity, educational level, and economic de-
velopment of underdeveloped states where such attainments have not
existed.
In the course of their training soldiers can become literate
and can achieve an understanding of national unity, self-discipline,
and obligation to serve the public welfare which the general populations
often lack. They can learn many technical trades and crafts which will
materially increase their value as citizens of the developing nation
when their military terms expire. In short, the armed forces can
often serve as stop-gap but effective primary and secondary school
systems while increasing their military effectiveness.
The military services' own need for improved communi-
cations, transportation lines, and general construction is but a part
of their country's more general need for the same facilities.. In
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addition. to satisfying purely military needs, the local armed services
can be effectively employed, if there is forethought and planning, to
construct needed civil roads, telephone lines, and airfields which
would serve the general population in time of peace and increase the
defensive military capability in the event of civil disturbances or
external aggression. Much as done in the US by our own Army
Engineers, the local armed services can also help improve the lot
of the farmers and the general population through flood-control,
crop-spraying, irrigation, and reclamation projects.
A conscious program of troop indoctrination and military-
civil relations projects can also reinforce the material civil contri-
butions of the armed forces by increasing the sense of identification
between the outlying civil population and the country's national
governmental impetus toward economic and social advancement and
national solidarity as personified by the armed forces. As the mem-
bers of the armed forces will probably be drawn from all parts of the
country, a military-civil relations program, including social and
hospitality activities, can help break down inter-tribal and inter-
regional prejudices and increase popular loyalty to the nation and its
government.
A broad approach by the military toward meeting civil re-
quirements will directly assist in easing the tensions and strains of
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early national growth and bring the army of the central government
and the people into a new and more constructive relationship. The
constructive potential of the local military is thus one of the greatest
unexploited assets of the non-Communist world. This is in striking
contrast with the pattern that has too often prevailed where senior
military officers in underdeveloped states have grossly misused
their power and their relatively advanced educational backgrounds
to warp and retard civil government.
Achievement of a constructive military-civil relationship
will not only substantially further modernization and lessen the
popular civil vulnerability to subversive Communist appeals, but
also greatly strengthen the capabilities of the military forces in
actively combatting Communist -inspired subversive violence and
guerrilla warfare; deprived of logistical, recruiting, and intelligence
support from the countryside, the guerrillas will be forced on the
defensive.
An imaginative and broad-gauge MAAG program along these
lines can assuredly pay big dividends if the local government is at all
responsive to such ideas.
2. Covert Programs
As previously noted, a general problem in threatened under-
developed countries is that of developing and strengthening the basic
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governmental and social institutions that are prerequisites to moderniza-
tion. In some cases, as in the Congo, the local leadership is responsive
to the need for change but lacks the background and competence to take
needed steps on its own initiative. In other cases, a frustrating and
exasperating problem in countries severely threatened by Communist
political and military subversion and plagued by outmoded political,
economic, and social systems is the reluctance--bordering on blind
obstinacy- -of the governmental leaders to admit the need for reform or
to take effective initiatives to this end.
In both cases, the traditional and internationally accepted tools
of government-to-government diplomacy and bilateral or multilateral
economic, public administration, and military aid programs--dependent
as they are on acceptance by the local government, or in the Congo by
international opinion--are unlikely by themselves to provide the guidance
or to achieve the reforms essential to winning broadly-based popular
support for the national regime and thus undercutting the basis for Commu-
nist strength and influence. In such situations, the broad range of covert
action measures available to us offers our best and only chance of increas-
ing our leverage and achieving needed changes in time to frustrate Commu-
nist ambitions, short of an open and costly military confrontation.
In the first instance, the problem is to demonstrate to the popu-
lation at large that there is a constructive impetus for progress alternative
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to the Communist prescription for solving their problems and meeting their
aspirations. To these ends, supplementing official US governmental efforts,
there is the need to strengthen the influence and effectiveness of those ele-
ments of the government, the political parties, social institutions, and
public information media that favor non-Communist development and re-
forms. It is often the case that the personalities, groups, and infor-
mation media that favor such ideas and have a potentially wide popular
appeal lack both the resources and the know-how to ;compete effectively
with either the subsidized instrumentalities of the regime or the well-
financed and centrally-directed agitators and fronts of the Communists.
It would clearly be contrary to US diplomatic tradition and ac-
cepted international practices for a US Mission openly or attributably
to subsidize and advise elements of the incumbent government not fully
in sympathy with local policies, or likewise to assist parties and influential
persons in active opposition outside the government. The open identifica-
tion of such persons and groups with the US would also materially lessen
their appeal and persuasiveness. Experience has amply shown, however,
that through suitable covert operational methodology it is possible with
minimal risk significantly to increase the effectiveness of such leaders,
political parties, institutional groups, and information media, either to
strengthen governmental institutions or to induce changes in govern-
mental policies. This may involve the use as funding and guidance
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25X1 C
Through such covert measures, it is possible to vitalize organized
and broadly-based political pressures on and within the reluctant local
government. It is also possible, by strengthening the non-Communist
voices and their organizational tactics in such institutional groups, to
wrest Communist control from the local labor movement, peasants' as-
sociations, and youth and student organizations. Equally important, such
measures can demonstrate to the people that there is active concern about
their and their country's problems and that it is not only the Communists
who favor progress and are prepared to do something about it. This es-
sentially psychological effect may be almost as important in destroying
the mass base for Communist subversive violence as tangible social and
economic advances, though these must not be too, long delayed.
Covert or non-attributable programs may also be used to good
effect in direct bilateral cooperation with the local chief of state and a
few other top officials. This presupposes areas of inter-governmental
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may also be employed to assist the local government in its own covert
political and propaganda activities to counter Communist influences and
to win popular understanding and support for constructive government
social and economic programs.
'C. Strengthening Capabilities for Internal Security and Military Defense
agreement for such activities. While such bilateral covert programs,
where the US hand is concealed from unauthorized outside observers,
are most likely to fall in the areas of , they 25X1C
Whatever their social and economic phlosophies, the heads of most
underdeveloped states under the threat of Communist subversive violence are
eager to accept US aid in strengthening their armed forces and their capabi-
lities for stamping out Communist subversion. Our programs in these areas,
particularly AID's Overseas Internal Security program (OISP), will normally
be essentially overt, although the operational security implications of counter-
intelligence and counter-espionage investigations and operations will limit
public knowledge of the US role in this area. This also applies to certain
aspects of counter-guerrilla training and techniques. It may also prove neces-
sary to draw on the skills of American personnel whose status (with CIA or
other agencies) recommends close control of their identification. But the
sum of such US aid is essentially overt in that the general fact of official
American participation will not be denied, although some details may be
suppressed.
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The most thorny policy problem for US military advisers in many
underdeveloped countries is to convince the chief of state that his armed
forces should be organized, trained, and equipped to deal with the peculiar
requirements of guerrilla warfare and subversion, rather than as a vehicle
for national prestige. In the nature of modern conventional. warfare and the
strength and quality of conventional forces at the disposal of the Communist
Blpc states, it is not to be expected that the relatively limited forces of an
underdeveloped country could achieve an independent capability for resisting
open external Communist aggression. In countries like Iran, however, the
chiefs of state often view their armed forces as reflections of their own
authority and prestige, and they divert funds from sorely needed internal
development and reform projects for a military establishment which neither
provides true security against external threats nor is suited for meeting
concerted internal subversion or guerrilla actions.
Experience in current and earlier campaigns against Communist
guerrilla forces in Laos, South Vietnam, Indo-China, China, Greece, Malaya,
etc., has shown that a relatively small guerrilla force can immobilize and in
some cases defeat a vastly larger conventional force if the guerrillas have
popular civil support in their areas and can maintain the tactical initiative.
Even where the rural population is basically anti-Communist and loyal to
the central government, Communist terror tactics can coerce their involun-
tary support.
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? Communist guerrilla insurgents can be defeated within acceptable
cost only by tailoring the counter-guerrilla forces to employ guerrilla-type
tactics and to keep the Communist guerrillas under unrelenting pressure. A
static area defense system whereby government forces attempt to seal off
the guerrilla's supply routes and simultaneously defend all strategic instal-
lations and communications lines that the guerrillas may attack leads to a
dispersion of forces and leaves the tactical initiative to the guerrillas. The
answer is not a larger defense force, whether local or augmented by US or
Allied troops, but a different system of organization and tactics.
Part of the answer lies in creating specially-trained and highly
mobile counter-guerrilla units of the police and the uniformed conventional
military forces. Such units should be prepared for deployment by parachute
or helicopter; should be skilled in jungle and mountain warfare, ranger.. .
tactics, and night patrolling; and should make full use of aerial reconnais-
sance and air tactical and logistical support.
This is unlikely'to be sufficient of itself, however, as long as the
Communist guerrillas can fade into the countryside and can be sheltered,
fed, and provided intelligence by their sympathizers among the civil popu-
lation. The problems of winning the basic loyalties of, the civil population
from the Communists have been adequately explored above, but there re-
mains the need for being as ingenious, unconventional, and ruthless as the
guerrillas in organizing intelligence. networks, effecting agent penetrations
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of the guerrilla bands, and employing fair means and foul for locating and
destroying the guerrilla units and their members.
The selling of this kind of counter-guerrilla doctrine to the threatened
countries' military leaders and helping them put it into effect are the main
strictly military tasks for our MAAGs and their associates in actively counter-
ing Communist guerrilla warfare within threatened countries. AID's OISP
activities are equally important in strengthening the capabilities of the civil
police for detecting and preventing or repressing other forms of Communist
subversive violence. ?
D. Offensive Countermeasures Across International Borders
In reviewing the problems, resources, and kinds of action avail-
able to us to negate the threat Communist subversive violence in underde-
veloped countries, we have hitherto dealt only with programs that affect
the causes and manifestations of such violence in the threatened countries
themselves. As previously noted, however, the Communist ability to mount
and support subversive violence often depends on their control of an adjacent
country which serves as a base of operations, a source of logistical and
guerrilla troop replacement support, and a safe-haven for guerrilla forces
if the pressure on them becomes too great at the scene of operations in the
threatened country. Unless some feasible and acceptable means can be
found to retaliate against the Communist-controlled third country from which
subversive violence in a threatened non-Communist country is being mounted,
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of the guerrilla bands, and employing fair means and foul for locating and
destroying the guerrilla units and their members.
The selling of this kind of counter-guerrilla doctrine to the threatened
countries' military leaders and helping them put it into effect are the main
strictly military tasks for our MAAGs and their associates in actively counter-
ing Communist guerrilla warfare within threatened countries. AID's OISP
activities are equally important in strengthening the capabilities of the civil
police for detecting and preventing or repressing other forms of Communist
subversye violence. ?
D: Offensive Countermeasures Across International Borders
In reviewing the problems, resources, and kinds of action avail-
able to us to negate the threat Communist subversive violence in underde-
veloped countries, we have hitherto dealt only with programs that affect
the causes and manifestations of such violence in the threatened countries
themselves. As previously noted, however, the Communist ability to mount
and support subversive violence often depends on their control of an adjacent
country which serves as a base of operations, a source of logistical and
guerrilla troop replacement support, and a safe-haven for guerrilla forces
if the pressure on them becomes too great at the scene of operations in the
threatened country. Unless some feasible and acceptable means can be
found to retaliate against the Communist-controlled third country from which
subversive violence in a threatened non-Communist country is being mounted,
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we are faced with the patently unjust situation that the physical destruction
and human misery stemming from actions to counter the Communist threat
will be limited to the soil of the victim. The situation also places us in the
militarily and tactically disadvantageous position of being unable to destroy
or neutralize the enemy's base and source of strength.
We have generally felt deterred, however, in situations short of
declared and formal hostilities between sovereign states, from carrying the
military conflict onto the territory of the third-:country. This, of course,
plays into the Communist pretense that violent upheavals in a threatened
country are of strictly indigenous origin. Our reluctance to take offensive
countermeasures, except for occasional limited and non-attributable covert
operations, has stemmed in part from concern lest an escalation and widen-
ing of the conflict result, and in part from strictures imposed by US ad-
herance to the doctrine of non-intervention.
The United States (and virtually all other nations) has always
historically supported the doctrine of non-intervention in the internal af-
fairs of other nations. It has occasionally been suggested that our vigorous,
and often self-righteous, public support of this doctrine inhibits us in efforts
to counter Communist subversion and Communist use, of violence, especially
in the underdeveloped nations, and that we should therefore consider some
modification of the doctrine.
The counter argument seems, however, not only to have more.
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support within the US Government but also to have greater validity. It is to
the effect that the doctrine of non-intervention, even though universally
flouted by the Communists, nevertheless is more valuable to us than to them.
The reasoning is that although the open societies of the West are less success-
ful than the Communist societies in practicing covert intervention while publicly
adhering to a doctrine of non-intervention, nevertheless the public doctrine
does exercise considerable restraint on the Communists. Since it is alleged
that the Communists, if unrestrained, would have a vastly greater capability
of violent intervention than the West, the conclusion is that the West can well
afford to accept a greater restraint on the use of its lesser capability in order
to maintain a greater degree of restraint on the Communists' very much
greater capability.
This appears to be the reasoning behind what might be described
as the cold-blooded case for continuing publicly to uphold the doctrine of
non-intervention. A more powerful pragmatic case is simply that this
doctrine has acquired such wide respectability and appeal that the US could
not propose publicly to modify or weaken it without paying an unacceptably
,heavy price. Accordingly, it is probably not worthwhile to debate whether if
we threw off some of the restraints we could not develop a capability fully
equal to that of the Communists. Realistically, our public commitment to
the doctrine of non-intervention has to be accepted as a fact of life.
Taking this as a starting point, however, an ingenious application
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and extension of the doctrine is proposed. It can be expressed in the following
propositions:
1. Since all nations accept the doctrine of non-intervention, the
US is going to treat the activities of any nation which incites and sup-
ports violence within another nation as a form of aggression morally
equivalent to the military crossing of a border.
2. When a situation arises in which this subversive form of
aggression is threatened or is being practiced, the US will generally
?
favor the use of international control machinery to halt it, provided
such machinery can be made to operate with full effectiveness.
3. If, however, in the face of clear evidence that violence is
being supported across an international border, the establishment
of international machinery to curb this type of aggression is opposed,
or the machinery is ineffective, the US reserves the right to employ
force (or to support the employment of force) up to at least the same
scope and level in defense of the threatened nation.
4. Any such unilateral use of force by the US, or with US
support, will be strategically a defensive action. That is to say,
its purpose will be to induce a cessation of the subversive aggression
to which it is a response.
5. Nevertheless, in taking such action the US will not deny it-
self (or its friends) the advantage of the tactical offensive, nor will
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it limit itself to weapons of the enemy's choosing. Specifically, it
will feel free . to incite and support violence within the aggressor's
territory and to use weapons in which it has an advantage, but will
endeavor to avoid major escalation of the scale of violence or sophis-
tication of weapons.
In the above form, this doctrine is proposed both as a policy to
guide the US response to situations of violence and as a rationale which
would underlie the public posture of the US. A's.a rationale this amounts
to an assertion that the US (a) takes the doctrine of non-intervention so
seriously that it is going to treat violent intervention as the equivalent of
overt aggression, and (b) recognizes the right of any country which is the
victim of subversive violence to practice subversive violence in its own de-
fense. It may well be asked whether this is not a justification for a declara-
tion of war by the victim of subversion against the aggressor. It could of
course, be just that. But the essence of the doctrine is that, because sub-
versive violence involves the use of force for purposes of aggression but
on a scale considerably less than that typical of a declared war, it is neces-
sary to recognize the right of the victim to use force on a similarly limited
scale in its own defense. It could well be argued that unless either this
remedy of the unilateral limited use of force or the preferred remedy
of effective international policing is available, then the doctrine of
non-intervention operates one-sidedly to benefit the nation that undertakes
violent subversion. In a situation like that existing between Communist
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Northern Vietnam and South -Vietnam, it would be difficult to justify to what
is called "world opinion" a declaration of war by South Vietnam as a response
to the guerrilla activity of the Viet Cong within its own borders. A declared
war would indeed involve a major escalation of the scale of violence as well
as serious danger of a widening of the conflict. Under these circumstances,
a persuasive case could be made to the effect that the doctrine of noninter-
vention should not deny South Vietnam a remedy against this form of
aggression.
As an operational policy, this doctrine has important implications
for US action in situations of the type to which it is intended to apply:
1. First, it puts a premium on acquiring persuasive proof that
subversive violence is being employed in a particular situation. The
test set up in this doctrine is that support is being provided and con-
trol exercised across a border. The aggressor country in such a
situation has always claimed that the violent resistance is a purely
indigenous revolution. Persuasive proof will presumably have to
take the form of intercepting communications or of prisoners who
can be produced in sufficient numbers or df captured boats, trucks,
or aircraft. If the support being rendered across. the border is in a
mild enough form (for instance limited to money payments), it will
usually not be worthwhile to try to invoke this doctrine.
2. The most interesting concept in the doctrine is that of the
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tactical offensive and of independence in the choice of weapons. As to
the former, the advantages of carrying the war to the enemy's country
are obvious. It is particularly unjust that the population which supplies
most of the victims in guerrilla warfare should be that of the victim of
aggression while the aggressor's people-and lands are untroubled. As
to the latter, it is indeed high time that we applied ingenuity to the
choosing or the development of weapons which involve no..mdjoresca-
lation in the degree of sophistication but in which for one reason or
another our friends have a relative advantage in a given situation.
For instance, small boat operations may be much easier in certain
situations than the infiltration of guerrillas into enemy territory by
land. We may be able to develop weapons (other than conventional
bombs) that could be used from aircraft with effects having some
similarity to those of sabotage carried out by teams on the ground.
Finally, although the doctrine as here -stated makes no specific re-
ference to covert activities, it has an important application to them. It
would lose much of its value as operational policy unless, in its aspect as
a rationale, it became widely known. Accordingly, it must be assumed
that, even if not in some official manner announced by the US Government,
public expression would be given to the rationale in various ways. This
would have two implications. On the one hand, it would permit the US to
support more or less openly certain activities which, without such rationale,
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can be supported only covertly. In this way, the vague disclosure of the
doctrine would permit the realm of covert paramilitary action to be narrowed.
On the other hand, the political risks of certain covert actions would be signi-
ficantly reduced, since a rationale for such actions would have been made
known publicly.
Taking these two implications into account, it seems likely that it
would still be desirable for tactically offensive actions, those involving the
support of violence within the territory of the enemy, to be done in such a
manner as to be at least officially disclaimable. The whole reason for limit-
ing the scale and technical sophistication of a paramilitary action taken in re-
sponse to violent subversion is to avoid escalation. This advantage is lost if
an offensive operation against the aggressor is conducted in such a manner
as to compel him to regard it as a formal act of war. Unless, therefore,
the enormous advantages of being free to employ the tactical offensive are
to be foregone, every precaution should be taken to make such acts symmet-
rical' in form, as well as in scale and technical sophistication, to the strate-
gic offensive originally mounted by the aggressor. This would usually re-
quire that the acts be disclaimable but, with the proposed new rationale, it
is far less important that they be truly covert.
Application of this doctrine to the problems of negating externally-
supported Communist inspired subversive violence in non-Communist
underdeveloped countries should be actively considered. Apart from the
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issues of the doctrine of non-intervention and the risks of escalation, however,
there are several other factors that should be evaluated. before undertaking
specific operations against a Communist-controlled third-country base. These
factors mainly concern the objectives to be achieved and the likelihood of at-
taining them without involving ourselves in implicit commitments that are
greater than we wish to assume.
Offensive countermeasures are primarily intended as diversionary
and harassment operations. They will serve as distractions and nuisances
to facilitate achieving a defensive victory elsewhere. The enemy will have
to deploy his forces both to contain these outbursts and to assure that any
resultant unrest does not become the preliminary to a serious liberation
movement. If an area where these activities are taking place explodes in
the Communist face, as did Budapest, we will have some quick decisions to
make on the pros and cons of exploiting the break, and we should be pre-
pared to do so if it appears advisable. But the concept presumes that the
operations will have achieved their purpose of diverting enemy forces from
the offensive long before the boiling point of true popular insurrection is
reached.
Here perhaps lies the main point of contention of the concept. It
can be argued that if the enemy leaders believe there is real likelihood of
their losing territory or being overthrown, the dangers of escalation through
their over-reacting to the threat will increase sharply, and the policy of
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offensive countermeasures will become almost unpredictably dangerous. The
other side of this argument is that only a serious danger of losing control of
a region will force the Communists to shift significant effort from other activi-
ties and that a succession of raids and minor depredations will not gain mean-
ingful ends.
If indeed offensive countermeasures are successful only as diversions,
and if the people of the region where they are undertaken cannot hope for the
sustained large scale outside assistance needed to push'through a successful
insurrection, those people are more likely to be sullen than rebellious. A
community which rises and fails in revolt loses its leaders and suffers
grievously. Once burned they are thereafter twice wary. No matter how
unpopular a Communist regime may be we cannot expect much help from the
people in fighting it if we do not propose to see that the regime is overthrown.
As T. E. Lawrence wrote of motivations in another revolt, "Freedom is a
pleasure only to be tasted by a man alive".
Under some circumstances in Communist areas, it may not be
practical to count on the measure of local support essential to indigenous
guerrillas even though they receive material aid from the outside, Hence,
many offensive countermeasures will depend in lame: part on the work of
specially trained men or groups introduced into the aggressor country to
operate on a largely self-sufficient basis. While these groups may some-
times work with dissident local elements when such exist, they will have
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few sources of information once they are in the field. This will place heavy
and exacting loads on indigenous intelligence nets already organized and work-
ing in the area, and great care must be taken to assure that these nets are not
compromised by direct association with the operating groups. The size of the
groups committed to operations of this type can vary from the single agent up
to whatever point the current risks of sharp escalation will bear.
Whatever the built-in limitations on cross-border operations, how-
ever, they may well be advantageous for us. They will offer the tactical values
of destroying or disrupting supply lines and logistical installations vital to the
Communist guerrillas and of causing some lessening or diversion of the
Communist effort. They may also demonstrate to the people of the threatened
country that its government, and such friendly non-Communist foreign powers
as are supporting it, are resolved to carry the conflict to a successful con-
clusion and to reduce as far as possible the human and material losses of the
friendly population. The psychological and political implications of this effect
should reinforce the impact. of our other overt and covert development and
counter-subversion measures.
The successful orchestration of the total strategy discussed in this-
report may be expected to win the needed grass-roots. popular support, to
facilitate the negative aspects of countering Communist subversion and guer-
rilla operations, and to achieve a viable basis for sound long-term economic
growth and social and political development.
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V. Conclusions
1. Serious Communist intent and capability to press forward with the
technique of subversive intervention, often extending to guerrilla warfare in
various underdeveloped countries or regions, confront the US with a critical
problem which will persist through the Sixties.
2. However, despite the clear consensus within the US Government
as to the magnitude and urgency of this problem, we are not yet organzied
to help threatened countries to deal adequately with it. We have at our dis-
posal a variety of potential resources and programs for facilitating the pre-
vention of Communist subversive violence and for repressing active guer-
rillas, but these have not yet been harnessed by a unifying concept of
operations, high level focus on the problem, and greater impetus to the
development of programs commensurate to the need.
3. Such policies and programs cut across a wide spectrum of exist-
ing agency responsibilities. In particular, they will require concerted and
carefully focussed civil and military actions by the State and Defense De-
partments, AID, USIA, and CIA.
4. But there is no single high-level locus of authority and responsi-
bility within the Executive Branch to undertake this vitally needed concert-
ing of inter-agency resources. There is no present coordinating mechanism,
short of the NSC, which is empowered to provide the needed centralized direc-
tion 'of. effort, and there is none which is devoting a significant share of its
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energies to the peculiar requirements of the guerrilla warfare challenge and to
its . inter-agency program implications. Except for such country Task Forces
as have been constituted in specific instances, there are no mechanisms for
focussing Government-wide resources on identifying and finding solutions to
the unique problems of particular countries. Moreover, present Task Forces
for critical areas have lacked a source of guidance and support on the special
problems of preventing and dealing with Communist subversive violence, and
they have not always focussed sufficiently on these aspects.
5. Therefore, the most immediate need is for adequate institutional
arrangements to ensure continuing focus on and attention to the problem at a
high governmental level. Because of its responsibilities in directly related
fields and because the agencies chiefly concerned are already represented
on it, expansion of the mandate of the NSC Special Group seems the most
effective way to carry out this function.
6. New arrangements are also needed to facilitate the stepping-up
or reorientation of existing departmental and agency programs to achieve
maximum effectiveness in those countries where the need is most critical,
and to enable us to anticipate future needs. However, action responsibility'
for programs to prevent or counter subversive violence should continue to
rest with the appropriate departments and agencies. Most of these programs
also involve broader objectives. The preventive aspects of our diplomatic,
economic aid,overt informational, and certain covert programs on behalf of
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social, economic, and political progress in threatened countries are inevitably
closely related to the totality of US foreign policy toward such countries.
VI. Recommendations
Accordingly it is proposed that:
1. The NSC Special Group, chaired by the Military Representative of the
President, should be given the additional responsibility of providing focus and
direction to interdepartmental programs for coping with threats of Communist
subversive intervention, actual and potential, in nations and areas abroad which
the President considers critical. Where appropriate, the Directors of the Agency
for International Development and the US Information Agency would be invited to
participate in Special Group deliberations in this field.
2. As a first step, the Special Group should recommend a directive de-
limiting and defining the new scope of its responsibility, to include the designa-
tion of the specific areas where subversive violence or guerrilla warfare is
either already a major factor (e. g. , South Vietnam, Laos, Colombia) or a
potentially serious threat (e.g., Thailand, Iran, Bolivia). The designation
criteria should be rigorously narrow so as to focus attention and resources on
only the few most critical situations.
3. For countries or regions determined by the NSC Special Group to
be critically threatened by Communist subversive violence and approved by
the President for assignment to its jurisdiction, the Secretary of State in co-
ordination with the department heads should constitute inter-agency country
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or regional Task Forces in Washington (if not already in being), charged with
the development and review of integrated action programs to deal with Commu-
nist violence or its threat in their geographic areas. The Task Forces would
normally be chaired by senior State Department geographic officers at the
Assistant Secretary level. If the endangered country is in an active US Military
Theater of Operations or if the NSC Special Group determines that the military
aspects of the country situation predominate, the Defense Department should
assume the chairmanship. Members would be formally assigned and regard
as primary their duties on the Task Force..-. Task Forces would report to and
be under the guidance of the NSC Special Group on matters bearing directly on
Communist-inspired violence.
4. In countries designated as critically threatened, the Country Teams
should be charged with developing and forwarding integrated program recom-
mendations and with ensuring effective local coordination in the execution of
approved programs to counter the threat. The Country Teams would submit
their recommendations and reports through normal channels to the chairmen
of the competent Task Forces, who would keep the NSC Special Group informed
of plans and progress.
5. The Special Group should also be responsible. for focussing increased
attention on those aspects of broader US Government programs which generate
resources for the prevention or neutralization of Communist subversive inter-
vention, e.g., Military Assistance Program (MAP), Overseas Internal Security
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Program (OISP), certain s.pecialized military forces and covert action programs..
It should interest itself in the following types of problems, drawing on the in-
formational resources and special skills of the various departments and agencies
as appropriate:
a. The organization, equipment, funds, doctrine,- and techniques
required to improve the capabilities of designated threatened countries for in-
ternal security and counter-guerrilla measures. This may involve strengthen-
ing or initiating OISP activities, reorienting MAP activities to give increased
emphasis to the counter-guerrilla training and equipping mission, or the pro-
vision of new authority, funds, facilities, personnel and equipment for CIA
counter-guerrilla paramilitary operations.
b. Ways in which MAP and MAAG activities in threatened countries,
possible supplemented by AID and CIA capabilities, can help realize the con-
structive economic and political potentialities of civic action by the armed
forces of the countries.
c. The adequacy of current appropriations, fiscal procedures, and
enabling legislation to satisfy indicated program needs, with possible requests
for new Congressional authority to permit inter-agency transfers of funds and
achieve greater flexibility for counter-violence aid programs.
6. While action responsibility for programs related to preventing or
countering subversive violence would remain in existing departments and
agencies, it is appropriate that the Special Group be authorized to comment
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or submit recommendations on the particular implications of such programs
for the critical problems of deterring Communist subversions, and violence,
.,T
especially for the shorter-term purposes of winning local popular support
away from the Communists. The Special Group would provide focus on
counter-subversion implications of departmental critical area planning both
through its collective guidance to the critical area Task Forces and through
the instructions of individual Special Group members to their own area repre-
sentatives through their respective departmental and agency channels. The
Special Group would also review integrated critical area program proposals,
prepared by the Task Forces in coordination with the senior US field repre-
sentative, and would approve them for execution if they fall within existing
policy. In the event of inter-agency disagreements, or actions requiring
fresh policy determinations, the Special Group members would refer them
to their respective principals.
7. Once a critical area inter-agency program had been approved, the
Special Group would monitor its execution both through the appropriate Task
Forces and through the departmental /agency channels of Special Group
members. The main contribution of the Task Forces in the monitoring and
review process would be in providing collective judgments, by country or
region, on the adequacy of program objectives and achievements in relation
to the problems of preventing or countering subversive violence.
8. In view of the sensitivity of. covert action programs and the special
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procedures in effect for.:- authorizing and reviewing them, covert aspects of
counter-guerrilla warfare country and regional program planning and execution
would be handled through special channels.
9. In considering action programs to counter Communist subversive
intervention in designated critical areas, the Special Group'and Task Forces
should give attention to the possibilities for "offensive counter-measures",
as discussed on pp. 33-43 of this report.
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L Approved For Release 2001/09/04: CIA-RDP89B00552R000100040002-3
Approved For Release 2001/09/04: CIA-RDP89B00552R000100040002-3
 2001/09/04: CIA-RD?9BbONF1DBN 11A4 040002-3 [D SECRET
ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
SUBJECT: (Optional
FROM:
25X1A
EXTENSION
NO.
DATE
TO: (Officer otion, om number, and
building)
DATE
OFFICER'S
COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom
RECEIVED
FORWARDED
INITIALS
to whom. Draw a line across column after each comment.)
1.
r o
3.
4
5.
6.
,7.
18.
rv
ti
9.
GJ1
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
FORM
3-62
UNCLASSIFIMprove I:For
61 Q USEDITIO OUS
SECRET L -CONFIDENTIAL ^ SEE ONLY
^ UNCLASSIFIED
Approved For Release 2001/09/04: CIA-RDP89B00552R000100040002-3