Losing Vietnam (17 page)

The DAO and JGS worked closely together to prepare a revised FY 75 budget. Fortunately, the Defense Assistance to Vietnam Program
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allowed the JGS to move funds from one service to another, which facilitated the tailoring of a balanced force, although a much less powerful one because of the severe cutbacks. Understandably, the RVNAF was consternated, trying to allocate funds within a budget of about $500 million when it required $1.219 billion. DAO personnel worked long and difficult hours with the Vietnamese joint staff to develop a balanced military budget within the restricted funding. The JGS performed truly exemplarily in this critical funding exercise. Across-the-board service cuts were required, and a strong conservation program was necessary. The RVNAF's 28 August 1974 response to the budget is included here as
appendix C
. Vien stated: “The combat efficiency and the morale of the RVNAF troops will be severely hurt…. Even with a tremendous effort, the RVNAF feels it is impossible to operate with
such a small military aid fund
mostly during the period of communist readiness for a
possible
general offensive in Winter or Spring.”

He noted that the communists had replenished their supplies and with new resupply routes could quickly reinforce the front in South Vietnam with reserve divisions stationed in the North. He then listed
five possible recommendations for additional funding: put off the purchase of F-5Es, reduce ammo pipeline costs by resupplying from U.S. depots in Southeast Asia, reduce other set-aside items, cut off support of the Mekong convoys resupplying Cambodia, and increase military aid funds to $1 billion.

The JGS recommendation to reduce the ammo pipeline was, in fact, a DAO input that USSAG favored as having the best opportunity for immediate implementation to improve the funding situation in Southeast Asia. Most of the ammunition consumed by our allies came directly from continental U.S. production lines; that is, our allies were firing new ammunition, even as the U.S. stocks of ammo stored in Korea and Okinawa were getting older. The DAO suggested that the U.S. ammo stocks in the Pacific should be rotated to reduce maintenance costs and to ensure that newer serviceable ammo would be available for American forces, should they ever need it.
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The delivery time from Korea and Okinawa would be at most half of that from the States, thus greatly reducing the ammo pipeline and its associated $55 million cost. In October 1974 the Department of the Army responded positively and authorized ammunition to be delivered by the most expeditious response at the least overall cost, thereby authorizing replenishment from Pacific storage sites.

The last recommendation, a supplemental funding of $300 million—which incidentally had the support of both the State Department and the Defense Department—held out a strong ray of hope for the South Vietnamese. They believed this funding would be approved and thus provide them the wherewithal to carry out the war. The State Department reported that President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were pushing congressional leaders to remove the restrictive funding limitations. Although stated FY 75 requirements were for $1.219 billion, the RVNAF could, with strict financial management and some relief from set-asides, get by with $1 billion.

The new single appropriation strengthened the JGS's hand: it placed the staff in the position of determining service-funding allocations and establishing priorities. The joint staff was obliged to keep President Thieu fully informed, and he participated in funding allocations and was well aware of their impact on the services. Obviously, with the overall budget drastically reduced there could be no thought
of any major new investments, and the purchase of the F-5Es was put off. The Pentagon, CINCPAC, and the DAO worked assiduously to reduce the amount of set-asides where possible. The JGS had a very healthy attitude; it was aware of the effect of the reduced level of funding and was tightening its belt rather severely. In the backs of their minds, staff members were hoping for a supplemental appropriation in the long term and reductions in the large current set-asides in the short term. Its position was to shepherd its resources unless these were needed to respond to enemy combat initiatives, in which case it would use the forces and resources it considered essential. Although the staff had taken steps to reduce expenditures, it had done nothing as yet to rethink strategy and associated tactics required as the result of the drastic reduction in funding.

Once the new requirements for set-asides were finally resolved, they amounted to $117 million. Therefore, the net available military assistance funding for FY 75 was $583 million. In FY 74 dollars, however, FY 75 funding was only about $396 million.
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The military assistance funding in constant dollars in FY 75 was only 37 percent of that available in FY 74. Congress, Department of Defense procurement regulations, and inflation had created an untenable situation, which was obvious to all. In the
Los Angeles Times
, George McArthur wrote that the South Vietnamese had been put on a “starvation diet.”
⁷⁴
The ARVN combat capabilities would become weaker, while the North was becoming stronger. Without additional funding to procure the sinews of war, South Vietnam was doomed.

Adm. Noel Gayler visited Saigon to assess the impact of the recently greatly reduced funding. He received a thorough briefing at the DAO, after which I accompanied him on a visit to President Thieu, who was obviously disappointed with the current level of U.S. support yet most cordial. The president focused on two major subjects. First, when the more than five hundred thousand U.S. troops pulled out of South Vietnam, they left a tremendous void in the military's capabilities to protect its country, particularly since all the enemy forces had been allowed to stay in place. Second, the recent major reduction in funding was creating a very serious situation, which must be offset with supplemental funding. The absolute necessity for a supplemental continued to be a subject uppermost in the minds of senior Vietnamese.
These two subjects were the seminal events affecting South Vietnam's military capabilities. It was now well past the time for President Thieu to reconsider his “four no's.”

The RVNAF's main advantages were indeed firepower and mobility. The reduced funding seriously degraded the capabilities of the nation's air force and navy, which together provided substantial firepower and strategic mobility to the ground forces. The air force had to seriously cut back its force structure and flying hours. The original 1973 program called for 2,073 aircraft in sixty-six squadrons operating 708,000 flying hours. In September 1974, the program called for 1,494 aircraft in fifty-six squadrons operating 332,290 flying hours, and that greatly reduced program could not be sustained within the overall $700 million DAO authorization. As of 3 September 1974, the FY 75 air force programming level was $165.0 million, of which $63.5 million was for direct flying.
⁷⁵

The North Vietnamese complained about peace agreement violations when the air force attempted to upgrade its F-5s to the newer F-5E models. However, with the FY 75 budget crunch, the $77.4 million for the F-5Es was redirected and the VNAF was left with its older models. So, in mid-1974 a low-intensity-configured Vietnamese Air Force faced a mid-intensity-capable enemy—much to its detriment.

The JGS took immediate actions in late August 1974 to cut back air force expenditures so as to maximize their operating capabilities within the restrictive budget.
⁷⁶
They grounded eleven squadrons consisting of eight types of aircraft; reduced flying hours drastically, by 67 percent; withdrew those students who had not reached the final stage of pilot training in the United States; and considered eating into their ammo stocks so as to generate more flying hours.
⁷⁵

The severity of the reduced funding caught everybody by surprise. The impact was even greater because the air force had operated full-bore for the first two months of FY 75 and then had to cut back and shoehorn expenditures into a ten-month period. In July and August, they flew 108,148 hours, a monthly average of more than 54,000 hours, and expended $19.9 million. The average monthly flying hours for the
remaining ten months had to be reduced to 24,000 hours (for a total of $43.6 million), less than half the earlier number.
⁷⁷

The FY 75 funding deficiencies also required the DAO to eliminate U.S. contractor maintenance support. The air force was struggling to keep up its maintenance and supply. Because of the reduction in the types and numbers of aircraft and the availability of aircraft to cannibalize, this did not create an immediate problem; however, in the long term it would have been extremely serious. CINCPAC's message stated: “Equipment is certainly going to fall apart and disintegrate.”
⁷⁸

The cutback in available flying hours necessitated by the funding reduction was so serious that General Vien as chief of the joint general staff sent this message to all corps commanders: “The Corps and Military Regions will give their subordinate units a thorough understanding of the current limitations of the VNAF and explain that Air Force assets should be used only when absolutely necessary to meet their needs.” The air force was hit with a double whammy—fewer sorties and a more hostile air environment as the result of the enemy's increased antiaircraft defenses.

The funding cutback also seriously affected the navy. When the joint staff allocated only $11 million to the navy in August, we reviewed the situation carefully. There was to be no problem with navy peculiar ammo, since the navy was estimated to end the fiscal year with forty-one hundred tons, as compared with its annual requirement of eighteen hundred tons. However, the budget would severely reduce the availability of spare parts, which were essential for keeping the older fleet operating. The allocation was $8.1 million for the blue-water fleet and $0.7 million for the brown-water fleet.

Clearly, the blue-water fleet was given considerable importance. Unfortunately, the budget did not provide the funds for the activation costs and material support for the additional six tank landing ships that were to be transferred to the navy. This shortfall was critical. The ships were to provide an urgently needed capability to move division-size forces and cargo between various ports. In the 1975 withdrawals from MR-1 and -2, the lack of additional tank landing ships deprived the ARVN of the ability to retrograde several major troop elements, which were lost to the enemy.
⁷⁹

In summary, the army's necessity to conserve ammunition and
petroleum; the air force's reduced force structure, available sorties, and maintenance capabilities; and the navy's gutted ship inventory added up to a serious loss of firepower and tactical and strategic mobility—this at a time when the enemy was increasing its combat intensity. Not only was the enemy increasing its attacks by fire, but its ground assaults were division-level combined arms attacks accompanied by tanks, artillery, and more sophisticated air defense weapons. The situation would not look too promising when the 1975 dry season rolled around.

It is important to note that, according to a joint Central Intelligence Agency/Defense Intelligence Agency study, during this period of reduced military and economic aid to South Vietnam, communist military and economic aid to North Vietnam was higher (in 1975 dollars) than in any other previous year. In 1974, the delivery of ammunition to Hanoi markedly increased over 1973 and reached a level as high as that of 1971. According to this study, published on 5 March 1975, “North Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam, supported by record stockpiles of military supplies are stronger today than they have ever been.” But the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, like other stateside agencies and CINCPAC, could not properly assess the importance of this disparity between forces and concluded, erroneously, “The GVN's force will not be decisively defeated during the current dry season.”
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North Vietnam's communist supporters also increased their economic assistance in the same period. In 1974, their food and petroleum commodity shipments, for instance, were over four times the average of the previous four years. While it is always difficult to compare the exact levels of military and economic assistance, the conclusion that communist aid to North Vietnam was appreciably increasing while U.S. aid to South Vietnam was drastically decreasing was clear and as such had to be factored into the balance of military power equations.

In August 1974, the Headquarters USSAG staff prepared a study in response to a draft CINCPAC study addressing “RVNAF Future Force Structure Alternatives 31 July 1974.” Rather than comment on the level and use of individual hardware items, we considered strategy and tactics
in the light of the current situation and the available funding level to determine what was necessary for the RVNAF to best accomplish its mission—in other words, to determine the impact of U.S. funding levels on the strategy, tactics, and organization of RVNAF. We did exactly what General O'Keefe strongly recommended to General Vien that the joint staff should do.

The USSAG study concluded that U.S. funding of $1.4 billion (a FY 74 equivalent of $1.1 billion) was required to sustain RVNAF forces at a level that allowed the continued defense of territory and population currently under government control and that funding of less than $1 billion ensured the early demise of South Vietnam.
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The study assumed that
no
U.S. forces (ground or air) would be deployed in South Vietnam under any conceivable circumstances. However, to maintain the status quo, our staff held out hope for a major supplemental, that is, a total funding of at least $1.1 billion. At that time, all concerned—from President Ford on down: our ambassadors to Vietnam and Cambodia, our military establishment, and particularly our Southeast Asian allies—were hoping for a supplemental. The belief that Congress would authorize additional funding warped the decision-making capabilities of both South Vietnam and Cambodia until mid-March 1975, when it was too late to change the outcome even if emergency funding had been made available.