1963 in the Vietnam War: Difference between revisions

'''{{flag|South Vietnam}}'''<br>'''{{flagu|United States}}'''<br>{{flagicon|Laos|1952}} [[Kingdom of Laos]]<br>{{flag|Republic of China}}

| casualties1 = US: 122 killed<ref name=United>{{cite web|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics|title=Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics|date=15 August 2016 |publisher=National Archives|accessdate=10 October 2021}}</ref><br> South Vietnam: 5,665 killed

;January 2 January

The [[Battle of Ap Bac]] was the first major combat victory by the VC against the ARVN and U.S. forces. The battle took place near the hamlet of [[Ap Bac]], {{convert|65|km|mi|abbr=on}} southwest of [[Saigon]] in the [[Mekong Delta]]. Forces of the ARVN [[7th Division (South Vietnam)|7th Division]], equipped with [[M113 armored personnel carrier]]s (APCs) and artillery and supported by U.S. helicopters, confronted entrenched elements of the VC 261st and 514th Battalions. The heavily outnumbered VC killed 83 ARVN and three American advisers and shot down five helicopters for the loss of 18 killed. The VC, after several defeats in the Delta, had devised tactics to combat American helicopters and armored vehicles.<ref name=Sheehan>{{cite book|last=Sheehan|first=Neil|title=A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam|publisher=Vintage Books|year=1988|isbn=0-679-72414-1}}</ref>{{rp|207-8207–8}} U.S. [[Military Assistance Command, Vietnam]] (MACV) Commander General [[Paul D. Harkins]] declared the battle a victory for ARVN because the VC had abandoned the battlefield. American adviser Lieutenant Colonel [[John Paul Vann]] who observed and directed the battle from a small airplane, called it a "miserable damn performance" by ARVN because the VC escaped after inflicting heavy casualties.<ref name=Sheehan/>{{rp|203–65}}

; 29 to 11 January

StateAt Departmentthe officerend [[Roger Hilsman]], who had counterinsurgency experience in World War II, said afterof a visit to South Vietnam that[[United "thingsStates areIndo-Pacific goingCommand|CINCPAC]] muchAdmiral better[[Harry thanD. theyFelt]] werestated athat yearthe VC ago"face butinevitable defeat"not nearlyand sothe wellSouth asVietnamese [General]were Harkinsgoing andto otherswin mightthe suggestwar."<ref name=BuzzancoDaugherty>{{cite book|last=BuzzancoDaugherty|first=RobertLeo|title=MastersThe ofVietnam War: MilitaryDay Dissentby and Politics in the Vietnam EraDay|publisher=CambridgeChartwell UniversityBooks, PressInc.|year=19962002|isbn=0978-521-48046-90785828570}}</ref>{{rp|13627}}

Army [[Chief of Staff]] General [[Earle Wheeler]] returned to Washington after heading a delegation of senior U.S. military officers to South Vietnam. Wheeler's report was highly optimistic. "The situation in South Vietnam has been reoriented, in the space of a year and a half, from a circumstance of near desperation to a condition where victory is now a hopeful prospect." Wheeler commented that press reports about the Battle of Ap Bac had caused "great harm...Public and Congressional opinion in the United States has been influenced toward thinking that the war effort in Vietnam is misguided, lacking in drive, and flouts the counsel of United States advisers. Doubts have been raised as to the courage, the training, the determination and dedication of the Vietnamese armed forces."<ref name=Sheehan/>{{rp|303-4303–4}}<ref>FRUS, 1961-1963, Vol. 3, Vietnam, January – August 1963</ref>

U.S. Army adviser Colonel Daniel B. Porter reported to General Harkins from the field that "In many operations against areas of hamlets which are considered to be hard-core VC strongholds, all possibility of surprise is lost by prolonged air strikes and artillery bombardments prior to the landing or movement of troops into the area... The innocent women, children and old people bear the brunt of such bombardments."<ref name=Krepinevich>{{cite book|last=Krepinevich|first=Andrew|title=The Army and Vietnam|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|year=1986|isbn=978-0801836572}}</ref>{{rp|81-281–2}}

In an issue of ''[[ARMY Magazine]]'' devoted to guerrilla warfare a letter to the editor explained the U.S. army's lack of attention to counterinsurgency. "The whole field of guerrilla operations was the burial place for the future of any officer who was sincerely interested in the development and application of guerrilla war. The conventionally trained officer appears to feel that guerrilla operations are beneath his dignity...<ref name=Nagl>{{cite book|last=Nagl|first=John|title=Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=2002|isbn=978-0226567709}}</ref>{{rp|139}}

Colonel Wilbur Wilson reported that the promising Buon Enao [[Civilian Irregular Defense Group]] (CIDG) project was in danger. The South Vietnamese government was confiscating weapons from the [[Degar|Montagnard]] self-defense forces created and armed by the CIA in Buon Enao. He said that "the effectiveness of the Buon Enao concept will decrease sharply throughout all the highlands" and "VC incidents will increase rapidly once the VC learn that...food, manpower, and freedom of movement can be obtained without combat." MACV did not respond positively to the concern and continued shifting [[United States Special Forces]] soldiers away from pacification projects, also called [[Hearts and Minds (Vietnam)|hearts and minds]] programs, such as Buon Enao into purely military operations against the VC.<ref name=Krepinevich/>{{rp|73}} By the end of 1963, [[Darlac Province]] where Buon Enao was located had "one of the highest rates of Communist activity in the country."<ref name=Harris>Harris, J. P. "The Buon Enao Experiment and American Counterinsurgency", ''Sandhurst Occasional Papers'', No. 13, 2013, p. 40</ref>

Prime Minister [[Phạm Văn Đồng]] of North Vietnam told a Polish diplomat that a Geneva Conference should be convened to establish a neutral coalition government in South Vietnam. Đồng said that the U.S. could thus "withdraw with honor satisfied" and that the unification of North and South Vietnam would be accomplished only gradually.<ref name=Logevall>{{cite book|last=Logevall|first=Frederik|title=Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam|publisher=University of California Press|year=1999|isbn=978-0520229198}}</ref>{{rp|8-98–9}}

John Paul Vann departed Vietnam for an assignment in the United States. Vann met with and briefed many officers at the Pentagon about the military situation in Vietnam. He was invited to brief the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] (JCS) on 8 July. However, his briefing was cancelled at the last minute, apparently by the [[Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]] General [[Maxwell Taylor]]. Vann's proposed briefing to the JCS was at odds with what General Harkins was telling Washington. He planned to say that the body counts ARVN reported of VC killed were inflated and included many non-combatants and that the indiscriminate use of artillery and air strikes was alienating the Vietnamese population.<ref name=Sheehan/>{{rp|332-42332–42}}<ref name=Krepinevich/>{{rp|83-483–4}}

A [[National Intelligence Estimate]] by the intelligence community of the U.S. stated: "We believe that Communist progress has been blunted...The Viet Cong can be contained militarily and...further progress can be made in expanding the area of government control and in creating greater security in the countryside." CIA Director [[John A. McCone]] had rejected an earlier draft which had been far less optimistic. He directed the analysts to seek out the views of senior U.S. military and civilian policymakers, most of whom were far more optimistic. The earlier draft had read: "The struggle in South Vietnam will be protracted and costly [because] very great weaknesses remain and will be difficult to surmount." The weaknesses of the South Vietnamese government were "lack of aggressive and firm leadership at all levels of command, poor morale among the troops, lack of trust between peasant and soldier, poor tactical use of available forces, a very inadequate intelligence system, and obvious Communist penetration of the South Vietnamese military organization. The shift in the emphasis of the report from pessimistic to optimistic has been cited by CIA studies as an example of distorting intelligence to suit the political wishes of senior government officials.<ref>"CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes 1962-1968" [https://web.archive.org/web/20070613042337/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/cia-and-the-vietnam-policymakers-three-episodes-1962-1968/epis1.html], accessed 8 Sep 2014</ref>

China's second most important leader [[Liu Shaoqi]] visited North Vietnam. He told [[Ho Chi Minh]] and other North Vietnamese leaders that they could count on China as "the strategic rear" if the war expanded. Between 1956 and 1963, China provided about 320 million [[Chinese yuan|yuan]] (about 130 million U.S. dollars) in military assistance to North Vietnam, including arms, ammunition, trucks, planes, and ships.<ref name=Chen/>{{rp|359-60359–60}}

The Joint Chiefs of Staff directed Admiral [[Harry D. Felt]], commander in chief of the [[United States Pacific Command]], to produce a plan for covert military raids in North Vietnam known as Operation Plan 34-63 (OPLAN 34-6334–63).<ref name="Moïse">{{cite book |last=Moïse|first=Edwin|date=1996|title=Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0UEnAnvQ978C&printsec=frontcover&vq=#v=onepage&q&f=false |chapter=Covert Operations |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0UEnAnvQ978C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q&f=false|publisher=The University of North Carolina Press |pages=4–6 |isbn=9780807823002 |access-date=May 3, 2015}}</ref> It would later become known as [[Operation 34A]] (OPLAN 34A).<ref name="Moïse"/>

South Vietnamese troops [[Hue Vesak shootings|opened fire]] on Buddhist protesters in the city of [[Huế]], killing nine persons and beginning the [[Buddhist crisis]]. The Buddhists were gathered to protest a ban on the [[Buddhist flag]] to celebrate the Buddha's [[Vesak|birthday]]. About 70 percent of South Vietnamese were Buddhists or adhered to related religions, although President Diệm, his family, and most of his close political allies were Catholic, about 10 percent of the population.<ref name=Mann>{{cite book|last=Mann|first=Robert|title=A Grand Delusion: America's Descent into Vietnam|publisher=Basic Books|year=2001|isbn=978-0465043705}}</ref>{{rp|284}}<ref>Moyar, Mark (October 2004), "Political Monks: The Militant Buddhist Movement during the Vietnam War", ''Modern Asian Studies'', Vol. 38, No. 4, pp. 751-752. Downloaded from JSTOR.</ref>

Returning to the U.S. after a briefing from General Harkins on the military situation in South Vietnam, [[United States Secretary of Defense|Secretary of Defense]] [[Robert McNamara]] was quoted by ''[[The New York Times]]'' as saying he was "tremendously encouraged" by the military progress made in South Vietnam. The newspaper article was titled "McNamara Says Aid to Saigon Is at Peak and Will Level Off."<ref name=Newman/>{{rp|250-5250–5}}

The [[Huế chemical attacks]] occurred when ARVN soldiers poured liquid chemicals from [[Tear gas]] grenades onto the heads of praying Buddhists in Huế. The Buddhists were protesting against religious discrimination by the regime of President Diệm. Sixty-seven people were hospitalized for blistering of the skin and respiratory ailments.<ref name=Jones>{{cite book|first=Howard|last=Jones|year=2003|title=Death of a Generation: how the assassinations of Diem and JFK prolonged the Vietnam War|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-505286-2}}</ref>{{rp|261-2261–2}}

In an attempt to resolve the Buddhist crisis, a [[Joint Communique]] was signed between President Diệm and Buddhist leaders.<ref name=Jones/>{{rp|273-7273–7}}

[[Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.]], a [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] from a prominent political family, was sworn in as the new [[United States Ambassador to South Vietnam|U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam]], replacing [[Frederick Nolting]].

President Diệm declared martial law. His brother Ngô Đình Nhu sent troops loyal to him to [[Xa Loi Pagoda raids|raid Buddhist pagodas]] all over the country. More than 1,000 Buddhists and others were arrested.<ref name=Mann/>{{rp|285-6285–6}}

The State Department sent [[Cable 243]] to Ambassador Lodge in Saigon stating: "US Government cannot tolerate situation in which power lies in Nhu's hands. Diệm must be given chance to rid himself of Nhu and his coterie and replace them with best military and political personalities available. If, in spite of all of your efforts, Diệm remains obdurate and refuses, then we must face the possibility that Diệm himself cannot be preserved...You may also tell appropriate military commanders we will give them direct support in any interim period of breakdown central government mechanism."<ref>''Foreign Relations of the United States. 1961-1963'', Vol III, Vietnam, January–August 1963. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v03, accessed 5 Sep 2014</ref> The cable was controversial within the Kennedy Administration as not all the major policy makers had been consulted before it was dispatched. Historian John W. Newman described it as "the single most controversial cable of the Vietnam War."<ref name=Jacobs/>{{rp|319}} After an acrimonious debate at the White House concerning U.S. support for a coup d'état to overthrow Diệm, President Kennedy said to participants, "My government is falling apart."<ref name=Newman/>{{rp|354}} Outgoing U.S. Ambassador Frederick Nolting, a supporter of Diệm, commented later about "the confusion, vacillation and lack of coordination in the U.S. Government." He criticized President Kennedy "for his failure to take control."<ref>Nolting, Frederick (1988), ''From Trust to Tragedy'', New York: Praeger, p. 132</ref>

The President of France [[Charles de Gaulle]] made a public statement implying that North and South Vietnam should be united and "independent of outside influences." The Kennedy Administration was immediately concerned about the impact of the De Gaulle pronouncement and acted to reduce its impact. Kennedy would say on September 2 that De Gaulle was not being helpful and that De Gaulle said, in effect, "why don't we all just go home and leave the world to those who are our enemies."<ref>Interview with [[Walter Cronkite]], [[CBS]].September 2, !963 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOGWTEgta_w&t=1132s]</ref>&nbsp;<ref name=Logevall/>{{rp|6-76–7, 45-645–6}}

President Kennedy had a televised interview with journalist [[Walter Cronkite]]. Kennedy said that, while the U.S. could help, it was the Vietnamese who had to win the war. He added, "I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake."<ref name=Mann/>{{rp|288-9288–9}} He also stated that "I don't think that the war can be won unless the people support the war effort and, in my opinion, in the last two months, the government has gotten out of touch with the people."<ref name=Daugherty/>{{rp|29}}

Ambassador Lodge cabled Washington his estimate of the current situation in South Vietnam: "It is worsening rapidly...the time has arrived for the US to use what effective sanctions it has to bring about the fall of the existing government and the installation of another" and "study should be given [to] the suspension of aid." A meeting later that day between President Kennedy and his advisers was indecisive."<ref name=Newman/>{{rp|379-82379–82}}

Polish diplomat Mieczyslaw Maneli reported to [[Warsaw, Poland|Warsaw]] and the Soviet Union that "Saigon is buzzing with rumors about secret contacts between Diệm-Nhu and Ho Chi Minh." Many diplomats in Hanoi and Saigon believed that Nhu, the President's brother, was seeking an accommodation with North Vietnam because he had concluded that the U.S. was going to remove him from power.<ref name=Logevall/>{{rp|6-76–7}}

Three VC sappers penetrated [[Nha Trang Air Base]] and destroyed two [[Douglas C-47 Skytrain|C-47s]] with [[Satchel charge]]s.<ref name=Futrell>{{cite book|last=Futrell|first=Robert|title=The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: The Advisory Years to 1965|publisher=Office of Air Force History|year=1981|url=httphttps://wwwapps.afhso.afdtic.mil/shareddtic/mediatr/documentfulltext/AFDu2/a100569.pdf|archive-100525-052url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200723054135/https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a100569.pdf|isbnurl-status=live|archive-date=July 23, 2020|lccn=978999884352380024547}}{{PD-notice}}</ref>{{rp|181}}

Secretary of Defense McNamara and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Taylor returned from a fact-finding trip to South Vietnam and submitted their report to President Kennedy in a meeting at the White House. McNamara and Taylor concluded that "the military campaign has made great progress and continues to progress" and that "there is no solid evidence of the possibility of a successful coup." A White House statement said that "Secretary McNamara and General Taylor reported their judgment that the major part of the U.S. military task can be completed by the end of 1965, although there may be a continuing requirement for a limited number of U.S. training personnel. They reported that by the end of this year, the U.S. program for training Vietnamese should have progressed to the point where 1,000 U.S. military personnel assigned to South Viet-Nam can be withdrawn."<ref name=Mann/>{{rp|295}}<ref>"U.S. Policy on Vietnam: White House Statement, October 2, 1963", https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/state63.htm{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, accessed 8 Sep 2014</ref>

Amid worsening relations, outspoken South Vietnamese First Lady [[Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu]] arrived in the US for a speaking tour, continuing a flurry of attacks on the [[Kennedy administration]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Howard |last=Jones |year=2003 |title= Death of a Generation: How the Assassinations of Diem and JFK Prolonged the Vietnam War |publisher=Oxford University Press |ISBNisbn = 0-19-505286-2 |location=New York City |pages=372, 385}}</ref>

''The New York Times'' echoed several other publications by urging that the Kennedy Administration not reject the idea of a neutral South Vietnam.<ref name=Logevall/>{{rp|57-857–8}}

The State Department in Washington issued a secret report titled "Statistics on the War Effort in South Vietnam Show Unfavorable Trends." The report said that "since July 1963, the trend in Viet Cong casualties, weapons losses and defections has been downward while the number of Viet Cong armed attacks and other incidents has been upward. A series of telegrams from Ambassador Lodge to President Kennedy was equally pessimistic, stating, that we are "doing little more than holding our own." The Department of Defense was furious that Lodge and the State Department were contradicting previous reports by Generals Taylor and Harkins.<ref name=Krepinevich/>{{rp|89-9089–90}}<ref name=Newman/>{{rp|419-23419–23}}

North Vietnam said that the Kennedy Administration had sanctioned the coup against President Diệm because he failed to crush the VC rebellion. Diệm had been too independent and Washington replaced him with a more pliable leader to gain control over South Vietnam.<ref name=Asselin>{{cite book|last=Asselin|first=Pierre|title=Hanoi's Road to the Vietnam War, 1954-1965|publisher=University of California Press|year=2013|isbn=978-0520287495}}</ref>{{rp|160-1160–1}}

President Kennedy's plans to withdraw 1,000 American soldiers from South Vietnam became public as General [[Charles J. Timmes]] announced the plan in Saigon.<ref name=Daugherty/>{{rp|30}}

Secretary McNamara met with military and civilian leaders in Hawaii. The assessment of the progress of the war in South Vietnam was much more negative than in previous Hawaii meetings. The plan to withdraw 1,000 soldiers became "an accounting exercise" in which the replacement of personnel was slowed down to reduce temporarily the number of American military personnel in South Vietnam. Of the combat troops, only one platoon (about 50 men) of Marines was to be withdrawn.<ref name=Daugherty/>{{rp|30}}

[[National Security Action Memoranda|National Security Action Memorandum]] 273 was drafted by [[McGeorge Bundy]] to reflect the views about the war coming out of the Hawaii meeting. President Kennedy apparently never saw the draft nor discussed its contents.<ref name=Newman/>{{rp|438-42438–42}}

The Central Committee of the [[Communist Party of North Vietnam]] met in emergency session to consider the implications of the fall of the Diệm government. First Secretary [[Lê Duẩn]] made a fiery speech saying "We are strong, while the enemy is weak...the strategy of revolution should not be a defensive one." Rather an offensive strategy should be adopted "to smash one by one the war policies of imperialism heading by the United States until its war plans are completely smashed." Lê Duẩn's speech won the approval of the members of the Central Committee who had previously been cautious about helping the VC and pursuing an aggressive policy in South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh, a moderate, reportedly removed himself from the debate.<ref name=Asselin/>{{rp|163-4163–4}}

Johnson approved National Security Action Memorandum 273 (NSAM 273). The NSAM affirmed the U.S., commitment of helping South Vietnam "win their contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy." There was one substantive change in the text previously drafted by McGeorge Bundy on November 21. Kennedy had previously agreed with South Vietnamese covert attacks against North Vietnam; the newly drafted paragraph 7 in the NSAM called for "prompt submission of plans" for covert U.S. attacks on North Vietnam.<ref>[[H.R. McMaster|McMaster, H. R.]] ''[[Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies that Led to Vietnam]]'' New York: Harper Perennial, 1997, p. 49</ref> Regarding Kennedy's plan for the withdrawal of 1,000 U.S. soldiers by the end of 1963, the NSAM said only, "The objectives of the United States with respect to the withdrawal of U. S. military personnel remain as stated in the White House statement of October 2, 1963."

The [[Battle of Lak Sao]] was the culmination of a Royal Lao Army and [[Forces Armées Neutralistes]] offensive to engage PAVN forces in northern Laos. The operation met stiff resistance and they were forcesforced to retreat.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Conboy|first1=Kenneth|last2=Morrison|first2=James|title=Shadow War: The CIA's Secret War in Laos|publisher=Paladin Press|year=1996|isbn=0-87364-825-0}}</ref>{{rp|100-2100–2}}

The North Vietnamese Politburo passed Resolution 9 which called for an all-out effort to "seize a favorable opportunity by massing our forces to resolutely seek to win decisive victories during the next few years." The strategic mission of the VC/PAVN in the South would be to "shatter the puppet army, the primary tool of the enemy regime, in order to create conditions that will allow us to carry out the general offensive–general uprising to overthrow the reactionary government in South Vietnam." before sizable U.S. forces could be introduced.<ref>{{cite book|last=Asselin|first=Pierre|title=Vietnam's American War|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2018|isbn=978-1107510500|pages=107-9107–9}}</ref>

[[John McCone]] Director of the CIA said, "It is abundantly clear that statistics received over the last year or more from the GVN [Government of Vietnam] officials and reported by the US mission on which we gauged the trend of the war were grossly in error.<ref>''CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes 1962-1968'' "[https://web.archive.org/web/20070613042337/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/cia-and-the-vietnam-policymakers-three-episodes-1962-1968/epis1.html], accessed 8 Sep 2014</ref>

One hundred and twenty-two American soldiers were killed in the war in 1963.<ref>"Statistical Information about Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War" https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics.html, accessed 8 Sep 2014<name=United/ref> 15,894 U.S. military personnel were in South Vietnam on this date, down from a high of 16,752 in October before the 1,000 person reduction in U.S. military presence was announced.<ref>''Pentagon Papers, IV:B Evolution of the War, Counterinsurgency, The Kennedy Commitments, 1961-1963, 4. Phased Withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam, 1962-1964'', p. 30</ref> The South Vietnamese armed forces suffered 5,665 killed in action, 25 percent more than the total killed in the previous year.<ref>{{cite book|last=Clarke|first=Jeffrey|title=The U.S. Army in Vietnam Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965-1973|publisher=U.S. Army Center of Military History|year=1998|url=https://history.army.mil/banner_images/focus/dr_clarke_ret_comm/the_final_years.pdf|isbn=978-1518612619|page=275}}{{PD-notice}}</ref>

{{Commons category|Vietnam War in 1963}}