Supporting the war: Britain's decision to send the Thompson Mission to Vietnam, 1960-61

Cold War History

Volumn 2, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 69-94

  Busch, Peter ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 34248072954     PISSN: 14682745     EISSN: 17437962     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/713999936     Document Type: Review

References (31)

1. Peter Edwards with Gregory Pemberton, Crises and Commitments: The Politics and Diplomacy of Australia's Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts 1948-1965 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992);
2. Gregory Pemberton, All the Way: Australia's Road to Vietnam (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1987).
3. James Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Indochina: Roots of Complicity (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1983);
4. Victor Levant, Quiet Complicity: Canadian Involvement in the Vietnamese War (Toronto: Between the Lines, 1986);
5. Douglas A. Ross, In the Interests of Peace: Canada and Vietnam (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1984);
6. Ramesh C. Thakur, Peacekeeping in Vietnam. Canada, India, Poland and the International Commission (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1984).
7. Arthur Combs, 'The Path Not Taken: The British Alternative to U.S. Policy in Vietnam', Diplomatic History, 19/1 (1995), p.57.
8. John Dickie, 'Special' No More: Anglo-American Relations: Rhetoric and Reality (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1994), pp.89-137
9. provides a good example of merely discussing Britain's role in Geneva in 1954, and then looking at Wilson's policy, leaving out the decade in-between. The notable exception is Ian Selby, 'British Policy towards Indochina: South Vietnam and Cambodia, 1954-1959' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 1998), yet Selby's study ends with the beginning of the insurrection in South Vietnam.
10. Robert Thompson, Make for the Hills: Memories of Far Eastern Wars (London: Leo Cooper, 1989), p.122.
11. Parkes to Home, 4.2.60, PRO: FO 371/152738. Moss to de la Mare, 17.3.60, PRO: FO 371/152773. See also: Larry Cable, Conflicts and Myths: The Development of American Counterinsurgency Doctrine and the Vietnam War (New York: New York University Press), p.186.
12. Despatch 17: Hohler to Home, 5.4.60, PRO: FO 371/152748. Record of conversation between Admiral Gladstone and Diem, 5.4.60, PRO: FO 371/152739. Telegram 142: Forsyth to Canberra, 8.4.60, AUSNA: A1838/333, file 3006/10/1, part 1. Many scholars have since made the same points as Diem. They usually add that the insurgents in the RVN had outside assistance, that the insurgency in Malaya was on a smaller scale and that the British - as opposed to the US in Vietnam - had ultimate control over the conduct of the anti-guerrilla struggle. See, for example, Richard A. Hunt, Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam's Hearts and Minds (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), pp.35-6;
13. Donald W Hamilton, The Art of Insurgency: American Military Policy and the Failure of Strategy in Southeast Asia (Westport: Praeger, 1998), pp.146-7;
14. R.W Komer, The Malayan Emergency in Retrospect: Organizing of A Successful Counterinsurgency Effort (Santa Monica: RAND, 1972), pp.78-9 and 85;
15. Yuen Foong Khong, Analogies at War: Korea Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), p.94;
16. Michael D. Shafer, Deadly Paradigms: The Failure of U.S. Counterinsurgency Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp.267-8.
17. Thompson, Make for the Hills, p.122.
18. On the administrative arrangements in Malaya and the responsibilities of these committees, see Komer, The Malayan Emergency in Retrospect, pp.78-9;
19. John Coates, Suppressing Insurgency: An Analysis of the Malayan Insurgency, 1948-1954 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), pp.84-5 and 116-19;
20. Richard Stubbs, Hearts and Minds in Guerrilla Warfare: The Malayan Emergency, 1948-1960 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp.98-100;
21. Anthony Short, Communist Insurrection in Malaya (London: Muller, 1975), pp.322ff. and 378-85.
22. Letter: Tory to Templer, 18.10.60, Papers of Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, National Army Museum, London (hereafter Templer Papers).
23. Savingram 118: Caccia to FO, 22.2.61, PRO: FO 371/159674. Memorandum of Conversation between Lord Hood and White, 21.2.61, FRUS: 1961-63, Vol.1, pp.35-6.
24. Harold Macmillan Papers: Political Diaries, Bodleian Library, Oxford (hereafter Macmillan diaries): 11.11.60, dep. d. 40, f. 98.
25. Minute: Macmillan to Home, draft message to Kennedy attached, 9.11.60, PRO: FO 371/152107.
26. Revised draft memorandum on letter to Kennedy: Cabinet Office to Macmillan, 25.11.60, PRO: FO 371/152107.
27. Minute by Ramsbotham, 2.12.60, PRO: FO 371/152108.
28. Gilpatric to Kennedy, 3.5.61, Attachment: paper of the Vietnam task force on 'Points to save Vietnam' of 1.5.61, FRUS: 1961-63, Vol. I, pp.92-115.
29. Draft memorandum of conversation of the second meeting of the Presidential task force on Vietnam at the Pentagon, 4.5.61, FRUS: 1961-63, Vol.1, pp.115-23.
30. 'Britain to join the anti-guerrilla measure', The Times, 12.5.61, p.16.
31. Telegram 185: London to Ottawa, 19.9.61, National Archives of Canada, Ottawa: Vol. 4637, File 50052-A-40, part 37.