Office of Air Force History

Usaf Plans and Policies in South Vietnam, 1961-1963 Office of Air Force History

Publisher Marketing: USAF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam, 1961-1963, follows two previous studies prepared on counterinsurgency by the USAF Historical Division Liaison Office: USAF Counterinsurgency Doctrines and Capabilities, 1961-1962, and USAF Special Air Warfare Doctrines and Capabilities, 1963. This study outlines the role of Headquarters USAF in aiding the South Vietnamese effort to defeat the communist led Viet Cong. The author begins by discussing general U. S. policy leading to increased military and economic assistance to South Vietnam. He then describes the principal USAF deployments and augmentations, Air Force efforts to obtain a larger military planning role, some facets of plans and operations, the Air Force-Army divergencies over the use and control of airpower in combat training and in testing, defoliation activities, and USAF support for the Vietnamese Air Force. The study ends with an account of events leading to the overthrow of the Diem government in Saigon late in 1963. Because this study emphasizes plans and policies, no effort has been made to chronicle the hundreds of individual air actions in which USAF units participated. However, operational data for the 1961-1963 period is available in the appendices and in other sources, including histories of the participating commands and units, some of which are on file in the USAF Historical Division Liaison Office.