Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part-V-B-3d.djvu/52

TOP SECRET :. To present limited initial resistance to external aggression.


 * . To make a modest contribution to collective defense of contiguous SEATO areas.

53. Encourage and support close bonds between Thailand and Laos and between Thailand and Cambodia, including such political associations, economic cooperation, and joint military planning as feasible.

54. Assist Free Viet Nam to develop a strong, stable and constitutional government to enable Free Viet Nam to assert an increasingly attractive contrast to conditions in the present Communist zone.

55. Work toward the weakening of the Communists in North and South Viet Nam in order to bring about the eventual peaceful reunification of a free and independent Viet Nam under anti-Communist leadership.

56. Support the position of the Government of Free Viet Nam that all-Viet Nam elections may take place only after it is satisfied that genuinely free elections can be held throughout both zones of Viet Nam.

57. Assist Free Viet Nam to build up indigenous armed forces, including independent logistical and administrative services, which will be capable of assuring internal security and of providing limited initial resistance to attack by the Viet Minh.

58. Encourage Vietnamese military planning for defense against external aggression along lines consistent with U. S. planning concepts based upon approved U. S. policy, and discreetly manifest in other ways U. S. interest in assisting Free Viet Nam, in accordance with the SEATO Treaty, to defend itself against external aggression.

(The following courses of action only, and not the regional courses of action, are applicable to the Federation of Malaya and Singapore.)

59. Accept the present primary role of the British in Malaya in so far as they are willing and able to maintain it, and collaborate with the British. so far as practicable. Rh NSC 5612/1