Sir Robert Thompson, Strategic Patience and Nixon’s War in Vietnam

Abstract

Counter-insurgency scholars have long been familiar with Sir Robert Thompson’s classic work Defeating Communist Insurgency, which combined analysis of the insurgencies in Malaya and Vietnam with advice for counter-insurgents that emphasised the drawn-out nature of insurgency and the importance of focusing on population security. While historians have called attention to his role with the British Advisory Mission in South Vietnam and his later criticism of the US counter-insurgency campaign in Vietnam in his various books, less has been written about his subsequent role as a pacification advisor to the Nixon administration. This article explores Thompson’s relationship with Kissinger and Nixon and his views on the war in Vietnam from 1969 to 1974. An examination of Thompson’s thinking on Vietnam in the Nixon years reveals a theorist whose optimism on US prospects there was based on assumptions about elite and public patience for lengthy wars that were ultimately misplaced.

Key Words:

• Robert Thompson
• Counter-insurgency
• Richard Nixon
• Henry Kissinger
• Vietnam

Notes

¹ Newspaper Article from Quan Doi Nhan Dan - Sir Robert Thomson’s War Views Critiqued, 14 Jan. 1970, Folder 10, Box 15, Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 01 – Assessment and Strategy, The Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University. Accessed 8 Aug. 2013, < www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive/items.php?item=2121510001>

² Andrew Mumford, ‘Sir Robert Thompson’s Lessons for Iraq: Bringing the “Basic Principles of Counter‐Insurgency” into the 21st Century,’ Defence Studies 10/1-2 (March–June 2010), 177–94, doi:10.1080/14702430903497809; James Pritchard, ‘Thompson in Helmand: Comparing Theory to Practice in British Counter-insurgency Operations in Afghanistan’, Civil Wars 12/1-–2 (2010), 65–90.

³ The one study that does engage with Thompson’s role in the Nixon administration (albeit in a largely narrative fashion) is George M. Brooke, ‘A Matter of Will: Sir Robert Thompson, Malaya, and the Failure of American Strategy in Vietnam’, PhD, Georgetown Univ., 2004.

⁴ ‘The President’s Guerrilla Expert’, Time 94, no. 26 (26 Dec. 1969), 16.

⁵ Huw Bennett, ‘Minimum Force in British Counter-insurgency’, Small Wars & Insurgencies 21/3 (2010), 459–475, doi:10.1080/09592318.2010.505475; David French, ‘Nasty Not Nice: British Counter-insurgency Doctrine and Practice, 1945–1967’, Small Wars & Insurgencies 23/4-5 (Oct. 2012), 744–61, doi:10.1080/09592318.2012.709763; Andrew Mumford, The Counter-Insurgency Myth: The British Experience of Irregular Warfare (Abingdon, UK/New York, NY: Routledge 2012); Paul Dixon,‘“Hearts and Minds”? British Counter‐Insurgency from Malaya to Iraq’, Journal of Strategic Studies 32/3 (2009), 353–81; Bruno C. Reis, ‘The Myth of British Minimum Force in Counterinsurgency Campaigns during Decolonisation (1945–1970)’, Journal of Strategic Studies 34/2 (April 2011), 245–79.

⁶ United States Marine Corps/United States Army, FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency (Washington DC: Headquarters, Dept. of the Army Headquarters, Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Dept. of the Navy, Headquarters, US Marine Corps 2006).

⁷ David J. Kilcullen, ‘Countering Global Insurgency,’ Journal of Strategic Studies 28/4 (2005), 597–617; John Mackinlay, The Insurgent Archipelago: From Mao to Bin Laden (New York: Columbia UP 2009); John Nagl, ‘An American View of Twenty-First Century Counter-Insurgency,’ RUSI Journal 152/4 (Aug. 2007), 12–16; Douglas Porch, Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War (Cambridge: CUP 2013); Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian, Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare (Botley, UK: Osprey Publishing 2008).

⁸ Robert Thompson, Make for the Hills: Memories of Far Eastern Wars (London: Leo Cooper 1989), 93.

⁹ For more on the harshness of British methods in Malaya, see Huw Bennett, “‘A Very Salutary Effect”: The Counter-Terror Strategy in the Early Malayan Emergency, June 1948 to December 1949’, Journal of Strategic Studies 32/3 (June 2009), 415–44; Karl Hack, ‘Everyone Lived in Fear’: Malaya and the ‘British Way in Counter-Insurgency’, Small Wars & Insurgencies 23/4-5 (Oct. 2012), 671–99.

¹⁰ Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency (St Petersberg, Florida: Hailer Publishing 1966).

¹¹ Ian Beckett, ‘Robert Thompson and the British Advisory Mission to South Vietnam, 1961–1965,’ Small Wars and Insurgencies 8/3 (Winter 1997), 41.

¹² Peter Busch, All the Way with JFK? Britain, the US and the Vietnam War (Oxford: OUP 2003), 96.

¹³ Lawrence Freedman, Kennedy’s Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam (New York: OUP 2002), 336.

¹⁴ James McAllister, ‘The Limits of Influence in Vietnam: Britain, the United States and the Diem Regime, 1959-63’, Small Wars & Insurgencies 17/1 (March 2006), 22–43; Beckett, ‘Robert Thompson and the British Advisory Mission to South Vietnam, 1961–1965’; G. D. T. Shaw, ‘Policeman Versus Soldiers, the Debate Leading to MAAG Objections and Washington Rejections of the Core of the British Counter Insurgency Advice,’ Small Wars & Insurgencies 12/2 (Summer 2001), 51–78.

¹⁵ Robert Thompson, No Exit from Vietnam (London: Chatto & Windus 1969).

¹⁶ Ibid., 63–7.

¹⁷ Ibid., 8.

¹⁸ Ibid., 201.

¹⁹ Robert Thompson, ‘Letter to Henry A. Kissinger’, 21 Jan. 1969, Folder 4: Sir Robert Thompson 1970, 2 of 2, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

²⁰ Richard M. Nixon, ‘Memorandum for Henry Kissinger’, 1 Oct. 1969, Folder 4: Sir Robert Thompson 1970, 2 of 2, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

²¹ Richard M. Nixon, ‘Address to the Nation on Progress Toward Peace in Vietnam,’ 15 Dec. 1969, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, <www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2370>.

²² John R. Brown, ‘Memorandum for Dr Kissinger,’ 22 Dec. 1969, Folder 4: Sir Robert Thompson 1970, 2 of 2, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

²³ ‘Memorandum of Conversation: The President’s Remarks to Sir Robert Thompson Concerning the Vietnam Situation,’ 1 Dec. 1969, Folder 4: Sir Robert Thompson 1970, 2 of 2, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

²⁴ For the debate on the success (or otherwise) of Abrams’s strategy, see Lewis Sorley, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and the Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam (New York: Harcourt Brace 1999); James H. Willbanks, ‘Vietnamization: An Incomplete Exit Strategy’ (presented at the Turning Victory Into Success: Military Operations After the Campaign, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: US Army Training and Doctrine Command, Fort Monroe, Virginia and Combat Studies Institute US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2004); Andrew J. Birtle, ‘PROVN, Westmoreland, and the Historians: A Reappraisal’, Journal of Military History 72/4 (26 Oct. 2008), 1213–47.

²⁵ Henry A. Kissinger, ‘Memorandum for the President: Robert Thompson’s Plan for a Vietnam Victory,’ 4 Oct. 1969, Folder 4: Sir Robert Thompson 1970, 2 of 2, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

²⁶ John Holdridge, ‘Memorandum for Dr Kissinger: Status of Sir Robert Thompson’s Visit,’ 3 Oct. 1969, Folder 4: Sir Robert Thompson 1970, 2 of 2, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

²⁷ Transcript: Henry A. Kissinger and Richard M. Nixon, telephone conversation (White House Telephone, 21 April 1971), no. 002-026, Presidential Recordings Program, the Miller Center, Univ. of Virginia, <http://whitehousetapes.net/transcript/nixon/002-026>.

²⁸ W.R. Smyser, ‘Memorandum for Dr. Kissinger: Sir Robert Thompson’s Publication and Lecture Problems,’ October 16, 1970, Folder 3: Sir Robert Thompson 1970, 1 of 2, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

²⁹ Examples of Thompson’s extensive engagement with the press include: ‘Nixon Adviser Sees Dilemma for Viet Cong,’ Chicago Tribune, 20 Feb. 1970, 11; ‘Nixon Aide Sees Faster Viet Pull-out,’ Chicago Tribune, 25 Oct. 1971; Robert Thompson, ‘Eroding the Gains from Cambodia,’ Sydney Morning Herald, 22 July 1970; Robert Thompson, ‘On the Road to a Just Peace’, Reader’s Digest, March 1970; ‘Vietnam: A “Winning Position”?,’ The Washington Post, Times Herald, 17 Dec. 1969, A24; Gerald Griffin, ‘Cautiously Optimistic’, The Sun, 21 December 1969, 142; ‘Vietnam Gains, Briton Says,’ The Sun, 17 December 1969, A2. ‘A Month or So from Now, the Mining will Begin to Bite,’ Interview with Sir Robert Thompson, British Authority on Indo-China, US World News and Report, Undated, Folder 05, Box 24, Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 01 – Assessment and Strategy, The Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University. Accessed 8 Aug. 2013, < www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive/items.php?item=2122405048>.

³⁰ Tad Szulc, ‘Expert Now Gloomy in Report to Nixon on Vietcong Power,’ New York Times, 3 Dec. 1970.

³¹ Henry A. Kissinger, ‘Memorandum for the President: New York Times Story Regarding Sir Robert Thompson’s Latest Report to You,’ 3 December 1970, Folder 3: Sir Robert Thompsonar 1970, 1 of 2, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California; Henry A. Kissinger, ‘Memorandum for the President: Sir Robert’s Intentions With Regard to the New York Times Article,’ 4 Dec. 1970, Folder 3: Sir Robert Thompson 1970, 1 of 2, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California; Henry A. Kissinger, ‘Memorandum for the President: Sir Robert Thompson’s Remarks to NBC,’ 15 Dec. 1970, Folder 3: Sir Robert Thompson 1970, 1 of 2, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

³² ‘Memorandum of Conversation: The President’s Remarks to Sir Robert Thompson Concerning the Vietnam Situation.’

³³ Richard Milhous Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Simon & Schuster 1978), 404–5.

³⁴ Henry A. Kissinger, ‘Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon,’ 15 July 1972, Folder 5: Sir Robert Thompson 1972, 1 of 2, Box 116, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

³⁵ Robert Thompson, ‘Visit to Vietnam - October 28th- November 25th, 1969 - Report by Sir Robert Thompson,’ 3 Dec. 1969, Folder 3: Sir Robert Thompson 1970, 1 of 2, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

³⁶ Thompson, No Exit from Vietnam, 48.

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ Ibid., 63.

³⁹ Ibid., 125.

⁴⁰ Ibid., 198.

⁴¹ Address by Sir Robert Thompson at the Opening of the CSOC Seminar on 30 Aug. 1971 and Summary of Discussion, 30 Aug. 1971, Folder 04, Box 16, Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 03 - Insurgency Warfare, The Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University. Accessed 8 Aug. 2013, <www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive/items.php?item=2171604006>.

⁴² Thompson, No Exit from Vietnam, 153.

⁴³ Ibid., 197.

⁴⁴ Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Kerr, ‘Letter to Henry A. Kissinger,’ 22nd October, 1969, Folder 4: Sir Robert Thompson 1970, 2 of 2, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

⁴⁵ Robert Thompson, ‘Squaring the Error’, Foreign Affairs 46/3 (April 1968), 447.

⁴⁶ Backchannel Message from the Ambassador to Vietnam (Bunker) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), Saigon, 13 Oct. 1972, 0905Z. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1975 [hereafter: FRUS] Volume IX: Vietnam October 1972–January 1973 (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office 2010), 134.

⁴⁷ Henry A. Kissinger, ‘Memorandum for the President: Robert Thompson’s Plan for a Vietnam Victory’ Tab A: A Sampling of Thompson’s Major Points.

⁴⁸ Robert Thompson, ‘The War in Vietnam – Reflections on Counter Insurgency Operations (lecture)’, RUSI Journal 118/1 (1 March 1973), <http://search.proquest.com.proxyau.wrlc.org/docview/1305560278/13F9BD3657756684CB/6?accountid=8285>.

⁴⁹ Thompson, Sir Robert Grainger Kerr, ‘Report to the President on South Vietnam’ 13 Oct. 1970, Folder 3: Sir Robert Thompson 1970, 1 of 2, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

⁵⁰ Ibid.

⁵¹ ‘Memorandum of Conversation,’ 19 March 1970, Folder 4: Sir Robert Thompson 1970, 2 of 2, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

⁵² Ibid.

⁵³ Thompson, No Exit from Vietnam, 150.

⁵⁴ Ibid.

⁵⁵ Robert Thompson, Peace Is Not at Hand (London: Chatto & Windus 1974), 71.

⁵⁶ Thompson, Make for the Hills, 165.

⁵⁷ Henry A. Kissinger, ‘Memorandum for the President: Preliminary Reports from Sir Robert Thompson on His Southeast Asian Trip’, 3 Oct. 3, 1970, Folder 3: Sir Robert Thompson 1970, 1 of 2, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

⁵⁸ Thompson, Make for the Hills, 158.

⁵⁹ Ibid., 164.

⁶⁰ Transcript of a Telephone Conversation between President Nixon and the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), 11 March 1972, 11:10 a.m. FRUS: Volume VIII: Vietnam, January-October 1972, 133.

⁶¹ Henry A. Kissinger, ‘Memorandum for the President: Robert Thompson’s Plan for a Vietnam Victory.’

⁶² Robert Thompson, ‘Report to the President: Visit to Vietnam and Cambodia, July/August 1973’, 24 Aug. 1973, Folder 5: Sir Robert Thompson 1972, 1 of 2, Box 116, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

⁶³ Robert Thompson, ‘Letter to Henry Kissinger,’ 1 April 1971, Folder 5: Sir Robert Thompson 1971, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

⁶⁴ Ibid.

⁶⁵ Editorial Note, FRUS: Volume VII: Vietnam July 1970–January 1972, 174.

⁶⁶ Thompson, ‘Eroding the Gains from Cambodia.’

⁶⁷ Graham A. Cosmas, MACV: the Joint Command in the Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973 (Washington DC: US Army Center of Military History 2008), 335. Cosmas notes that out of ‘about 17,000 South Vietnamese troops committed, more than 1,700 were killed, over 6,600 wounded, and about 680 missing or captured. ARVN also lost a vast amount of equipment and supplies, much of it during the withdrawal phase.’

⁶⁸ Henry A. Kissinger, ‘Memorandum for the President: Sir Robert’s Comments on Vietnam,’ 23 April 1971, Folder 5: Sir Robert Thompson 1971, Box 92, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

⁶⁹ ‘Laotian Incursion Termed a Success by Nixon Advisor’, Associated Press, 15 April 1971. Thompson also claimed that ‘Saigon is safer at night than any American city and many other cities around the world’.

⁷⁰ Thompson, ‘The War in Vietnam – Reflections on Counter Insurgency Operations (lecture)’; John D. Negroponte, ‘Memorandum for General Haig, Colonel Kennedy, Mr Odeen: Meeting with Sir Robert Thompson, 4.00 p.m. March 8, 1972,’ 7 March 1972, Folder 6: Sir Robert Thompson 1972, 2 of 2, Box 116, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California. Negrponte wrote that Thompson ‘believes a NVA offensive is inevitable and that the NVA will lose 50–60,000 men. He believes after the offensive is over the GVN can initiate a selected process of demobilization beginning with the PF [Popular Forces] and retaining the RF [Regional Forces] as a basis for territorial security.’

⁷¹ John Ellis, ‘In the Cockpit of People’s War; Obituary: Sir Robert Thompson’, The Guardian, 21 May 1992.

⁷² Robert Thompson, ‘Rear Bases and Sanctuaries’, in W. Scott Thompson and Donaldson D. Frizzell, The Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Crane Russak 1977), 105.

⁷³ Simon Head, ‘Britain’s Vietnam Hardhat’, New Statesman, 6 Oct. 1972, <http://search.proquest.com.proxyau.wrlc.org/docview/1306945697/13F9F7A047B3B25437/100?accountid=8285>.

⁷⁴ ‘Memorandum of Telephone Conversation: President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’, 5 July 1972, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University.

⁷⁵ ‘Memorandum of Telephone Conversation: Press Secretary Ron Zeigler and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’, 5 July 1972, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University.

⁷⁶ Ellis, ‘In the Cockpit of People’s War; Obituary: Sir Robert Thompson.’

⁷⁷ Thompson, ‘The War in Vietnam – Reflections on Counter Insurgency Operations (lecture).’

⁷⁸ Thompson, Peace Is Not at Hand.

⁷⁹ Ibid., 60.

⁸⁰ Lessons from the Vietnam War – Report of a Seminar Held at the Royal United Services Institute, 12 Feb. 1969, Folder 08, Box 01, Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 01 - Assessment and Strategy, The Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University. Accessed 8 Aug. 2013, <www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive/items.php?item=2120108006>.

⁸¹ Thompson, No Exit from Vietnam, 8.

⁸² Thompson, Peace Is Not at Hand, 77.

⁸³ Ibid.

⁸⁴ Sven Kraemer, ‘Memorandum for General Scowcroft: Sir Robert Thompson’, 18 March 1974, Folder 5: Sir Robert Thompson 1972, 1 of 2, Box 116, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California.

⁸⁵ Thompson, Make for the Hills, 154.

⁸⁶ James Yuenger, ‘Weak Will of US Doomed Saigon: Asian War Expert’, Chicago Tribune, 27 April 1975, sec. 2.

⁸⁷ Robert Thompson, ‘The Cost of Credibility’, New Lugano Review 2/8-9 (1976), 2–11; Robert Thompson, ‘The Strategic Surrender of the United States’, Conflict Studies 100 (Oct. 1978) 7–9.

⁸⁸ Thompson, Make for the Hills, 185.

⁸⁹ Ibid., 205.

⁹⁰ Ibid.

⁹¹ Ibid., 204.

⁹² M. P. Caulfield, ‘The Lessons of Vietnam’, Marine Corps Gazette 62/6 (June 1978), 59.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Fitzgerald

David Fitzgerald is Lecturer in International Politics, School of History, University College Cork, Ireland.