The question is, will we learn from them . Time. Okay. Thank you all for coming. Ill be over here signing books if you would like one. [applause] on behalf of the library, thank you again for coming. And thank you to all of you for coming and your great questions. For more information on events like this, visit the web site. Have a great night. [applause] [inaudible conversations] weed like to hear from you. Tweet us your feedback, twitter. Com booktv. Cspans newest book, sundays at eight. A collection of interviews with some of the nations top story tellers. In the beginning of the war when you were afraid of holding the gun. Then when we went to the first battle and we fought and i shot somebody, kill somebody, it does something to you that you start to its very difficult in the beginning but after time went on it became easy, became normalized, and actually in the context of war this is what happens. You normalize the situation so you can live through it because if you dont, you die. One of 41 unique voices from 25 years of book notes and q a conversations. Now available at your Favorite Book seller. Coming up next on booktv, well show you a couple of panels from the 2014 virginia festival of the book. Up next, well s history. Then finally, frank jones, the author of blow torch. An american cold war strategy, will conclude todays program. He is a professor at the u. S. Army war college up at carlisle, pennsylvania, and holds the eisenhower chair of National Security. I think that is all of the groundwork we need to cover, and with that, i would like please for jan to begin our program. Thank you. At first glance the story of uss kirk, the lucky few, book that im speaking about, seems a little storied. It seems almost insignificant. The 35 years, this story remained unknown and untold. And that may be for a very simple reason. Its a vietnam story. When our most traumatic and divisive conflict since the civil war ended in chaos, and some say shame, americans wanted nothing more to do with vietnam. It was a nightmare best forgotten. A little story and insignificant one . On the contrary. This is the vietnam story i think is very much worth telling. In the next few minutes allow me to let you sample just a little piece of it. Lieutenant bob lenke wandered into the uss kirk communication center. There was a large radar repeater that consolidated information from other displays. One look at the repeater screen put everything into perspective. Each green blip was a ship of some sort, making it easy to quickly see the location of every craft on a master grid. But the screen image appeared odd. The shoreline was out of focus. Going topside to the flying bridge, he grabbed the large binoculars and scanned the brightening horizon. The mystery of the blurry radar screen instantly cleared up. Hundreds of boats were heading out to sea in kirks direction. As the distance closed, he noted every type of watercraft from small fishing vessel to rubber raft. The lieutenant was shocked to see a small wooden dugout with a man, woman, and two children, clinging for dear life. As he recalled, on that dugout were all the family possessions, including a small motor bike. These people were simply paddling out to sea, hoping to get to the rescue ships. The magnitude of the nations final collapse suddenly became real and very personal for this young navy lieutenant. For days prior to the fall of saigon, the byproduct of that real lentless conquest of the north Vietnamese Army where towns of panicked refugees trying to leave the country in anything that would float. On that same tuesday, 438foot dry escort uss kirk was operating off the South Vietnamese coast. Overhead large ch53 and ch46 helicopters began shuttling american and vietnamese evacuees from saigon. These vietnamese were the people who helped us during the war and whose lives would not be worth much once the north vietnamese took saigon. Just as suddenly, hoards of up known contacts began fogging the radar screen. South vietnamese arm asky ask air for hughies were following the large men helicopters back out to sea. And they were packed with fleeing refugees. Airman donald cox and the ships chief engineer, lieutenant hugh doyle, recognized what was happening. He knew an evacuation was going on and with each helicopter that would pass us we had an open deck, doyle and many crew members were caught up in the excitement and saw the possibilities. We never anticipated a helicopter landing on us, but we started talking about it. Wouldnt it be great to grab a helicopter . Wouldnt it be great to take part in this . Be careful what you wish for. An attempt to advertise kirks hospitality, the ships first class store keeper, who spoke rudimentary vietnamese, ban broadcasting on the air distress frequency. Ship 1087, the hull number of kirk. Land here. 20 minutes later, air min Gerald Mcclellan waved his first huey on the flight deck with a lot of refugees. The following night, which would have been the 30th of april, of 1975, commander paul jacobs, co of the ship, received a cryptic message from at the task force commander. He was ordered to dispatch the whale beach to pull along side a ship and take aboard a mysterious passenger. That passenger was a man named richmond armitage, a 30yearold civilian. When he came aboard, he dressed for the South China Sea at that time of year, dressed in a sports coat, tie, and he had 45 automatic in a shoulder holster. And Captain Jacobs said to him, im not used to having armed civilians come aboard my ship in the dead of night, upon which armitage anged in a very gruff voice, im not used to coming aboard armed in the dead of night but i have a job to do. I work for the secretary of defense. Armitage then outleonides what would be a secret mission for the kirk. The remnants of the South Vietnamese navy, 32 ships in all, would gather just off the South Vietnamese coast. Their job would be to rendevous with the ships at dawn the following day and escort them across the South China Sea, to safety in the philippines. The following more than as the kirk pulled into view of the island, the sun was just coming up, and what was evident all around them, the 32 ships they expected but what they hadnt expected was what appeared to be a humanitarian disaster in the making. Lieutenant hugh doyle likened what he saw to a bun of hershey bars dropped on a hot summer sidewalk and all of them crawling with ants. Kirks co recalled the scene. Some of them were anchored, some were not, some were adrift, just loaded with people all the way up to the bridge. I estimated 2,000 to 3 on the people on one ship. I said this is going to be an insurmountable problem. How can we pull this off . Just how uss kirk pulled off the rescue of an estimated 30,000 refugees aboard the 32 ships is the real story. The subject of my book, the lucky few. In 2009, i was completing a book entitled Navy Medicine in vietnam vietnam toy which told the story of my generations war. The last chapter focused on the humanitarian task, Navy Medical Personnel played in caring for the thousands of refugees who fled South Vietnam when that nation ceased to exist. To complete the last chapter i first had to get the stories of the medical personnel who took care of those folks. After determining the names of the ships that comprised the seventh Fleet Task Force i went to the internet, as we all do now. I dont know what we did before the internet. Wanted to determine what vessels might have reunion organizations. The next step was emailing each organization to request information from those ships. Win an hour of hitting the send on my mouse, captain paul jacobs, former skipper of the uss kirk, called and told me what special roll his ship had played in this drama. Before long i was phoning or emailing other members of the crew. Jacobs then invited me and my boss, at the time the Surgeon General of the navy, vice admiral adam robinson, and invited us to a reunion of the ship which took place in suburban washington. Captain jacobs was invited to lunch, and during lunch, during the salad course, the admiral turned to to me and said, you make documentaries. You must make a film about the uss kirk. People have to know about this incredible and intold story. More than two years of Challenging Research followed. I spent countless hours pour over the kirks logs and other ships that took part in the rescue. My crew and i, my film crew and i went around the United States, interviewing members of the kirks crew, and also former vietnam yes refugees who were now settled in the United States. We then assembled all the components and assembled the documentary. At the next kirk reunion in july of 2010, the lucky few, the story of uss kirk, showed for the first time. That was the premiere. Shortly thereafter, National Public radio aired several stories about kirks rescue mission. That threepart npr series won national acclaim. And on veterans day, november 11, 2010, we showed the lucky few at the something i sewnan institution in Smithsonian Institution in washington. It became clear to me that a onehour film could scarcely do justice to this story. Writing a book based on the lucky few documentary offered new opportunities, to tell more of the story and to incorporate what had unfortunately ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor. In most hollywood films the book comes first. Followed by the movie. I would reverse the order, with the advantage of adding flesh to the bones of an already larger than life event. I had the opportunity to tell a wonderful story of an extraordinary ship and its crew. One of the players in the lucky few drama, a man named eric von mar, who in 1975 was a highranking official for the department of defense, pointed out to me the storys true significance. After the war, president fords task force for the resettlement of indochina refugees resettled more than 130,000 evacuees from laos, cambodia, vietnam, and communities, around the United States. It wasnt long before almost all of them became american citizens. Since uss kirk and her sister, u. S. Navy vessels, saved more than 30,000 South Vietnamese refugees that means one in four vietnamese resettled in the United States by that task force can trace their new beginning in this nation to the Mission Accomplished by the uss kirk. Decades later the true significance of the rescue comes into perspective in very eye lon ironic ways. Let me tell you a story story. Hugh doyle, the kirks chief engineer, now lives new newport, rhode island e. R. A. Tired commander in the u. S. Navy and get is his medical care at the naval stations clip i can, which is run by the navy, of course. Two years ago he went to clinic for his routine checkup and learned his regular physician had been reassigned to the Naval Hospital down in pensacola, florida, and he had a new physician. Lieutenant commander kon van nguyen. At his first appoint; doyle asked his new physician, i notice you have a vietnam yes name. How did your family get to this country . And the doctor responded that he really didnt know about the familys exodus since he was a baby at the time. Moreover, his father died and they ever said anything about it. His mother only spoke vietnam yes and she never talked about it. Doyle just happened to have a copy of the lucky few documentary on a dvd in his car. He went out to his car and brought it in and gave it to the doctor. He watch it and the next doyle bent walk for an appointment he said did you see the system he said i saw it but it didnt tell me much about my own story. Seems the doctors family settled in the San Francisco bay area in flourishes. He recalled his family never discussed their flight from vietnam. After he watched the documentary, he had probing questions to ask the rest of the other members of his family, including his elder older sister who had been 15 at the time of the exodus in 1975. The doctors sister and brother visited with him. They were taking their daughter to Boston College and they stayed with the doctor and his family, and he put the dvd on and put the film up on the tv set, and the daughter went crazy. Excuse menot the daughter. His sister. Saw the ship in the film. She saw he the hull number, hq1. Hq was a vietnamese designation. She saw the number and suddenly she began she got very agitated, started crying, and said, thats the ship we came over on. They escaped on that ship. She said she remembered a small navy ship coming alongside and delivering rice and water and medical care, and that ship, of course, is the uss kirk. But doyle says today, in utter amazement, what are the odds that this family would have escaped from vietnam . What are the odds they would have gotten aboard a ship and gotten to the island, what are the odds they would have made it from the island across the South China Sea to the philippines. And then from the philippines to a refugee camp in guam. What are the odds one i got in country i visited the joint chiefs of staff in saigon. The chairman was a friend of mine, 68 and 69 when i was there. And i was getting briefed and i asked him, general, who is creating all of the violations of the peace treaty . And interestingly he didnt answer me but he said, i have a record of every violation, and i said whats in that record . And he said, well, we have the size of the enemy, enemy killed, friendly killed, attacks by fire, the number of rounds, the size. That intrigued me because thats exactly the data we had used in my division in 68 and 69 in order to improve combat effectiveness. I said i have a whole Building Full of commuters and if you give us that data on a daily basis would would analyze it every week and give you the parameters i know would help improve effectiveness and save lives. They agreed to that. We set up the protocols and went back and analyzed the nine months of data he had. On 2 december 1973, i reported back to him, i said, from your data, the north vietnamese are doing 90 of the attacks. That pleased them because they were beaten about the ears by washington, why are you fighting the war . I said more important, whenever you attack youre much more efficient, and youre much more effective. I said besides that, in analyzing your data, youre so spread out that the north vietnamese at any time they want can get a preponderance of force and theyre taking your land and your people and if you dont get on the offensive youre going to lose your country. So they went on the offensive. And we analyzed how to hey were doing. They were doing fantastic. Much better than the north vietnamese. Inside of several months they gained back owl of their territory, all of their people. They had now under control 93 of the people in vowing vietnam. South vietnam. But then in july of that Year Congress reduced tremendously the amount of funding they had. They gave them 700 million. But there was a tie. They said we want setasides. We want you, South Vietnam to pay for the dao. 40 million. We want you to pay nor admiral we sent you, which you have not yet received. 55 million. Pay nor packing, 30 million. So they took off 117 million, leaving them 583 million. Now, when you compare that to what they had the year before, 1. 1 billion, and consider that petroleum increased 100 , ammunition increased 69 , the vietnamese had only 37 of the funding the year before. They were doomed. They could not win the war with that. They couldnt buy the bullets, they couldnt they tighten their belt and said im going to conserve ammunition. The Vietnamese Air force said we planned 708,000 air hours, cut it back to 332,000. They said if we have to pay for dao why do we want your American Contractors . We cant buy the parts to put them in so well cannibalize our own aircraft. Headquarterses were concerned about the rusk in funding and asked us, please determine what force structure they need. Our staff did a great job, picked out four Different Force structures. But we focused on the funding. We said if they get less than 1 billion, theyll lose the war. When they got to washington, washington said, well, Congress Gave them 700 million. Well good out and ask for supplemental from congress for 300 million. The president went and begged congress for 300 minimum set aside 300 million supplemental. Kiss sin kissinger begged. And South Vietnamese said theyll well be able to win but they were still spread out and still had no reserve. So in november be became very concerned about what was going on. Every week we analyzed and every week they get weaker and weaker. Why . They didnt have the fire power, didnt have the air cover. Still much stronger than the north vietnamese. And so in march, excuse me, in that study that we made, we called it the vietnam assessment, we decided. What will happen in march of 75 when the winter spring offensive comes . We said the north vietnamese will probably good for limited objectives as they had in the past, we also said if they brought down two to five devices in the north, they would overwhelm the South Vietnamese. So in march of that year, when they did attack, they attacked a small provincial capital and cape with multiple divisions, come binned arms, lots of fire power, and the South Vietnamese had no reserve. Took it down. No big deal. Only 5,000 troops. Most of them were territorial. But it spooked president tiu, on his own, without talking to his open people or the u. S. , decided he would withdraw forces from the north. Bring them back and have a cordon around saigon and protect saigon and the delta. Withdrawing under pressure is a very difficult thing and he was ill conceived in what he said and it was totally unnecessary, but his core commanders did not plan well. It was a debacle. When the north vietnamese saw that was happening they brought their five divisions from the north, heading towards saigon, who end the north vietnamese ran into the 18th Armored Division 40 miles north, the 18th 18th upheld two and a half of their divisions. The third day counterattacked, and then the north vietnamese, 331st divisionthe same division that took put down their weapons and ran. And this stopped war for a month for a week. Nothing happened on the front. But in saigon, the pot was boiling. Political intrigue everywhere. President thiu flew the country. Left for taiwan. That day. U. S. Decided with the north vietnamese 18 divisions around saigon, we better evacuate saigon, and so usag and the marines evacuated i saigon the new president suedes for peace and the war was lost. It was lost because of president thius ill conceived decision, which was poorly executed and totally unnecessary. But the war was lost anyway because they didnt have the funds, couldnt buy the bullet, couldnt by the gas. They were doomed for failure. Running out of. A mission. They had not conserved ammunition they would have run out before the end of december. Now, our congress had abandoned South Vietnam. Let me talk about cambodia. And cambodia in 1970 their parliament unanimously overtook the prince help had been supporting the north vietnamese with their effort against the south. The man who took over was a friend of the west. His group closed the port, where they got 60 of their supplies. One day of the overthrow they put a demarsh and said you have three days to get out of our country to leave your settlements in cambodia. That was the last but it irritated the north vietnamese. They had to protect their place in cambodia in order to fight South Vietnam so they attacked cambodia. One much of an take think Cambodian Army was weak. The took 2 3 of the country and they were going to phnom penh. They were pulling troops out of South Vietnam and so the u. S. Attacked. A limited attack. Limited time. Also, the what saved everything was the usa gs seventh air force, and so riots started in the United States. Remember kent state . And congress was told if if you dope give money for the Cambodian Armed forces communists will take over, well never get out of South Vietnam. So they appropriated 180 million that year and the next, and we started to build up to the Cambodian Army. August 15, 1973, after we left vowing vietnam, the congress had no more air power in cambodia. That was their fire power. We took their fire power away. So quick he we put in some armored personnel carriers, some artillery, and they were doing very well. In the summer of 74 they were holding their open. That, however, congress, just like in South Vietnam, cut it so bad that all they had in cambodia was to buy ammunition. No money for anything else. Not clothing. They were called a rag tag army. Not repair parts. Equipment was falling apart. We watched with great trepidation huh hero ammunition was drawing down, wondering if they could lost. But cambodia was different than vietnam. Didnt care about the territory like president thiu did. He was happy his all people had come into 14 up enclaved, all sw surrounded by the communist, the largest on phnom penh. Phnom penh had 3. 35 Million People, 2 million of which were refugees. They were fleeing the brutality. The gross brutality of the communists in the countryside. So we last to resupply these other 13 enclaves by air, an air drop. Put phnom penh was resupplied. And in january 75 the Chinese Government gave some very sophisticated waterlines to the and they began sinking vessels, one after one, final through maybe mekong. The war was lost. The United States projected cambodia into that war so we could get our people ought out of South Vietnam, and our congress again aban doughed them so we aban doped laos, cambodia, South Vietnam, all of Southeast Asia. I got my become published and out of the blue i got a letter from secretary kissinger. Didnt know him from adam. He said i want to congratulate you for setting the record straight inch his opinion and in my mine, this book sets the record straight on what happened in Southeast Asia. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you very much, general hunt, for that enlightening discussion. To conclude todays program, well be frank jones, blow torch, rob comber, vietnam, an american cold warring extra. Thank you, art. And thank you all for coming this afternoon. If i mention the name Robert Comber today, many people will not recognize it. 20 years ago that is the case. And so what over the last 10, 20 years, Robert Combers roll in the vietnam war and the book really transscents that because he transcends that because he was central figure in the cold war during the 30year period and best known for vietnam but is forgotten. But history and Current Events have a way of sometimes coming back together again. People are rediscovered. Their ideas are rediscovered. And that is the case with komer. It would take two wars, iraq and afghanistan, to have his ideas about counterinsurgency be discover again. I was doing the research for the book, i had the hunt to go into Neil Sheehans papers at the library of congress. Mr. Sheehan wrote a very famous book, an awardwinning book, a bright shining lie and in the notes he took he interviewed mr. Komer and i was fascinated because he described mr. Komer as a badger. I thought, that is a very apt description. Feisty. Difficult. Abrasive. Suffering fools . No. Not at all. And maybe even a snarl every once in a while. And a very the often used cursing. But the name of the book, blow torch, comes from the vietnam era and was a nickname given to him by then the he enters harvard and walks into the gate atlantis and brick wall gates there and pick walls and the thrives. In 1942 he graduates magna cum laude from harvard, and he will find him very quickly as private komer, United States army. But he will be a combat veteran of the war, get a direct commission as in the military intelligence area, and he will then proceed to spend time in 1945, 1946, writing a become for the army on military governance of mediterranean theater in that year. So he begins to understand the role of the military in nation building. He returns to graduate school, finishes his massers going in business administration, and then after president trumanan signs the National Security act, he joins the Central Intelligence agency and for the next 13 years will be an analyst in the intelligence agency, and he will become well grounded and in soviet as well as nonsoviet issues, and then in 1961, because he is part of the cia apparatus that links up with the National Security council in the eisenhower presidency, he becomes, he says, a frustrated policymaker and spends his time working on Foreign Policy issues. In 1961, john f. Kennedy is elected. Komer believes my crockery america pot ricer was mashed and i had to return to the cia. But he doesnt. It turns out that mcgeorge bundy, the National Security adviser, asks him to stay on, and he stays on for the next five years on the kennedy and the johnson, Lyndon Baines johnson, staff on the National Security staff, working on a number of issues. Until a fateful day in march of 1966 when Lyndon Johnson calls him into the oval office. You can imagine the texas drawl. Two men alone in the room and the answer is, bob, i want you to do something about the other war in vietnam. And komers reply is, what these war in vietnam . He said, its not the war that is destroying everything. I want part of that war to build up in South Vietnam. I want to develop it politically, economically, socially. He says i dont know anything about vietnam. He said, bob, dont worry about that. I got plenty of people tell me they know something about vietnam and its not working, and i want some blue blood. He said that term disturbed hem. He was wondering whose blood mouth be shed. But he takes the job and spends the next seven months every month going to vietnam. Watching what is happening on the ground. And he hires a small staff and a couple of people, at least one of them is very familiar to you today. A young Foreign Service officer who was recommended to him by the name of richard hole brooke and a young military officer who would retire, robert montague, and they would figure out how to make pacification of counterincentury general sis and the guess on for eight mons. What he fors is that knotted odd from what we hear about the early days of iraq and afghanistan. He finds uncoordination action and the military not talking. No planning. Most of the Assets Available are military assets, and so, therefore, the military has to do the transportation of goods and other types of services for civilian agencies, and after eight months he writes off with the help of hole break and mon gu, a memorandum to the president , and he argues that instead of this fragmented approach that the American Government had in order to support the vietnamese in their insurgency, their quest for counterinsir generals si, is they must bring it all together under the military, under a single johnson thinks that is the right answer but has a couple of probable hems. The bureaucracies dont like the idea, first of all and second of all, Ambassador Lodge doesnt like the idea. And Ambassador Lodge is a republican and a democratic administration, and chosen by johnson, and so he is a little johnson is a little worried about ruffling lodges feathers. He also believes that lodge will run for the presidency in 1968. And so for a few months this just trying drags on and on, and finally to a point where Lyndon Johnson, a man with a temper, gets frustrated enough and says enough is enough. We are Going Forward with the plan. That komer and others put together in may of 1967, now a year since he had been the special assistant. He fines him on the tarmac in the air base outside saigon and has now been told, you built the mousetrap, now you make it work. And so he spends the next year and a half, approximately, in vietnam, trying to make that happen. The first thing he does throughout the 1967 is trying to create this organization that he made in paper. He also recognizes he has a couple of other problems. One is that the vietnamese government is not exactly winning the war against the insurgents. And so he begins to think of ways that can be done, and he comes up with the idea of putting together a way of eliminating the infrastructure, the cells, of these insurgents and terrorists, called isec, intelligence collection and exploitation. Years later it gets a very less and more famous but less positive title by the name of phoenix. And he decide what he has to do is eliminate the viet cong infrastructure. He will spend most of 1967 trying to get that off the group, but as my colleagues mentioned there are changes in governance in vietnam, and until 1967, september, theres not a Firm Government in place. Many changes. Komer eventually gets his own organization up and running and always believes the name of it is courts, civil operations and it is to get the vietnamese to do the counterinsurgency themselves but the United States will help and so what he creates is a whole infrastructure of capableity when it american forces, civilian and military, united together under this effort and creates and works with the South Vietnamways government to build up their capable to take on the insurgents. By the end of 1967, coomer and many other americans believed theyre beginning to see the proverbial lying at the end of the tunnel. The organization as far as komer is concerned that he formulated, is up and running. Still having problems convincing the South Vietnamese government to get behind it but is beginning to creates these mechanisms, and today he is tricking the ideas of military intelligence and forming them together so they can give intelligence to the South Vietnamese government, military and police, and they can track down these insurgents. At the end of the year, president johnson will come to vietnam and he will extol komer for his work, give him the president ial medal of freedom, and in january, 1968, the wheels will fall off the proverbial cart. The tet offensive occurs. Some of you may remember that. Those images shown on nightly television of insurgents, guerrillas, on the grounds of the u. S. Embassy in saigon and attacks the capitals and provinces and elsewhere throughout South Vietnam. That is a major setback. For coomer and for pacification, and only a few months after that president johnson decided he is not going to run for reelection. Komer realizes he has to get this back on track. One positive aspect is by having the offensive, insurgents have made themselves visible to others and some of them, many of them, had been killed during the offensive. But he is still having a problem with the South Vietnamese government. So the u. S. Ambassador at that time, bunker, and general westmoreland, the head of military in South Vietnam, asked him to lead the effort with the South Vietnamese government, and turns out to be the key element of the change of attitude. Because president thiu as mentioned earlier begins to see the power that can be brought to bear if they Work Together with the americans. And as a consequence of his helping with the recovery after the devastation of tet, there was a mobilization of capability and theres a dedication on the part of the vietnamese government to begin to focus on insurgency. In june of 1968, west moreland leaves and is replaced by the deputy, abe grams, and unfortunately the relationship between ko mer and abrahams was not good. Not been good since the first meet a year earlier inch doing the research at the center for military history in washington, i was able to uncover a letter from coomer to general abrams in july of that year. And it was addressed, dear general. I must say that i was really disaopinioned today. Disappointed today. You embarrassed me in front of my own personnel. By red ridiculing me in from of them. If you want me to leave just tell me and i will go. I will cause no fuss. Consequently, he did, abrams blinked. Komer stayed but realizees his relationship with abrams was so bad he would probably have to leave him, and a few months later lyndon ron son johnson gave him a way out. He made him u. S. Ambassador to turkey. I began by saying that sometimes ideas come full circle, and i think that is only for that threeyear period which komer ran the program. Its interesting how his ideas, which were there, and which he wrote about after the war in 1972 in a rand study and 1986 in a book called bureaucracy at war and came would and found by the u. S. Military as a result of iraq and afghanistan. His ideas were incorporated into the field manual on counterinsurgency, and so that became part of his legacy, and the other part is that his rand study, 1972, does a thing, became required reading among officers who were assigned to multinational forces, iraq strategy offices. Those were the officers who would deal with insurgent si in iraq. So the ideas he had created in vietnam and had written about in 70s and 80s came to be again something people realized had value. The last point id say is that what komer did was recognize something that the American Military perhaps had lost over the years after vietnam. And that was the recognition of how insurgencies are fought. Theyre vertical and horizontal. By that i mean theyre horizontal in the sense that civilian capables, intelligence, aid, and military, must be harnessed together across agencies and vertical, a single manager, in this case running from saigon, could look at what was happening on the group, and with that, robert komers role and his legacy was rediscovered 20 years after vietnam and his own writings. And ceased to be read anymore. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much, frank. Id like to Say Something personal here. If when you came in the room if you saw the canvas, that display on the outside, thats something that we have heard about everything that is happening in washington and other higher echelons, but the guys on the ground and the guys going to war, they left a legacy, too. And if you look at the graffiti on those bunk can vanses they were from a ship i happened to find, along with my life, leigh, who is sitting in the audience in virginias james river reserve fleet, the ghost fleet. This is one of the ships being employed, a p2 class troop transport carrying american soldiers and marines to vietnam in 1966 and 1967. And the idea was to get complete units over in their entirety, rather than replacements. The victims she voyages lasted up to 21 days and during the trips, not just the general Nelson Walker that the material came from, but other ships, about 1960 them, the men obviously were bored. It was a long voyage and for those at that time they would leave graffiti on the other side of the bunk can vanses above them. These were four and five high. That graffiti tells the human side of the story of the men on the ground because they were going to war, not knowing if they were coming back, some if you when you leave this room today, just go outside and look at that the words that were left and the legacy that they have left and because they were very proud of their home town, we have been able to actually find those men and with the assistance of the Virginia Foundation for the humanities, who sponsors the virginia festival of the book, were able to record those reminiscences of their voyage over, and how young americans, many 18 and 19, felt, having no knowledge of what was going on in these other higher echelonsabout their destiny. I thank you very much for your participation. We have time now for questions and answers, and remember, please raise your hand and a microphone will be passed to you. Microphone here, please. Mr. Jones, how would you comment. The marine corps work in the hamlets in icorps on the dmz. Could you give us some feeling for the work that komer did and how does that work into the write examination work of general petraeus . I assume youre talking about the action platoons. I will just talk from robert komer and general westmorelands view of the cap. As it was called. Great idea and great deal of respect for what the marines were doing in that area. The icorps area but a concern, and the concern was that how you you have so many thousands of hamlets and villages how much do you have enough u. S. Capable to match up with Vietnamese Popular forces to a degree that you get coverage, and it was a concern that those wer both the upper rienzi and the army were important to percolate the idea serb people into the villages which overall became a very effective Counterinsurgency Program which is a different part to attribute to victory with the army of vietnam forces. You said smaller teams that is why it was less labor intensive the and the other elements is there own philosophy. To insure that the south the emmys were running the Counterinsurgency Program either through the revolutionary Development Team the people who are responsible for political social Economic Development as well as the security which comes from the army with military and civilian capabilities. I was an air force captain influence b52s default of all the histories i have read nobody has been able to do talk about the north vietnamese objective. Can we really write a history until we get into the archives to find out the long term Strategic Initiatives for all of Southeast Asia as a subset years later i was in a meeting with the president from singaporean he said eventually history would judge the americans as a major strategic victory of the cold war. Thoughts . I am prejudiced because they do feel we were winning the war the vietnamese history says it was a major loss on their part in data that came some very good things which we are talking about now witches pacification. The first part is security. The second to is political in the third is development. We have the ability after the americans to sit down. They established something that killed buddy talks about. The with the selfdefense course they took to a Million People so i agree the accords was a wonderful thing but it did not take off until the summer of 68. I think ted norris vietnamese their program as i read their resolutions was to fight debaathification program they were scared to death of that. They did not they took advantage of the illconceived idea. Can either questions . With a panel like to comment on the role of the usaid because i was there for six weeks a and then came back again a yearandahalf later for another six weeks. Have written of mail responses which is not important but overall usaid didnt have a positive or negative role that you could share with me . I would have to say the general view prior to 1967 the agency did not have the capability to fill the mission that they have. I say thats not because the people involved were ignorant of what was happening on the countryside or incapable but part of the problem of jersey. Host is that a would get to the court that outside saigon