Cao Van Vien

Early life Viên was born to Vietnamese parents in Vientiane, Laos, in December 1921.

Military career Viên attended the French-run Cap Saint-Jacques Military School, graduating with a commission in the Vietnamese National Army as a second lieutenant in 1949. He twice served in military intelligence (in 1953 and 1954), and twice as a military logistics officer. After the formation of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) in 1955, he was appointed chief of military logistics for the ARVN Joint General Staff. Based on his experiences, Viên concluded in 1961 that the Viet Cong were no longer acting alone but were being led and reinforced by regular units of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN).

Viên refused to participate in the 1963 coup against South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm. He was one of several military leaders who were unaware of the coup. When called to a lunchtime meeting with other senior officers and informed of the coup d'état, he reportedly broke down in tears and resigned, refusing to go along with the putsch. Vien was not aware of the plot, and the generals had discussed whether to assassinate him during their planning phase because they knew he was a Diem admirer. His loyalty to the conspirators now suspect, Dinh played mahjong with Vien's wife, and had convinced Minh that Vien would not oppose the coup. By March 14, Viên had been promoted by the new regime to brigadier general.

National Order of Vietnam, Knight, awarded to Col. Viên for his actions at the Battle of Kiến Phong in 1964. While commanding troops during action in Kiến Phong Province (now Đồng Tháp Province) in March 1964, his unit was ambushed and surrounded on three sides. The Silver Star citation said that while leading his men in an anti-communist assault, and despite "the confusion and inferno of enemy fire" from both sides and an arm and shoulder wound, Vien "continued to exercise command vigorously and effectively until the enemy had been routed". His actions won him widespread respect from American military officers. In mid-October 1964 Viên was named Commander of III Corps, which held the critical region around Saigon.

Viên was appointed Chief of Staff of the Joint General Staff (JGS) on September 11, 1964, after President Khanh dismissed General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu to win Buddhist support for his government. As Chief of Staff of the JGS, he controlled troop movements around the capital and assigned officers to a few critical positions. He helped put down another coup on September 27. Along with General Nguyễn Chánh Thi, Air Commodore Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, and Admiral Chung Tấn Cang, he supported a coup against Prime Minister Trần Văn Hương in December 1964. He led the then-biggest helicopter attack of the war in February 1965. When Viet Cong forces launched a mortar attack on the city of Đồng Xoài on June 10, 1965, Viên held U.S. forces from attacking—keeping the U.S. out of the war at a time when the United States was still attempting to avoid active involvement in the war. When President Phan Khắc Sửu resigned on June 17, 1965, and now-Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ succeeded him, Viên was made a member of the military council which acted as a de facto cabinet.

Joint General Staff Viên was promoted to Chief of the Joint General Staff (JGS) on October 1, 1965. He was promoted to major general on November 1, 1965, during the celebrations accompanying the second anniversary of Diem's assassination, and by January 1966 had been promoted again to lieutenant general. Viên seemed an unlikely choice for such a high position, but he was one of the few generals who could not be accused of having cooperated with the French colonial regime, The appointment may also not have been as important as it appeared, for the JGS was almost routinely excluded from command decisions (which were often made by South Vietnam's military presidents). He had no authority to promote colonels to general, or promote generals to higher rank. At least one historian has characterized his tenure as JGS Chief as "ineffectual". An American general later said he believed that Viên used presidential interference in JGS decision-making as a means of avoiding blame and therefore did not challenge presidential decisions as much as he might otherwise have done. Major General Hoàng Xuân Lãm (Commander, I Corps) and Lieutenant General Lê Nguyên Khang (Commander, III Corps) were both particularly loyal to Viên, and helped the South Vietnamese government retain some degree of political stability. His control over the Corps was further strengthened when Prime Minister Kỳ appointed Brigadier General Nguyễn Văn Mạnh, another Viên loyalist, Commander of IV Corps in November 1966. With this appointment, Viên (along with Kỳ, Khang, and director of information Lt. Gen. Nguyễn Bảo Trí) was considered by American observers to be one of the most powerful people in the government. He met with U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson in Guam in February 1966 to discuss the plan, but Johnson refused to authorize U.S. military support for the campaign, and it never went forward. Viên also worked to improve the relationship between his military leaders and their American advisors. When a leading general complained that American advisors were interfering in the chain of command, Viên held a meeting of all senior military leaders to smooth over the differences and reassure his commanders. Unlike many senior South Vietnamese military leaders, he was not shy of strongly criticizing units and commanders which he felt did not perform well. He said the 25th Division, led by Brigadier General Phân Trường Chinh, was "the worst division in ARVN, and possibly the worst division in any army." He instituted modern accounting systems to improve the payment of salaries and benefits, and fought for and won a harsh new law designed to catch and punish deserters. He also retained a limited role in commanding troops in the field. At the command of Prime Minister Kỳ, he personally led troops to Da Nang and Huế during the Buddhist Uprising of April 1966 and helped crush the rebellion of General Nguyễn Chánh Thi. He also instituted new fire control procedures designed to reduce air and artillery strikes against civilian targets. Even as late as 1968, he was in the field assessing the use of modern weapons (such as heavy helicopters and advanced missiles) by the enemy.

Defense Minister

On January 26, 1967, Prime Minister Kỳ announced that Lt. Gen. Nguyễn Hữu Có had been replaced as Defense Minister by Lt. Gen. Viên. Viên did not, however, assume the post of Deputy Prime Minister as the Defense Minister usually did. In his role as Defense Minister, General Viên and Lt. Gen. Nguyễn Văn Vy were appointed to a committee to investigate and root out corruption among the top South Vietnamese military leadership. Gen. Westmoreland subsequently assigned "military-information advisors" at the corps and division level to smooth over relations. The new constitution was promulgated in March 1967, and local elections held. With the U.S. military preparing for a major expansion in its armed forces in Vietnam, American diplomats and senior military officers made it clear that they would not tolerate another military coup or interference in the electoral process. Under the pretense of holding a meeting of the Armed Forces Council (an informal body of senior army, navy, and air force leaders to discuss military policy), Lt. Gen. Viên forced the military to resolve the crisis by unofficially backing one of the two candidates. After a three-day meeting, the military agreed to support Thiệu for president and Kỳ for executive vice president. Viên may have supported a Kỳ candidacy at first. According to Ky, Viên was for a short time considered for the presidency, but Viên refused and no majority formed behind his candidacy. Viên subsequently traveled to Thailand and met with exiled general Dương Văn Minh, warning him not to return to South Vietnam in an attempt to seek the presidency. and accidentally revealed the existence of a secret, major bombing campaign against Viet Cong and PAVN troops in Cambodia. Since 1965, the United States had been making increasingly regular bombing raids on suspected Viet Cong and PAVN staging and supply areas throughout Cambodia. In his press conference on August 10, Gen. Viên briefly discussed the existence of the secret bombings, and declared them a failure. Gen. Viên was the first high military official in either South Vietnam or the United States to admit that the U.S. was bombing Cambodia. But when Thiệu won the presidential election on September 3, he agreed to keep Viên as Defense Minister even though most of the cabinet would now be civilians rather than military personnel. He was also a member of the National Security Council, a body created by the new constitution to advise the President and Prime Minister on issues of national importance. He continued to act as a chief military strategist for the government, working with Gen. Westmoreland on the Combined Campaign Plan for 1967. In his role as Chief of the JGS and Defense Minister, Viên was the highest-ranking government official to greet President Johnson at Cam Ranh Bay when he made his second battle-zone trip to Vietnam in December 1967.

As Defense Minister, Gen. Viên also attempted to reform the government's pacification campaign. The failure of the Strategic Hamlet Program (an attempt to separate peasants from the Viet Cong by moving the population into fortified villages) by 1963 led to a re-emphasis on a military solution by 1965. The Phoenix Program, designed to identify and either capture or kill Viet Cong insurgents, was implemented and the South Vietnamese government began to focus on the "Revolutionary Development" program of economic development. Although the American and South Vietnamese governments both realized the importance of pacification, In September 1967, Major General Nguyễn Đức Thắng, Viên's deputy at the JGS, was appointed Minister of Construction and Development to revitalize the pacification program. Thắng proposed and Viên approved a plan for reform that would: 1) Require provincial chiefs to report to the Ministry of Construction and Development and the Minister for Pacification in Saigon and not military Corps commanders; 2) Strip Corps commanders of their ability to appoint province chiefs; 3) Transfer the role of Government Delegate for each province from Corps commanders to civilian political leaders; and 4) Transfer control of ARVN battalions engaged in pacification campaigns from Corps commanders to the Minister for Pacification. Viên sought the advice of Gen. Westmoreland, who agreed that the plan should be implemented. and became Viên's personal assistant.

Thiệu replaced Viên as Defense Minister with Lt. Gen. Nguyễn Văn Vy on November 98, 1967. Viên's departure was not seen as a snub or loss of political power, but rather as a way of relieving him of the less important duties of Defense Minister so that he could focus on prosecuting the war. Viên tried but failed to win approval for this limitation. Not alerted to the extent of the battle but realizing after several hours that a major attack on Saigon was under way, Viên was forced to drive himself through the back streets of Saigon at 7 AM to reach JGS headquarters at Tân Sơn Nhứt Airport. JGS Headquarters was one of six critical targets for the VC, and elements of the C-10 Sapper Battalion were assigned to attack the complex. Shortly after his arrival, VC seized control of Gate 4 at the airport and were threatening to attack JGS Headquarters. By sheer luck, two armed and supplied battalions were at Tân Sơn Nhứt awaiting transport to I Corps. Thanks to Viên's actions, JGS Headquarters remained the only secure military location in Saigon. Kỳ and most of the top generals in the city spent the next several days in Viên's office coordinating the counter-attack, sleeping on his office rug at night.

In the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, Viên became convinced that North Vietnam intended to cut South Vietnam in two by occupying the Central Highlands. Westmoreland disagreed, and reinforced Khe Sanh Combat Base more than to the north. On April 1, 1968, Viên attended a meeting at Nha Trang called by Westmoreland and attended by Westmoreland, Lt. Gen. Lê Nguyên Khang (Commander of III Corps), General Creighton Abrams (who was due to succeed Westmoreland on June 10, 1968) and Deputy Ambassador to Vietnam Samuel D. Berger. Berger made an impromptu speech declaring the Tet Offensive a great victory for South Vietnam and urging support for Thiệu (rumors of another coup were rife). Viên then denied he had done so, instead saying that he threatened to do so if U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were put under a unified command.

Vien later criticised the U.S. and South Vietnam for not pressing home their advantage and going on a large-scale offensive in an attempt to totally defeat the communists immediately. but kept him in the position. Viên remained a strong supporter of Kỳ, who remained a very powerful figure in the government and had the support of nearly 1 million Roman Catholic refugees in the country. Viên (like Kỳ) opposed the appointment of Trần Văn Hương as Prime Minister, and Kỳ signalled to Thiệu that he would not like to see Viên or the other generals who supported Kỳ removed from their positions. and to an eight-day state visit to Taiwan and South Korea in May 1969. Viên's political position remained unstable, however. Several times in 1969 and 1970, Trần Văn Hương advised Thiệu to replace Vien with Lt. Gen. Đỗ Cao Trí.

Viên continued to act as chief strategist for South Vietnamese armed forces, but his influence was increasingly impaired. In June 1968, he advocated that the U.S. resume bombing of North Vietnam. In September 1968, he advocated the invasion and occupation of Cambodia, Laos and southern North Vietnam. But as President Johnson and later President Richard Nixon began implementing the policy of Vietnamization (under which there would be gradual American troop withdrawals and extensive re-arming and training of ARVN forces with the aim of leaving the war completely in the hands of the South Vietnamese), Viên and other South Vietnamese military leaders were rarely consulted or informed ahead of time about these decisions. Viên nonetheless was forced to help implement Vietnamization. Based on the conversations in Hawaii six months earlier, he held the first JGS discussions on American troop withdrawals in January 1969. Viên remained silent about his views of the American policy, but his aides were extremely pessimistic about its success. Viên did, however, support Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker's "One War" strategy (under which pacification, counter-insurgency and Vietnamization all took equal importance) Viên accompanied Thiệu to Midway Atoll in June 1969, where the two men learned of Nixon's intention to withdraw 25,000 American troops from South Vietnam within 60 days. In what became the then-largest single transfer of military equipment to South Vietnam, Viên received 64 river patrol boats from the United States just days later.

Viên was awarded the Legion of Merit, Commander, in December 1969.

Vietnamization Viên continued to worry about the prosecution of the war effort. He told the press and his American military advisors that he expected the United States to maintain a force of at least 250,000 troops on the ground for the next several years, and that if the U.S. did not he did not expect South Vietnam to survive. Beginning in 1970, he asked to be relieved as Chief of the JGS and assigned command of the Airborne Brigade, but Thiệu refused each time (wishing to retain the apolitical general in this critical role). He also began planning independent military operations to cope with the effects of Vietnamization. Although General William B. Rosson met with him in April 1970 to warn against it, Viên began planning for ARVN troops to engage in cross-border attacks into Cambodia to strike at Viet Cong and PAVN staging and supply areas. He also reorganized the ARVN command structure, providing for joint command of III and IV Corps while operating inside Cambodia and the establishment of a Cambodian military liaison officer to the JGS.

At a high-level meeting of cabinet officials and generals in October 1970, Viên again sought and won support for a plan (Operation Lam Son 719) to send ARVN troops into Laos to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Viên and Thiệu met with United States Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird on January 11, 1971, and proposed their plan. but the invasion was a disaster. Poor roads, rough terrain and a much higher than expected number of PAVN artillery and machine gun positions (which interdicted airborne resupply efforts) brought the invasion to a halt halfway to its intended target of the city of Tchepone by March 1. A worried Viên met with Abrams, Thiệu and Bunker on March 3 to discuss a change in tactics, and concluded that ARVN airborne forces would make an assault on the abandoned town of Tchepone and occupy it. Viên met with Laird, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas H. Moorer and Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC) Admiral John S. McCain, Jr. in November 1971 to discuss the effect of military aid cuts.

Viên's role as Chief of JGS became more advisory after 1971. After the PAVN's success during the early months of the Easter Offensive in March and April 1972—during which the city of Quảng Trị and the provinces of Bình Định and Kon Tum were lost to PAVN forces Thiệu consulted with Viên but continued to personally direct the war without general staff assistance. Viên still believed ARVN capable of defeating the insurgents if his military forces were given enough supplies.

Viên nearly became a signatory to the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. A tentative agreement between the United States and North Vietnam was reached in late October 1972, but Thiệu rejected the accord and demanded 69 changes. Concerned that North Vietnam might pull out of the negotiations altogether and seek to defeat the South Vietnamese, Nixon ordered the heavy aerial bombing (Operation Linebacker II) of North Vietnam in December 1972. Although American losses were light overall and damage in North Vietnam heavy, American public opinion and Congressional anger ran high against the bombing campaign. When Thiệu continued to balk, Nixon told him that he would independently sign the peace accord on January 23 with or without South Vietnamese consent and Thiệu capitulated.

Viên ordered heightened security for the 1974 Tết holiday, and in April 1974 traveled to the United States to plead (unsuccessfully) for more military aid. At an assembly of top generals on March 11, 1975, Thiệu declared he would abandon the Central Highlands, trading land in order to achieve a more defensible concentration of population and troops around Saigon and the Mekong Delta. Although he had believed consolidation was necessary for some time, Viên had never voiced his concern. He finally did so at this meeting. Whichever version is correct, the government did not prepare the army, its allies, or the public for the decision, nor did it anticipate how the decision might affect the war effort. Although Viên met with Smith shortly after the March 11 meeting, he did not inform him about Thiệu's decision—leaving the Americans unprepared for what followed. As panic set in and ARVN troops refused to fight or deserted in large numbers, Viên tried to rally his nation's troops: "We have only one way and that is to fight for our survival. The historic hour has come." Privately he expressed his belief that the Thiệu government could no longer prosecute the war effort effectively. Viên, Thiệu, Vice President Trần Văn Hương and Prime Minister Gen. Trần Thiện Khiêm consulted with General Weyand (visiting South Vietnam on a fact-finding mission) on April 1. Also present were U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin and Smith. On April 27, Viên helped brief members of the National Assembly on what was likely to happen once the city fell. Kỳ later said he called Viên on April 27 and offered to lead a tank column so that they could open the road to the west and help tens of thousands of people flee the city, but Viên dissuaded him. Viên's next actions are unclear. Some accounts say that Viên then resigned, telling President Trần Văn Hương that he could not serve under Dương Văn Minh (who had returned to the country in 1968 and would be named president on April 27). But other versions of the fall of Saigon have Viên leaving Vietnam on April 28 without resigning, leaving the JGS in turmoil.

Saigon fell to PAVN forces on April 30, 1975.

Assessment Assessments of Cao Văn Viên's military career are generally positive. In his memoir, A Soldier Reports, General Westmoreland concluded, "Never have I known a more admirable man: honest, loyal, reserved, scholarly, diplomatic." Historians have said his strategic and command skills compared favorably with those of American General Earle G. Wheeler, and that General Abrams respected Viên deeply. In a top secret report in July 1970, Colonel John K. Singlaub said he had "a very warm personal working relationship" with Viên, and described the general as a "major factor in getting things done".

There are some critics, however. General Lâm Quang Thi called him a "colorless" man who preferred practicing yoga over leading troops. Nguyễn Tiến Hưng described him as "a mediocre staff officer, without imagination."

Post-war life Cao Văn Viên left South Vietnam for the United States on April 28, 1975. He was met by Marine Brigadier General R. W. Taylor and taken to an undisclosed location before being reunited with his family.

The Viên family settled briefly in New Jersey, where his wife Tran Thi Tao ran a dry cleaning business. The Los Angeles Times reported that "repeated American complaints" had prevented Viên himself from accumulating wealth or engaging in corruption. a San Miguel beer distributorship, and, for a time after moving to the US, she ran an import-export business which specialized in Vietnamese handicrafts. After the fall of Saigon, Nguyễn Văn Ngái (a former Minister of Rural Development and former Senator in the National Assembly) also accused the Viêns of corruption. Another unsubstantiated claim was that the Viêns had deposited $1 million in a bank in Guam during their flight from South Vietnam.

Other awards In addition to his National Order of Vietnam, Silver Star, and Legion of Merit, General Viên was awarded eight other medals from the governments of the Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea, and Thailand. He also received the following honors from the Republic of Vietnam as of 1967:

National honours

Foreign honours