Cao Van Vien - Military Career - Post-Defense Minister Role

Post-Defense Minister Role

Thiệu considered replacing Viên as JGS Chair in June 1968, but kept him in the position. Viên remained a strong supporter of Executive Vice President 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 President Thiệu that he would not like to see Viên or the other generals who supported Kỳ removed from their positions. Viên subsequently accompanied Thiệu to Hawaii for yet another meeting with President Johnson in July 1968 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, Prime Minister Trần Văn Hương advised Thiệu to replace Vien with Lt. Gen. Đỗ Cao Trí.

Lt. Gen. 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. For example, when the U.S. considered an immediate halt to all bombing of North Vietnam in October 1968, only President Thiệu was consulted. 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) and assisted Gen. Abrams with developing the Combined (US/SVN) Strategic Objective Plan of 1969. The plan involved the transfer of hundreds of aging American military camps to the South Vietnamese armed forces. Many ARVN officers criticized Viên's plan to base ARVN troops in these static positions, arguing that it isolated the Army from the populace, hurt morale, and reduced mobility. Lt. Gen. Viên accompanied President Thiệu to Midway Atoll in June 1969, where the two men learned of President 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, Lt. Gen. Viên received 64 river patrol boats from the United States just days later—yet another indication of the American withdrawal.

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