Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
- "Until a command structure, even if only in skeleton form, for SEATO forces has been evolved, SEATO is not in a position, collectively, to operate instantaneously....A study on command structure should be started now."54
At the following meeting, in September 1959, a SEATO command was established in embryo when the U.S. agreed to the reorganization of the Military Planning Office into a configuration that could be assimilated by the planning staff of a permanent SEATO headquarters along the lines of SHAPE.55[1] By the twelfth SEATO Military Advisers Conference in Washington in May 1960, Secretary of Defense Gates was able to make the public announcement that SEATO had advanced significantly in organization and planning:
- "National forces of the Southeast Asia countries, backed by powerful mobile forces, contribute to the deterrent.... Coordinated SEATO military plans have been prepared and are capable of rapid execution to parry any likely Communist threat.... SEATO exercises have progressed from simple observer type to... sophisticated maneuvers...."56
- c. SEATO Contingency Planning
During the winter of 1959–1960 a series of plans was prepared for contingencies throughout the SEATO area. By the spring of 1961 these SEATO plans, numbered 1 through 6, came under consideration in the first "invoking" of the SEATO Treaty, when the Pathet Lao forces threatened to overrun Laos and invade Thailand57 From the U.S. point of view, the SEATO plans were derivatives of U.S. unilateral plans for Southeast Asia covering "action up to and including action with Communist China." The then current U.S. master plan, PACOM Operations Plan 32–59, served as the basis for U.S. contributions to the SEATO Plans.58
The U.S. led the way in preparation of a series of six contingency plans for the treaty area. By the fall of 1961 some of these plans had been approved and others were under discussion at Bangkok.59 Of these plans, at least three were concerned with the SEATO Protocol states of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Plan #4 provided for the defense of Southeast Asia, including Pakistan, against attack by forces of Communist China and the DRV. The general concept was:
- (1) "To launch air and naval attacks; local forces to delay the enemy's advance as feasible while rapidly reinforcing with external SEATO forces."
- (2) "To establish ground defenses in order to hold the enemy forward of vital areas in South Vietnam, Thailand and East Pakistan, and to build up forces behind them while conducting air and naval offensive against enemy forces, base areas, LOC's and war-making capacity."
- ↑ See Appendix B for present organization.
