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13: my first lesson of insurgency— from a woman (1959–1961) some time after the vendor episode was resolved, General Xuan was appointed head of a team of officers being sent to Israel to study the kibbutz program operating so successfully there at the time. The object was to see what elements of the program, if any, could be adapted to our country. When he returned about two weeks later, he gave me a stack of documents, brochures, reports, and other items he had accumulated during the trips. “I want you to study this material and prepare a report for me to present to the president and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” As it turned out, this demanding, but straightforward, assignment ultimately would change my life dramatically. I first read all the material thoroughly and requested that the U.S. embassy supply even more data from a U.S. State Department expert on Israel and its kibbutz program. I then worked about four days, mostly at night after routine duty hours, to prepare a rough first draft of the report. It was lengthy and interspersed with many questions. General Xuan and I went over it carefully, and he answered my questions. I reworked the report and we met again. “It is too long,” he objected. “If we present such a thick report, someone may or may not read it, but it probably will not get to the president. I want you to find some way to condense it, to make it easier to assimilate.” I gave the matter a lot of thought, and then reduced the twenty-one pages of the second draft to just seven pages, but with references to sections of the earlier material. Then, thinking that might even be too long for a quick reading, I prepared a three-page version. Again, I referenced sections of the seven-page version. So now I had a report in three parts. Part 1 was an abridged, annotated overview of the gist of the material. Part 2 was an expanded version of Part 1 that provided more detail, as well as references to even more detail in Part 3, which was the original twenty-one-page version. General Xuan was very pleased with this approach, and made only a few changes in it. Glad to have that assignment completed, I forgot completely about the report while coping with day-to-day operations of the base— until two or three months later, when General Xuan invited me to dinner at the villa assigned to him on the main training center campus. The general was in high spirits during our pleasant two-hour dinner, the result of a long meeting he had earlier with President Diem. He had attended meetings with the president before but always with groups, never alone, face-to-face, and never one that lasted an entire afternoon, as this one had. It turned out that President Diem 157 my first lesson of insurgency had indeed read the report and was very impressed with it. He had requested that Xuan meet with him to discuss it in more detail. “Toward the end of our meeting,” the general told me, “President Diem remarked that the report must have taken a great deal of time and intelligence to prepare. He asked me if I had done the report myself or had an aide do it. I told him that all the material and instructions came from me, but that the actual writing and preparation of the report was by my chief of staff, Major Tran Ngoc Chau. I wanted you to get credit for the fine work you did.” I enjoyed the dinner and thought it was good of General Xuan not to claim all credit for the report, which many superior officers would have done. But it meant little to me. What effect would the mention of me to President Diem have on my life? Would he even remember the name of a mere major? Not likely, I reflected, especially since General Xuan told me that the president made no notes during that portion of their meeting. I dismissed the event as being of little importance to me. Imagine my surprise when, about ten days later, a letter came from the president’s office requesting that I meet with him. I was excited and elated at this unexpected turn of events. So was General Xuan, who by this time had assumed a sort of “older brother” status with...

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