Advisory· Vietnam War
Indochina MAAG
The Military Assistance Advisory Group in Indochina was the United States organization established to channel American military aid and advice to the French and, later, to the armed forces of the new state of South Vietnam.
Created as the United States began underwriting the French war against the Communist-led Viet Minh, the group oversaw the flow of American equipment and the initial advisory relationships in a region Washington increasingly viewed through the lens of Cold War containment. Marine officers served within this advisory structure, contributing to the small American military presence that grew as French power in Indochina waned and finally collapsed. The group laid the institutional groundwork for the far larger American commitment that followed, the earliest thread of United States military involvement in Vietnam. For the Marine Corps it marked the modest beginning of a relationship with Vietnam that would, over the following two decades, draw the Corps into its longest and most costly war.
Record no. 648