 Somewhere in that part of the world where jungles are lush and tensions are constant, brutal and cynical men set the stage for danger as they lie in ambush for their own countrymen, men of their own nation's army. Frontier of civilization leers the face of war in our time. Not the only face to be sure, but one that is becoming increasingly familiar. The face of unconventional war, casting from a remote corner shadows that reach across the world. The world has long been familiar with two military challenges posed by the forces of world communism, the challenge of nuclear war and the challenge of large-scale conventional war. The United States and the free world have met these challenges by maintaining the ability to fight both kinds of war, an ability so powerful it has deterred the communists from starting either one. Today we see with increasing frequency evidence of another technique the communists use whenever they consider the occasion appropriate. The technique of unconventional warfare, the third challenge. Good news, comrade, the province to the north is now ours. Good. That is very good. These are the men who unleashed the dogs of war today. Victory is near, comrade. We have seen their like in our time before. Revolutionaries marks this style. They spread their communism by waging the shadowy hit-and-run war of the guerrilla on the regular forces of the established government of their country. And as they move through the countryside, from village to village, they bring against the people themselves other powerful weapons, weapons of persuasion. Come out. Let us talk together. We have much to say to one another. Come closer. Let us get acquainted. These are the people who must be convinced that rebellion is good, that the war which ravages their land is in their interest. Marxism or communism, not yet. That will come later, much later. Remember Fidel Castro? Half the world debated whether he was communist while he consolidated his gains and won his revolution. No, the message now is one aimed at the gut and the heart of the people, food, land, hope, the promise of a better life. And with this message, he begins to reach them. They are with him now, and their support is indispensable to him. Take the word of experts from the communist world, Red China's Mao Zedong, Cuba's Che Guevara. No revolution can succeed without the firm support of the people. Yes, he has them, and now he can begin to press his demands. Lacky soldiers of the imperialist army. The pages of the bloody history of our times. Remember Cuba, Indochina, anguish and horror the communists bring today to the free part of that nation, Vietnam. And remember, who we can never afford to forget, the master design which unifies all these insurgent actions. On January 6, 1961, Premier Nikita Khrushchev makes official what the world has known for some time. He announces that the Soviet Union stands behind and supports what he calls Wars of Liberation, by which he means insurgent actions which bring new territory under communist domination. Yes, assuredly, the masters of world communism have a substantial stake in the subversive rebellions around the world. So they're quite interested in the progress of the war in this small far-off country. The war fought with guerrilla tactics and weapons of the mind, and with even stronger methods were necessary. For the technicians of revolution know how to take care of resistance and how to make a clear example of anyone who offers it. Please, leave us in peace. We wish not trouble in this village. When necessary, persuasion when possible, and always the tactics of hidden warfare. With village after village taken over, the tide of communist control continues its steady sweep through the countryside. From the communist point of view, this little war is progressing very well indeed. And the rebellion has reached the stage where it poses a serious threat to the government. It is in light of this situation that the government has called on the United States for help. And the word out of Washington tonight is that the United States will respond quickly. American interest is aroused. A television correspondent visits a briefing room in the Pentagon to get the answers from a Defense Department expert on unconventional warfare. Sir, I think that our viewers across the nation would like to know, first of all, two things. Why are we going to be involved? And how does it serve America's interest for us to become involved? We are going to give assistance because the authorized and lawful government has asked us for help. The government over there is in dire danger of overthrow from a subversive force that is supported and supplied by other communist states. The government over there believes, and our own military advisers agree, that their federal forces are strong enough to take care of the situation if they are properly trained to fight the shadowy, elusive guerrilla war, the enemy is fighting. We're going to send the men who can train them to fight that kind of war. And we have these men, experts in this kind of guerrilla warfare? You bet we have. At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home of the Special Warfare Center, a new kind of soldier has emerged, the Special Forces Trooper, the man who specially is guerrilla fighting. He is distinguished by the green beret he wears. But he is distinguished too by a good deal more than that. He is identified by his toughness and his skill. This kind of soldier trains to fight a lonely war, anywhere, under any conditions, against an enemy who lives in shadows and strikes in stealth. To do this, he must learn a whole new way of life. He has to depend on the land and on himself, for his shelter. For his shelter. He has to depend on the land and on himself, for his food. He must be master of his environment. And to be this, he must conquer whatever fear of it he holds. There will be few broad highways for him to travel. His roots will be those that once were called impassable. He trains to make them passable. The impassable cliff, the impenetrable jungle, the unpredictable river, these are his avenues. These are some of the physical skills he masters. There are many more. He learns to handle all kinds of rivercraft. He is a paratrooper. He becomes an expert in the arts of sabotage. He grows adept at handling all weapons, including those used by communist countries. And beyond the realm of muscle and courage, there are other skills he must develop. He has to acquire a working knowledge of the language of the country in which he will serve. He must learn enough about field medicine to take care of emergencies, broken bones, infections, burns. He is also trained to perform minor surgical procedures. He becomes a highly qualified radio operator. His radio, if he is lucky enough to have one, will be his only contact with the world he leaves behind him. But the ability to survive is, of course, only part of the guerrillas' needs. In the end, his effectiveness will be measured in terms of his ability to destroy and to harass. So he becomes, finally, an expert in the techniques and the tools of destruction. All the military services today are giving greater emphasis to training for this kind of war. In the Navy, this training is reflected in the activities of a special group of sailors. Men who must master the water and use it as the guerrilla soldier must master and use the land. The jobs they train for are as varied as they are dramatic. They make beach reconnaissance. They take hydrographic information which can be used to prepare the way for invasion. They can take assure saboteurs who can operate behind the enemy's lines. They can carry with them demolitions to blow up harbor and shipping facilities, fighting the silent war of the special war. Air Force Special Air Warfare Center in Florida is the home of the Air Force's special warriors who are known as Air Commandos. Air Commandos prepare themselves to provide close air support for counterinsurgency and to deploy troops and equipment rapidly to areas of guerrilla activity. Air Commandos parachutists make up combat-controlled teams which can spearhead guerrilla or counter-guerrilla operations. These men, dropped into the forward areas, are able to direct and control airstrikes, resupply missions and the landing of Army's forces. The Marines, who are conditioned to the rugged training of small units and individuals, provide an excellent example of the way conventional units train to defeat unconventional forces. Indispensable to this training, of course, is an understanding of how the guerrilla operates. Because of his tenuous status, he will never stand and fight if he can help it. The principles of speed and surprise and employing guerrilla tactics themselves, unfeasible, can enable a conventional force to encircle the guerrilla position, blocking his escape. Thus trapped, firepower can destroy him. Crucial test of all these special skills in which members of all the services train is the classic test of all combat preparation, the effect on the enemy. The special warrior, no less than any other, trains to fight if and when he is called upon to do so, and to fight in the special way for which he is prepared, very likely deep in enemy territory, possibly in cooperation with unconventional forces of other friendly nations. This is the wartime mission for which he trains. But in peacetime, or in the condition of cold war which passes for peace in our day, his talents can be used in another way. They can be used to help free nations threatened by communist insurgents, develop the ability to withstand and defeat those rebellious forces. The problem is somewhat broader than combat tactics alone. A successful counterinsurgency operation has to include a program of civic action, too. A program in which the regular military forces of the country can ensure the allegiance of the people by identifying themselves as the people's protectors and champions. The guerrilla, being the special kind of fighter he is, can survive and win only if he has the support of the people. And when they have the people's support, they have a firm base for operations. They have protection, they have a source of supply, they have an intelligence network. To defeat the communist insurgent, his link with the people, both physically and psychologically, must be broken. And to accomplish this, the people themselves, the peasant, the villager, must be convinced, not just in words, but by deeds, that their established government is their true friend and benefactor, who will help them improve their lot and their lives. Without this, tactical training alone would not do the job. And guidance in this field of civic action, then, will be part of the assistance we provide? It will. At Fort Gordon, Georgia, the Army conducts a civil affairs school in which this concept is stressed in detail. The Army, incidentally, has primary responsibility for conducting instruction in civil affairs. But members of all services attend the Army schools, as well as members of the armed forces of friendly nations. Civic action itself is complicated, involving as it does political, social, economic, and other factors. But the central theme of instruction is basically simple. As you work with the services of other countries to develop their counterinsurgency capabilities, show them how they, the military forces themselves, can help satisfy the people's demands. For in many of these countries, the military forces are the only element with the skills and equipment needed. More than any other group, they have the knowledge and training in the political, economic, and social factors relating to counterinsurgency. Moreover, they have the trucks and road graders and tractors, which, when they are not needed for military operations, can be used to build roads. They have the equipment to drain the swamps and direct the schools, which in a village may be the difference between health and disease, between knowledge and illiteracy. In the counterinsurgency course offered at the Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, the same message threads through all counter-guerrilla instructions, even to the point of demonstrating how needed equipment can be improvised. A simple thing like a projector, for instance, which utilizes sunlight and can be constructed out of basic materials, can be an effective method of bringing education to a village that has no teachers. And thus, even this humble item becomes a potent weapon in the war for men's minds. The war for men's minds. You know, this whole emphasis on wars fought in the brush and the jungle, and in the minds of men who probably have no concept of the world beyond their village, how does our ability to fight and train others to fight this kind of war fit into the picture today? When we and the enemy we face, both are armed with nuclear weapons, which give war itself a new dimension. Well, let's take a look at that broad picture. A major war fought with nuclear weapons obviously is the first challenge we face, but we're well prepared to meet this challenge. Our greatest strength lies in our nuclear power and our ability to deliver. This power is such that it would be able to survive a nuclear surprise attack from the enemy and strike back with sufficient force to destroy the enemy target system. By maintaining our margin of superiority in this striking power, we intend to continue deterring the masters of the Soviet empire from grand scale aggression. The communists professed horror of thermal nuclear war, however. It doesn't mean that they have renounced war as an estimate of policy. They haven't, for instance, ruled out conventional war. War is limited geographically and fought with conventional weapons. This is the second challenge of war we face. Strike command is a well-despected example of the kind of power we have to fight the conventional war. Operating as a unified command based in the U.S., it has operational control of the combat-ready army divisions of the continental United States, and all the combat-ready fighter wings, tankers, and troop carriers of the tactical air command. From this massive power, it can be spawned immediately to emergency calls anywhere in the world, with a combat force specially tailored to the emergency. Strike command's chief characteristic is that it is flexible, and in this it is like the nation itself, in its ability to select the response most appropriate to the challenge. With this range of responses available to us, and with the communists aware that we stand ready to block any open aggression of theirs, we will be able to deter the Soviets from launching open war of any dimension, or, if they are reckless enough to begin one, to defeat them in it. But does this eliminate war from the communists' master plan? Unhappily, it does not. There still remains the third challenge, the wars the communists call popular uprisings, or liberation wars. They mean wars of subversion and covered aggression against the constitutive authority of a country. The communists frankly admit that they will support this kind of war. From their point of view, it would make sense if they could get by with it. They could win a good deal of the world this way, but they will not be able to get away with it. We intend to block this avenue of conquest as we are blocking all others, by training the forces of free governments who ask for such help to defeat the subversives who wage this kind of war. And this brings us to the situation of the moment. For as we send men over to the small proud ally who was asked for our assistance, this is precisely the kind of help we will provide. To the best of our ability, sir. Thank you, Captain. We are glad to have you here. Very glad indeed. Thus the mission begins, as the Americans come to the beleaguered country to train its forces to fight the communist insurgents. The training is strenuous and thorough. It's the kind which will pay off. For before you can defeat the guerrilla, you have to find him. And in order to find him, you have to be able to travel the way he travels. The guerrilla must always be kept off balance and on the run. He must be denied the opportunity to attack, and finally, he must be ferreted out and killed. Along with the military training begins the long, patient, painstaking effort of gaining the allegiance of the people, of convincing them through a program of civic action that their interests can best be served by the legally constituted authority of their country. Interest in the hard problems of their lives will reach their hearts. Not just professions of sympathy, the communists can and do give those, but actual and honest demonstrations are what pay off. With popular support swinging now behind the government, the insurgent is cut off from the support and the source of supply that he must have. With the guerrillas becoming isolated and with the regular forces becoming steadily more accomplished in the techniques of hidden warfare, the serious work of guerrilla hunting begins. This is slow war and hard war. But the long months of training, of patience and determination have their effect. Slowly, the heavy tide which threatened to engulf this land and the murk of communist enslavement begins to roll back. The turning tide rustles along the jungle floor as soldiers now well coached in the techniques of counter guerrilla warfare take the offensive, flushing out and destroying insurgent groups. The changing tide rolls out of the skies above the brush. The turning tide reaches far. It carries to the very headquarters of the leaders of the revolution with the word that the federal forces are closing in. The bold men who ravaged the land with such reckless spirit now turn and run. But the cause they served before is the same one they served now in crisis. If that cause can best be advanced by escaping, carrying with them the seeds and the techniques of the revolution, then escape is the highest good. All else is expendable. These men move in the conspiracy of those animated by a sinister dream. Mankind locked in the dead spirit of a Soviet world. In the sweep of this tortured vision defeats our temporary. Ahead lies another day, another opportunity for subversion, another poor and struggling nation to be raped by the sword of revolution. This is the unceasing challenge they pose. History's answer to this challenge lies now with a warrior who trains for stealth and cold violence. Who trains to fight the lonely and brutal war of the guerrilla. Who prepares to meet the enemy and defeat him in warfare's most distant regions. In the remote silences of the sea. In the changeless jungle brush. And in the changing minds of men. This is the unconventional warrior who trains to give his nation and the world of free men the weapon with which to meet and defeat. Communism's third challenge in our day. To crush the hope for victory from the ambitions of men who grind their heels on mankind's face in lands bleeding now and yet to bleed in the torment of red insurgency. To banish their dark dream to the shadows of history as it is written by free men.