Tigerdroppings figures out the real cause of the first plane crash on american soil in 15 years... S

>advisers in 50s

>Combat troops in 65

So pulling out troops before 64 presidential election was a moot question. You're wrong.

Second, Goldwater wanted to not commit boots on ground.

Third, about the ICEX and MACV and PIOCC & DIOCC under them as Phoenix came into play which put the PRU (People's Reconnaissance Unit) into action:

Most PRU recruits had previous military experience, often in elite South Vietnamese military units, such as the marines. Many had lost family members to VC violence, and revenge often served as a strong motivating factor. T he PRUs' American advisers also frequently had a military background. Indeed, until the late 1960s, most of the American advisers were serving military officers detailed to the CIA.

According to the CIA, anti-infrastructure operations—including those carried out by the PRUs, the National Police, and allied conventional military units—were responsible for capturing, killing, or persuading to defect ("neutralizing" in the somewhat sinister language of the time) more than 80,000 cadres during 1968–1972. Thomas Thayer described the PRUs—which had killed or captured roughly 380 cadres for every 1,000 men in the force during 1970, a figure that dipped to 263 per thousand the following year—as "the single most effective anti-VCI forces.

After the war, senior Vietnamese communist officials testified to the deadly utility of anti-infrastructure operations. Phoenix and associated efforts, according to a senior North Vietnamese officer, were "devious and cruel" and claimed "thousands of our cadres," a view held by another senior officer, who described them as "extremely destructive."