Military Assistance Advisory Group
[2][3] Typically, the personnel of MAAGs were considered to be technical staff attached to, and enjoying the privileges of, the US diplomatic mission in a country.
"The special status of personnel serving in Military Advisory Assistance Groups (MAAG) results from their position as an integral part of the Embassy of the United States where they perform duty.
Wise recruited for the Military Advisory Group to the Republic of China Air Force with headquarters located at Nanking and liaison teams at Hankou.
It operated for ten years, disbursing military grants and arranging another US$1 billion in arms sales on favorable terms.
[7] Harmony was promoted to major general by February 1956 and became commander of Military Advisory Assistance Group (Provisional) – Korea.
The President claimed they were not sent as combat troops, but to supervise the use of $10 million worth of US military equipment to support the French in their effort to fight the Viet Minh forces.
French commanders were so reluctant to accept advice that would weaken the time-honored colonial role that they got in the way of the various attempts by the MAAG to observe where the equipment was being sent and how it was being used.
[8] By 1954, the United States had spent $1 billion in support of the French military effort, shouldering 80 percent of the cost of the war.
[9] As stated by the Geneva Accords a month later, France and its Vietnamese ally were forced to give up the northern half of Vietnam.
The next few years saw the rise of a Communist insurgency in South Vietnam, and President Diem looked increasingly to US military assistance to strengthen his position, albeit with certain reservations.
[11] In the summer of 1959, Communist guerrillas staged an attack on a Vietnamese military base in Bien Hoa, killing and wounding several MAAG personnel.
The first signs that his position was beginning to shift came in 1960, when the number of official US military advisors in the country was increased from 327 to 685 at the request of the South Vietnamese government.
[12] Newly elected President John F. Kennedy agreed with MAAG Vietnam's calls for increases in ARVN troop levels and the U.S. military commitment in both equipment and men.
As part of the military outreach of the USA to friendly countries in Southeast Asia, a MAAG was established in Bangkok, Thailand in September 1950 with Brigadier general John T. Cole as Group Chief.
Due to the limitations emplaced by international treaty, the PEO was set up with civilian personnel instead of a MAAG with military staff.
General Chase arrived at Taipei, Taiwan, on 1 May 1951 to begin carrying out his duties as the military member of a team, which was charged with insuring that all assistance granted the Chinese Nationalists was in furtherance of United States foreign policy.
On September 3, 1954, fourteen 120mm and 155mm Chinese Communist artillery in Xiamen (Amoy) and Dadeng (Tateng) fired six thousand rounds at the Kinmen (Quemoy) Islands in a five-hour period.
