227. Memorandum of Conversation1
PARTICIPANTS
- His Excellency Ngo Dinh Diem, President of the Republic of Vietnam
- Ambassador Frederick E. Nolting, Jr. American Ambassador
- The Honorable Robert J. Manning, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs
- Mr. John M. Mecklin, Counselor of Embassy for Public Affairs
- Mr. Marshall Wright, Special Assistant to Mr. Manning
- Mr Truong Buu Khanh, Vietnam Press
Mr. Manning said that he considered his trip an opportunity to learn about the situation in Vietnam. He hoped to learn enough to be able, upon his return to the United States, to convey to American editors and journalists both the complexity and the progress of the Vietnam situation. It was very difficult for people outside Vietnam to understand the complexity of the situation here, but Mr. Manning hoped that American journalists would recognize the necessity of viewing developments in Vietnam in their worldwide context. Mr. Manning said that much of the present press difficulty stems from the fact that the day-to-day events in Vietnam are judged narrowly and only in a local context. Mr. Manning said he would much appreciate having the President’s views on how the press problem should be handled.
President Diem said Vietnam would always welcome journalists with hospitality and expected only that the journalists would meet their primary duty of reporting objectively. Mr. Manning said there were differing interpretations of objectivity, and this difference in interpretation was the core of the problem in Vietnam. Correspondents have a different function than Government officials and this fact often creates problems. Journalists are free agents and part of their function is to be critical of governments. For the United States it is a necessity that Government activities be submitted to press scrutiny.
Ambassador Nolting said that he thought there was agreement on the fundamental point, that the tone of the American press would change for the better as the evidence of military success became clearer. Ambassador Nolting said he understood Mr. Manning’s remarks to mean that both the Vietnamese and United States Governments should relax about the press stories and live with the criticism gracefully until our success solves the problem.
Mr. Manning said that the existence of press scrutiny, even though the reporting was critical, was preferable to no press scrutiny at all. It was essential to President Kennedy’s efforts to continue his support of the winning program in Vietnam, that American correspondents [Page 512] be free to scrutinize and criticize that program. The worst thing that could happen was not bad reporting but the possibility that the reporters could be made martyrs by being denied the right of scrutiny.
President Diem said he could not see how the correspondents could consider themselves martyrs. A country which for twenty years had been involved in a hot war should not also have to deal with a cold war waged against the Vietnamese Government and people by their friends. President Diem said the calibre of American reporters was low.
Mr. Manning said he agreed that the President had reason to complain of the coverage his Government was receiving but could not agree that the American correspondents were not competent journalists trying to do a good job. It was necessary to distinguish between being wrong and being evil. The correspondents may be wrong but they are not evil nor are they maliciously motivated. The Ambassador agreed. President Diem said that the American reporting has had a deplorable effect on Vietnamese public opinion, and in a general discussion, it was agreed that, in many ways, Vietnamese opinion was more influenced by the American press than by the local Vietnamese press.
President Diem said that some of the reporting was insulting to the Army and it had a bad effect on Army morale. Mr. Manning suggested that this effect would be overcome by the actual success of military operations, but the President replied that the American correspondents seemed unaware of any gains made in Vietnam. Mr. Thuan, upon the President’s instructions, was always ready to arrange for correspondents to cover military campaigns but the correspondents were unwilling to accept the offer.
Mr. Manning suggested that some very high GVN official should, from time to time, have conferences with the correspondents to convey to them the general situation and the GVN version on matters of dispute. For instance, on the Buddhist problem, the correspondents could not get access to an authoritative GVN official to discuss the matter. Thus, they had the benefit only of the Buddhist version of events and the Buddhist interpretation of the problem.
The President said that if the Government tried, on a day-to-day basis, to deal with Buddhist complaints, this would simply prove Government insincerity for it took time to investigate the complaints and know where truth lies. The President stressed that all the Buddhist charges did not have validity but that each charge would get a serious reception and investigation.
Ambassador Nolting stated that sometimes the Vietnamese Government did respond quickly, and perhaps too quickly, with its version of events. He cited the demonstrations at the Giac Minh Pagoda yesterday. The Ambassador said that the GVN statement on this incident [Page 513] was absolutely contrary to the unanimous account given to the Ambassador by many eye-witnesses. According to the eye-witnesses, the police, without physical provocation, charged and badly mauled about 100 demonstrators including women and children. Yet the GVN statement issued several hours later said only that the demonstrators attacked and injured eight policemen. This kind of thing completely destroyed the credibility of statements by the GVN and its friends. President Diem then criticized the inaccurate nature of the reporters’ dispatches and gave several examples. Ambassador Nolting repeated that the GVN statement was in complete conflict with eye-witness accounts and that the effect of such a statement was to destroy the credibility of the accurate reports made from time to time of genuine progress on the military side of the Vietnam war. President Diem again referred to the inaccuracy of the reporting of the American correspondents. There was a lengthy discussion in which the President indicated his conviction that the American reporters were consistently irresponsible and unfair in their criticism of the actions of the Vietnamese Government.
Mr. Manning then reverted to his previous suggestion that there was a great need for a high GVN official to give occasional background conferences to the reporters. Such a conference would have the effect of putting the correspondents under a kind of psychological obligation to the news source. Even though the same information might be available from a lower level official, it was good public relations policy that the Government attitude from time to time be conveyed to reporters from a really authoritative source. Otherwise a vacuum was created which was usually filled by forces hostile to the Government. The President said such conferences had been tried in the past but the Government was disappointed at the results.
Mr. Manning said that he had discussed one problem in detail with Counselor Nhu the previous day2 but wanted to make the same point to the President. The American correspondents feared that the GVN might inaugurate a policy of harassing and possibly expelling the correspondents. Mr. Manning had been assured by Counselor Nhu and others that this fear was a figment of the correspondents’ imagination. Mr. Manning wanted to convey this to the correspondents before his departure from Vietnam. Mr. Manning asked if the President thought this would be a useful thing to do.
The President said “Yes, but the correspondents should not put themselves into a position where they would face expulsion.” The President said he thought the correspondents’ fears stemmed from their own guilty consciences about their own irresponsibility.
[Page 514]The President said again that the American reporting had had a deplorable effect on opinion in America, and particularly in Vietnam. The behavior of the correspondents was neither correct nor responsible considering that Vietnam was at war and that the Government had accomplished so much. The President said some people had told him that this kind of unfair criticism was the kind of thing which had to be put up with because Vietnam received foreign aid.
Mr. Manning said that whether or not the reporting was deplorable, it should be remembered that President Kennedy still had public support for his policy of helping Vietnam win its war. The reporting has not changed that. The reporting was not one-tenth as harmful in its effects on American public opinion as would be an attempt to expel or harass the reporters. Such a policy would make martyrs of the reporters and would deprive President Kennedy of the essential tool which he needs. The American involvement in the Vietnam war is a new type of experience for the American people and the United Sates Government has been both surprised and pleased with the mature way that the public has accepted the situation. Mr. Manning said that the present kind of reporting was something which we could live with.
President Diem responded that the erroneous reports must inevitably have a bad effect on American opinion. Mr. Manning agreed but said it was necessary to choose between bad effects. The harassment or expulsion of the reporters would have an immeasurably worse effect than would the mere continuation of the present critical reporting. There was then a general discussion concerning Ambassador Nolting’s hope that President Diem would publicly take personal charge of the Buddhist crisis. The President did not commit himself.
There was a lengthy discussion of the progress being made by the Vietnamese Government in its various economic and social programs. The President said that the progress of these programs proved conclusively that the war was being won.
- Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Vietnam Country Series, 7/1/63-7/20/63. Secret. Drafted by Wright.↩
- See Document 226.↩