Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917–1972, Volume VI, Public Diplomacy, 1961–1963

142. Memorandum From the Director of the United States Information Agency (Murrow) to the White House, Attention of Michael V. Forrestal of the National Security Council Staff¹

Washington, September 20, 1963.

SUBJECT

• USIS in Viet-Nam

BEGIN UNCLASSIFIED

ORGANIZATION

USIS in Viet-Nam operates with a staff of 27 American and 226 foreign local employees. In addition to the headquarters in Saigon, there are branch posts in Hue, Dalat and Cantho, and bi-national centers (Vietnamese American Associations) in Saigon, Hue and Dalat conducting varied activities and having over 5000 English students. There are also 21 sub-posts or field support operations. Total budget for 1963 was $1,600,000; GOE budget $754,000.

OBJECTIVES

The primary USIS objective is to engender support of the Vietnamese people for government programs in the struggle against the Viet Cong. This we do by stimulating pride in national accomplishment, undermining the morale of the Viet Cong and encouraging them to defect, and assisting and improving the various information operations of the Vietnamese Government.

PROGRAM OPERATIONS

As the principal target of the communists is the peasant, it is the peasant who must be our major target also. Therefore, the heart of our USIS program lies in field operations and in the various media activities which support the field program with films, publications, exhibits, etc. To improve dissemination of these various materials we have established 21 sub-posts throughout the country, staffed by Vietnamese employees of USIS.

To service our field program USIS produces a semi-monthly rural film magazine and two documentary films per month. Audience two million monthly.

Our most useful publication is a monthly magazine called Rural Spirit. Designed principally to support the Strategic Hamlet program,² it has a present circulation of 200,000. Three small weekly news sheets titled the Good Life produced in cooperation with the GVN are designed to support specific military clear-and-hold operations. Circulation 30,000. Increase to five editions is anticipated. The Vietnamese edition of Free World has a monthly circulation of 160,000. Designed for a general audience, it contains articles about Viet-Nam, neighboring countries, and the United States.

The post also produces numerous posters, leaflets and pamphlets. This activity has been at a very high level for the past few months with the production of materials in support of the Strategic Hamlet Program, the Surrender Program,³ and various tactical military operations.

Radio programs are produced locally for use on the 8 radio broadcasting stations in Viet-Nam, accounting for an average of 60 hours weekly. Programs are also produced for the Vietnamese language service of VOA. END UNCLASSIFIED.

DISCUSSION OF PRESENT STATUS AND PROSPECTS FOR FUTURE

BEGIN SECRET. In Viet-Nam, as in other fledgling nations, we have found that a necessary first task has been to build among the citizenry a sense of identification with and loyalty to their own government. And since, in Viet-Nam, an adequate governmental information apparatus did not initially exist, USIS has devoted its major effort to programs in support of the Vietnamese Government. When the Ngo Dinh Diem regime first took office nine years ago, USIS functioned as a surrogate for the Ministry of Information. It remains today an important adjunct to the Vietnamese Information Service (VIS), disseminates most of our USIS-produced materials through VIS channels, and maintains a close advisory relationship.

The primary thrust of the USIS program has been in the field of counterinsurgency. USIS output has publicized positive GVN programs for the betterment of the life of the people. We have attempted to build an image of a constitutional government meriting the support of its people in the struggle against communist aggression. Our emphasis has been upon a government and its policies and programs, rather than upon any individual or group. In the early days of the Diem regime there was much stress upon Diem himself because of the need to make him known among his own people following his long years of self-imposed exile, but USIS-produced personal publicity for Diem began to decrease after the first two years. Since that time, USIS has resisted Vietnamese efforts to promote the “cult of the personality,” but of course we have been unable to prevent the Vietnamese from doing so on their own.

The only major USIS activity of the past year which might be regarded as supporting Diem rather than the war effort as such was the printing and distribution nationwide of two million posters with Diem’s surrender appeal, carrying his picture. It was considered necessary at the time to use his authority to make the appeal effective.

During the past several years U.S. economic assistance has provided for the Vietnamese a large supply of equipment for the printing of magazines, newspapers, posters and leaflets, for the production, distribution and showing of motion pictures, and for radio broadcasting. Many Vietnamese have developed skills in the information field. In short, the Vietnamese can now conduct rather extensive (though probably not successful) information programs without outside assistance. USIS has continued a deep involvement in Vietnamese information operations for two reasons: 1) to maintain higher standards of quality than the Vietnamese could do alone, and 2) to retain a measure of control over the content of the propaganda.

The all-important control over content has often gone to us by default. Many information projects which the Vietnamese might have undertaken either alone or with American technical assistance have not been initiated by the Vietnamese because of timidity, bureaucratic inefficiency or indolence—it was easier to let the Americans carry the ball. Thus, films, publications, radio programs and other information output were prepared by USIS, reflecting the positive U.S. approach, and submitted to the GVN for approval. They were more often than not approved without modification.

Propaganda efforts conducted by the Vietnamese alone have, to a large extent, consisted of personal aggrandizement of Diem and the Ngo family, and inept and heavy-handed anti-communist propaganda. Much of it was counter-productive in terms of gaining popular support for government programs. But, even propaganda activities in which the GVN has played the leading role were often carried out in concert with Americans, either military or civilian. And, for example, when the Vietnamese would prepare a leaflet and ask USIS to print it, we could suggest changes, or, in extreme cases, simply find reasons why we could not print it.

With the advent of martial law and the GVN’s repressive moves against opposition elements came a profound change in USIS-GVN relationships. USIS contacts with GVN counterparts became strained and there were instances of harassment and threats against USIS Vietnamese employees.

Then, at the beginning of September, the GVN publicly launched an anti-USIS campaign. The Ngo Dinh Nhu-controlled Times of Viet-Nam on September 2 charged that USIS was controlled by CIA and that “CIA agents in USIS” were helping to plot the overthrow of the government. The charges were repeated on September 8. On September 19, the same newspaper enlarged on the theme with the charge that CIA in Saigon was split into a “pro-coup” and a “no coup” group, with the pro-coup group consisting of agents in USIS and the Embassy. The Alsop column of September 20 quotes President Diem as charging “machinations” and “plotting” by USIS.⁴ The GVN has also frequently attacked VOA. Reports have been received indicating that our Public Affairs Officer in Saigon, John Mecklin, has been marked for assassination.

It should be emphasized that USIS field operations in Viet-Nam are conducted mainly through 21 USIS sub-posts (staffed by Vietnamese employees of USIS) which function outwardly as adjuncts of provincial offices of the Vietnamese Information Service. Without GVN cooperation and mutual USIS-VIS confidence the 21 sub-posts could not function. GVN harassment, threats and widely publicized charges against USIS have gone so far that it is difficult to conceive that it can all be forgotten, that former relationships can be resumed on the same basis, that we can go back to “business as usual”—as long as the present regime remains in power.

The members of the Ngo family have long resented USIS because they could not control us and make us into an instrument of family aggrandizement. As pointed out previously, they now have the physical facilities for conducting a rather extensive information program without outside assistance. It now appears they are embarked on a program to eliminate all USIS activities in support of the GVN in order that they can propagandize their own people in their own way.

Edward R. Murrow

1. Source: National Archives, RG 306, DIRCTR Sub Files, 1963–69, Bx 6–29 63–69: Acc: #72A5121, Entry UD WW 257, Box 8, FIELD—Far East—July/December–1963. Secret. Drafted by Tull. According to a notation in an unknown hand on the last page of the memorandum, a copy was sent to Major General Krulak at the Pentagon.
2. For additional information on the Strategic Hamlet Program, see, for example, Foreign Relations, 1961–1963, vol. II, Vietnam, 1962, Documents, 173 and 248.
3. The Surrender Program, more commonly known as the Chieu Hoi (Open Arms or Call to Return) program, was designed to encourage defections from the Viet Cong. See Foreign Relations, 1961–1963, vol. III, Vietnam, January–August 1963, Document 92.
4. Reference is to The Washington Post columnist Joseph Alsop, who reported: “One instant, the Buddhist crisis is attributed to a well-laid plot of the Communists. And almost in the next breath, the whole ugly business is laid to ‘the machinations’ of the U.S. Information Service.” (Joseph Alsop, “Matter of Fact . . . : In the Gia Long Palace,” The Washington Post, September 20, 1963, p. A17)