Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917–1972, Volume VII, Public Diplomacy, 1964–1968

101. Memorandum From the Assistant Director, Europe, United States Information Agency (Weld) to the Deputy Director, Policy and Plans (Ryan)¹

Washington, August 9, 1966

SUBJECT

• Comment on and Analysis of Response to State and USIA Queries on Viet-Nam from IAE Posts²

In back of all post analyses and comment is an unexpressed leitmotif: Europeans tend to think of the conflict as a U.S. war that is being carried on irrespective of the interests of all the South Vietnemese and of Asians in general. The posts therefore recommend a more international approach to our effort, in addition to fresh U.S. presentations of our position. Also noted is a conviction that photos and stories originating with U.S. wire services are almost always detrimental to our cause.

I. GENERAL RECOMMENDATION:

We have increasing evidence, from our recent PAO meeting³ onwards, that Europeans can understand the war and our involvement better if they grasp the degree of our interests in the Pacific area in general rather than in South Viet-Nam in particular. With the President’s July 12 speech⁴ as a base, IAE would suggest that media treatment to our area might be more effective if there were more emphasis on our position in the Pacific as a whole. When Europeans understand why we are there, to prevent repetition of what happened in Asia in the 30’s, and to permit socio-economic progress, they might well understand why we cannot leave. Sensitive as Europeans are about potential withdrawals of troops and interests to advance our concerns elsewhere, they are sophisticated enough, when fully informed, to judge our presence in the Pacific to be necessary by classical balance of power principles. They should be reminded that the attack on SVN is but the latest in a long series of post-war communist actions in the Far East (Malaya, the Philippines, Korea, Laos). While SVN is not necessarily the ideal place for us to make a stand, it is nevertheless the place where the stand must be made. Should we withdraw, opportunity to make a stand elsewhere under more favorable conditions would not be possible. Our presence and performance in SVN are making possible constructive developments throughout the Far East and South East Asia; our withdrawal could only advance the interests of Peking and Hanoi throughout the area. Ultimately, that would create a situation even more detrimental to our ability to maintain our European commitments.

The following specific suggestions, many made by the posts themselves, seem worthy of pursuit:

II. PRESENTATIONS BY AUTHORITATIVE U.S. SOURCES:

1. Increase flow to our overseas posts of knowledgeable U.S. speakers on VN. (Many posts)

2. Encourage famous U.S. professionals to correspond with their European colleagues on issues involved in the conflict. These letters could be published and broadcast. The Steinbeck-Yevtushenko exchange is the model here.⁵

3. Increase feeds to RIAS from its Saigon correspondent; these can be picked up by FRG stations. (Germany)

III. PRESENTATIONS BY NON-U.S. SOURCES

1. Expand the number of backgrounders given by the President and the Secretaries of State and Defense to individual European correspondents. These should be off-the-record private talks rather than exclusive interviews. The correspondents should be selected among those who write unsympathetically about the conflict.

2. Assign experienced USIA officers to the ‘P’ staff in each area at State so that contacts can be increased with Washington-based correspondents from overseas. Many attitudes abroad are determined by what correspondents report from Washington; these correspondents are likely to report more accurately, and sympathetically, if they are seen regularly by informed Americans.

3. Increase the number of European correspondents and TV teams who are sent on special trips to Viet-Nam, including popular magazine writers and editors of student newspapers. This increase might be pegged to the upcoming September elections. It would be ideal if the South Vietnamese could invite them. (Austria, Germany)

4. Explore use of Italian film on the conflict for possible worldwide placement on TV. (Italy)

5. Explore use of Canadian film on non-military aspects of South Viet-Nam today for possible worldwide placement on TV. (Canada)

6. Explore possibility of a film on multi-national aid programs to South Viet-Nam. (Norway)

7. Arrange for more Asian leaders to make public statements in Europe on their understanding of the conflict. The British, for example, will hearken to what the Australians and New Zealanders say. (Germany)

8. Arrange for returning Vietnamese leaders and students to stop off in Europe on the way back home from the U.S. It is not necessary for these people to make talks and become ‘spokesmen.’ Lunches and informal groups in which they are included would be useful to our posts.

9. Suggest that a prominent British scholar on Far East like P. J. Honey⁶ do the 1967 Reith lectures⁷ on the BBC on the situation in that area. These could be re-broadcast by IBS and published afterwards.

1. Source: National Archives, RG 306, Director’s Subject Files, 1963–1967, Entry UD WW 101, Box 3, Field—Far East (Viet Nam) 1966 July–August. Confidential. Drafted by Mason.
2. See the attachment to Document 100.
3. No record of the PAO meeting has been found.
4. In a July 12 speech to the American Alumni Council, which Johnson delivered from the White House and was broadcast nationwide over both television and radio, he stressed: “Asia is now the crucial arena of man’s striving for independence and order, and for life itself. This is true because three out of every five people in all this world live in Asia tonight. This is true because hundreds of millions of them exist on less than 25 cents a day. This is true because Communists in Asia tonight still believe in force in order to achieve their Communist goals. So if enduring peace can ever come to Asia, all mankind will benefit. But if peace fails there, nowhere else will our achievements really be secure.” For text of the speech, see Public Papers: Johnson, 1966, Book II, pp. 718–722.
5. On July 7, the Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko published a poem in a Soviet paper entitled “Letter to John Steinbeck,” imploring the American novelist to protest the United States’ war in Vietnam. Steinbeck, in turn, replied to Yevtushenko in an open letter printed in the U.S. newspaper, Newsday, noting that the Soviet poet, “asked me to denounce half a war, our half. I appeal to you to join me in denouncing the whole war.” (Raymond H. Anderson, “Soviet Poet Bids Steinbeck Speak,” New York Times, July 8, 1966, p. 6; “Reply by Steinbeck Chides Yevtushenko,” New York Times, July 11, 1966, p. 1)
6. British scholar and writer whose work focused primarily on Vietnam.
7. Reference is to the series of annual radio lectures commissioned by the BBC that began in 1948.