17. Memorandum From the Deputy Director for Policy and Research, United States Information Agency (Ryan) to the Director (Shakespeare)1
SUBJECT
- Opinion Study on Viet-Nam: Conclusions and Recommendations
Attached is the report you requested on current foreign opinion about Viet-Nam.2
This memorandum presents conclusions we have drawn from the study. It also sets forth our recommendations—first, in terms of the Agency’s psychological advisory role; second, in terms of USIA action as a consequence of the study.
Foreign Opinion Considerations for U.S. Viet-Nam Policy
1. Our evidence indicates that current foreign interest in Viet-Nam is not very high and does not seem likely to become so as long as the Paris talks3 offer some hope of progress, and as long as there is no major escalation of the war. At least at present, the U.S. is not under heavy pressure to alter its course.
We recommend that, from the viewpoint of the international audience, the U.S. maintain its present relatively low level of public treatment of Viet-Nam.
2. Our study indicates that U.S. actions which can be seen as escalating the conflict in Viet-Nam are very likely to have considerable psychological repercussions in many areas of the world.
If there should be a decision to resume bombing of North Viet-Nam, or to take some other action interpretable as escalation, we recommend careful advance psychological preparation of foreign opinion, to seek acceptance of the U.S. action as justifiable and necessary.
3. An important exception to the general picture of current foreign interest in Viet-Nam is that part of Asia which sees its own security tied to U.S. firmness. Our study discloses fears of a softening U.S. commitment to Asia, with the U.S. stand on Viet-Nam as a barometer of American intentions. Reduction of U.S. strength in South Viet-Nam would almost surely intensify Asian doubts about U.S. reliability. Pic [Page 34] tures, on television and in the press, of the first U.S. units leaving Viet-Nam could have dramatic effects in these nations.
There is a real need for the U.S. to provide, by actions and statements, solid indications of its continuing commitment to Asia. Secretary Rogers’ coming Asian trips (to Viet-Nam, to the SEATO and TCC meetings)4 should be used as occasions—among others—for such reassurances. Specially targeted reassurances to Asian friends of the U.S. should precede any reduction of American forces in SVN. If a reduction involves recall of nonessential support troops rather than combat troops, the U.S. should make the distinction explicitly clear.
4. The present general state of world opinion—with the exceptions noted above—does not now pose serious problems for the United States. But there is a need to look ahead and begin preparing for the future—for the time when the terms of a peace settlement may be a matter of keen public dispute.
From our analysis, it appears that—while media attention to Viet-Nam is generally at a low level—there is no evidence that basic attitudes toward the war have changed. Most of the public abroad simply wants it to end, and would be inclined to applaud any settlement bringing the war to an end. Furthermore, there is insufficient appreciation abroad of the role of the GVN as a viable, representative government. Therefore:
It is important for the U.S. to identify those minimum conditions which it considers essential to a peace settlement, and to begin laying the groundwork now for public understanding of their importance. At an appropriate moment, it would be well for the Nixon administration to define these conditions in new terminology eschewing the much-belabored 14 points,5 and the oft-quoted “one-man, one-vote” formula. (We are not referring here to the details of negotiations, but rather to the broad principles which the Administration decides must be the basis for any settlement.) In this context, the U.S. should state its case without detracting from the key role of the GVN in defining the [Page 35] basic principles for a settlement. In fact, that role should be prominently featured.
USIA Operations
The following recommendations apply to USIA Operations:
1. Except in Asia, and in a few places like Sweden where Viet-Nam is a continuing public opinion problem for the United States, the current level of Agency treatment of Viet-Nam is adequate.
2. The Agency should make special efforts, in Asian countries where reassurance is needed, to heighten confidence in the reliability of U.S. commitments. Embodied clearly in these efforts, however, should be continuing emphasis on efforts of the Asian nations themselves to provide for their own defense.
3. The Agency should take additional steps to promote foreign awareness of the GVN as a viable, broadly based, constitutional government. To promote awareness of the successes of the GVN in shouldering its military and civil burdens is equally important. In the latter effort, the most convincing voice would be the GVN’s. Accordingly, the Agency should also press the GVN to improve and expand its own overseas information activities. As the GVN does so, the level of the United States’ public treatment of its role in Viet-Nam could be reduced.
- Source: National Archives, RG 306, Office of Research, Special Reports, 1953–1997, Entry P–160, Box 26, S–16–69. Confidential.↩
- Attached but not printed is the report, entitled “Current Climate of Foreign Opinion on Viet-Nam.”↩
- See footnote 2, Document 1.↩
- References are to Rogers’s upcoming trips to Saigon May 14–19 to meet with Thieu and U.S. and Vietnamese officials and to Bangkok May 19–23 to attend the SEATO Council and seven-nation meetings. For Rogers’s May 9 statement, in which he outlined the purpose for and itinerary of the trip, see Department of State Bulletin, May 26, 1969, pp. 433–434. For Rogers’s May 12 departure statement, his remarks at a May 14 news conference upon arrival in Saigon, and his remarks at a May 19 news conference upon his departure, see ibid., June 2, 1969, pp. 461–464. For his May 20 statement at the SEATO Council opening session, the text of final communiqué released on May 21, the text of the final communiqué issued at the close of the seven-nation meeting on May 22, and Rogers’s statement upon his departure from Bangkok, see ibid., June 9, 1969, pp. 477–484.↩
- Presumable reference to President Wilson’s plan for a comprehensive peace settlement following World War I. Wilson enumerated the Fourteen Points in an address before a joint session of Congress on January 8, 1918.↩