751G.00/7–754: Telegram
The Ambassador at Saigon (Heath) to the Department of State1
90. Repeated information Paris 39, Geneva 21, Hanoi, Bangkok unnumbered. Following my call on Ely yesterday,2 DCM and I were received by Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem. Throughout an hour’s interview he kept repeating with monotonous insistence that means must be found to recover the three lost provinces of South Tonkin and throughout our conversation he made no attempt to conceal bitterness with which he views recent French withdrawal from the three bishoprics. Diem’s strategic concept—if it may be so called—is to regain Nam Dinh, Phat Diem, and Bui Chu, attack vigorously Viet Minh heartland around Tuy Hoa and Vinh, and thus establish a friendly zone from South Tonkin as far as Hue. This he feels will give Vietnam necessary resources of manpower as well as a strong position confronting a Viet Minh-held Northern Tonkin. At one point in conversation he said he would be even willing to trade Hanoi for the three Catholic Provinces, but this no doubt is more a tribute to his religious fervor than to his strategic and political concepts. Later, however, he said that to lose Hanoi is to lose the war.
Diem inveighed with great vigor against French military desire to retain an enclave in Haiphong. He said, “all they want is not a bridgehead but merely a place from which to evacuate expeditionary corps and in which, if they stay, they will treat directly with Communist China.”
Diem ascribed principal recent decisions of French Government in Indochina to Mendes-France and seemed to concentrate his ire largely on this one figure, although he certainly loses no love for General Salan. On his new cabinet, Diem said that it was composed of devoted Nationalists, included no members of any political party or of the confessional sects, and formed a homogeneous group dedicated to working on a program of action. However, when we asked what his platform would be, he said that Vietnam had already seen too many governments making too many speeches and that his own declaration, which would be published tomorrow, would be couched in very general terms and would be brief. He said that what people of Vietnam wanted now were deeds and not words.