246. Memorandum of a Conversation, Saigon, August 18, 19551
CONVERSATION WITH PRESIDENT NGO DINH DIEM
PRESENT
- Senator Mansfield and Valeo2
The President spoke of the current census and stated that it had a dual purpose: first, the preparation for the anticipated elections in south Viet Nam and, second, for conscription. He said that the Army, which was slightly larger than 150,000, now would be reduced to that number and that there was a need to bring in “fresh blood”, so as to relieve some of the older men who had extensive family obligations. He felt that conscription after the census would make this possible.
In discussing the problem of the sects, the Prime Minister said that he felt that for all practical purposes the dissidents had been defeated. This was not to say that they were not continuing to conduct operations. Ba Cut and Tran Van Soie [Soai] in the West were still at large. Both had extensive financial resources which they had extorted from the peoples. Bay Vien, Diem said, possesses hundreds of millions of piasters from his revenues in connection with the drug trade, prostitution and other forms of vice. He is still in control of a section of the river somewhat downstream from Saigon.
At the present time Diem has some regiments deployed against Ba Cut and Tran Van Soie. He feels that as soon as he obtains sufficient naval craft he will be able to eliminate Bay Vien. The naval craft presumably would come from the French.
As for communist strength in the countryside, he believes it has been reduced by some 50 percent.
In connection with the Western provinces previously controlled by Ba Cut and Tran Van Soie, that is, the Hoa Hao the Prime Minister said that he had visited these areas and that he was appalled by what he had seen. He said that neither in the north nor the central areas of Viet Nam was there any situation to compare with it—so thoroughly and so completely had the peoples in the Western provinces been exploited. In his view, the dissidents could no longer count on any support to speak of from the indigenous inhabitants of that area.
President Diem spoke of a French parliamentary mission headed by Ferdinand Dupont (?) who came to Saigon at his invitation to consider the plight of French nationals still in the country. In an oral report the Commission said that there were three types of French residents in Viet Nam at the present time: (1) Those whose business and skills were still needed in Viet Nam and who could make a living. For them the Commission concluded the best thing would be to stay on; (2) the small proprietors, dance hall, bar cabaret and restaurant operators and retailers who had developed out of the colonial economy and who now found themselves without customers. The Commission felt that the answer for them was to pull up stakes and go back home to France. Some were taking the step; others were reluctant to do so; and (3) the petty functionaries who had had jobs in [Page 520] the French colonial service and who were now without employment. They apparently are reluctant to go home, but the Commission thinks that this is their only answer. They have no particular skills, no particular abilities, at least no trained abilities, and as long as they remain in Viet Nam they are receiving some help from the French Government in the form of social security.
As for the second type discussed above and to some extent the third type, Diem felt that the Commission’s conclusion that they should go home was sound. He pointed out that some were taking to illegal practices, getting involved in the drug trade, robbing, etc. and this was likely to increase as time went on. He said that they were already arresting several a week.
As for the French army, Diem said that it was being phased out in Indochina. He expected that it would be down to 30,000 by next March. He had no objections to the French navy and air forces remaining. On the contrary, he believed they should remain to conduct the training of comparable Vietnamese forces. He pointed out that the French dilemma was that it was a guarantor of the Geneva armistice which made it necessary for them to keep troops in the country to carry out its terms. And yet France was committed to the withdrawal of its troops. This dilemma apparently remained, and he offered no solutions.
Diem’s chief concern with the French military forces appeared to center on G–2, military intelligence, which he believes is the most detrimental influence of France in the country, because of its tie-up with the opium traffic. Diem spoke at length on the nature and degree of the tie-up. He pointed out that the French air force and other forms of transport were involved. There was, he said, a considerable movement and re-deployment of French military forces which in his opinion had no visible military purpose. The implication he left was quite clear: that these movements were connected with the narcotics traffic. He mentioned in this connection the battle of Dienbienphu and the deployment of French troops in Laos which he said was concerned primarily with preventing the opium harvest from falling into communist hands. He said that his war against the sects was really a war against opium.
On the diplomatic side, Diem said that relations with France were shifting to a diplomatic basis. He pointed out that the Minister for the Associated States in the past will become a Minister of the Army in the French Ministry of Defense. He believed this was a face-saving device to bring about the closing up of the Ministry for the Associated States.
When Hoppenot, the new French Commissioner, was appointed, he raised with Diem the question of whether he should take protocol precedence over the rest of the diplomatic corps in Saigon, pointing [Page 521] out that he did not believe the other countries would object. Diem felt, however, that he could not make this arrangement for fear of giving the Vietminh any excuse for claiming that the Saigon government was still under the domination of France.
Diem stressed that for the past year he has had to deal essentially in negatives. The problem was one of consolidating his authority in rooting out the dissidents and of making the government a going concern. Now he felt Viet Nam was entering a new and a constructive phase. He read from a piece of paper parts of their plans for economic development. He pointed out that in this phase it was necessary to deal with the serious social problems of the country and especially with the problem of the land. The program which he outlined in general followed that of most of the other countries of this area. He mentioned that he had some difficulty with the large French estates which had a considerable number of Vietnamese workers. He was trying to get the general principle accepted of 15% for rent, 85% for the worker of the land who would be settled on plots adequate to support himself and his family. One aspect of the plans involves securing control over the river barges which transport rice in Saigon. At the present time this trade is controlled by the Chinese, and Diem apparently desires to have it in Vietnamese hands on the grounds that so long as the Chinese control it they also in effect control the price of rice.
Diem spoke of a financial problem which seems to be the key difficulty at the present time with the French. Many of the French here apparently are anxious to get their capital out of the country as rapidly as possible. Diem, on the other hand, does not want any such rapid flight for fear of its inflationary effects.
He pointed out that the French had also a Technical Assistance and Economic Aid Program which he was not adverse to accepting except on the specific terms which the French asked. They offered a certain amount of money for the program with the stipulation that it would be used immediately to permit other French here to remit their capital to France. Diem felt that if this were done, his only alternative then would be to issue additional currency with consequent inflationary effects.3
- Source: University of Montana, Mansfield Papers, Series XXII, Box 95, 1955 Indochina S.E. Asia Personal. Drafter not indicated.↩
- Mansfield and Valeo were in Vietnam for approximately one week in the course of a trip to Southeast Asia.↩
- Mansfield and Valeo also held conversations on August 18 with Foreign Minister Vu Van Mau and with both Ambassador Reinhardt and Counselor Meloy. Memoranda of conversations are not printed. (University of Montana, Mansfield Papers, Series XXII, Box 95, 1955 Indochina S.E. Asia Personal)↩