23. Memorandum of Conversation, Saigon, January 16, 19621
POINTS OF SPECIAL INTEREST IN PRESIDENT DiemʼS MEETING WITH A.I.D. ADMINISTRATOR FOWLER HAMILTON ON JANUARY 16
PARTICIPANTS
- Ngo Dinh Diem, President of the Republic of Vietnam
- Hoang Khac Thanh, Minister of National Economy
- Truong Buu Khanh, President of Air Vietnam (acted as translator)
- Fowler Hamilton, Administrator of AID
- William C. Trueheart, Chargé d’Affaires ad interim
- Arthur Z. Gardiner, Director,USOM
- Henry Koren, Director, Office of Southeast Asian Affairs, Department of State
(This [is] not an attempt at a complete memorandum of conversation, which will be supplied for the record by Mr. Koren who took notes throughout the four-hour conversation. The purpose of this memorandum is to highlight certain points that were new to the drafting officer, and to comment on some of them.)
1. Diemʼs Anti-communist History
Diem went to very considerable lengths in describing his role in Vietnam beginning in 1922 when he started in as a district official, and eventually rose to be a province chief and Minister of the Interior. As early as 1922, he had made a point of reading communist literature published in Switzerland, and this enabled him to obtain a true insight into the activities of the communists who were active throughout Central Vietnam in the ʼ20s and ʼ30s. Despite the fact that the commies then operated through various front and cover organizations, his knowledge of their techniques enabled him to be always alert, and his anti-commie tactics as a government official soon earned communist enmity.
He was extremely critical of French policy at the time. The French government thought that local communists might be a force which could help contain and control the rising spirit of nationalism in Vietnam. This view was a sadly mistaken one. Communists here were actually in touch with Moscow headquarters only through Paris, and the presence of left-wing government in France in the 1930s, and the emergence of the Front Populaire in France in the mid-thirties, was a great encouragement to communist activity and dissidence in all of Vietnam.
[Page 42]Diem spoke of his early connection with the VC General—Giap—whom he described as a person of great industry with great pride in self. Diem and Giap were born in neighboring villages, and Diem had known him, and known of him, for years, despite the fact that Giap is about ten years Diemʼs junior in age. Diem also mentioned his contacts with Ho Chi Minh, and emphasized the long absence from the soil of Vietnam which had characterized Hoʼs career.
Diemʼs anti-colonialist and anti-communist convictions led to his withdrawal from the French civil service, and subsequently to his detention by the VC in the mountainous regions of North Vietnam. He emphasized that for all those forty years, from 1922 to 1962, his anticommunist convictions and purpose had never wavered.
II. U.S. Errors
Diem mentioned three major errors in United States policy since 1955 with considerable bitterness, although he said that he did not wish to engage in polemics. He implied, however, that present newspaper attacks on him and his regime were designed to cover up these errors of Americans whose careers might otherwise be prejudiced.
The first error was the refusal to accept his proposal which he made to the JCS in 1957 in Washington2 to expand the military forces by 20,000 men. The second error was U.S. insistence on treating the Civil Guard as a rural police force rather than as a military force. This second error had only recently been corrected. The third error was refusal of the Embassy and USOM to accept his program for development of rural roads in 1957. Rapid expansion of the road network was an essential element in the struggle against communism.
The President remarked that in the Staley/Thuc Report3 his road program had been accepted, but that he was still disappointed at the extent of action so far in carrying it out.
[The Thuc/Staley Report, in referring to the road program, mentioned the “construction of village roads with heavy use of local labor.” That is all. The implementation of various measures contemplated in the report, of course, is dependent to a large extent on the availability of local currency funds, and six months were required for action by the GVN to take the steps in establishing the fiscal policy contemplated in the Thuc/Staley Report to provide the necessary finances for counter-insurgency efforts in both military and civilian
In looking back at the history of the road program, it is important to note that the operations of the American contractors, who constructed three highways designed to meet military priorities as they were then established, resulted in training hundreds of Vietnamese [Page 43] workers in the use of road-building equipment, starting from scratch. The development of an adequately manned and staffed Highway Department was a prime object of USOM policy from 1958 onwards, and the reluctance of the ICA to provide unlimited new highway equipment was conditioned throughout by considerations of ability of Vietnam to utilize, maintain, and repair equipment with a reasonable degree of effectiveness, as well as by the fact that 2,000 pieces of heavy equipment, used by U.S. contractors, were intended to be turned over to the GVN—as has been done. Throughout most of 1960, the GVN had stored near Tan Son Nhut airport, unutilized, great quantities of earth movers bought with their own funds but kept idle pending use for the Da Nhim Dam project. During the summer of 1960, it was reckoned by MAAG that the ARVN engineers could have been 50% more effective in the use of their men and equipment had active steps been taken by ARVN to maintain units, 30% of which were then deadlined for one reason or another.]4
The President also spoke with conviction on the need to regroup people in the countryside into defensible units, rather than having them scattered in homesteads remote from one another. Such a regroupment was an essential counter-guerrilla element at the present time, combined with appropriate village guards dedicated to the defense of their homes. Some progress was being made along these lines. He did not agree, however, that it was necessary to pay for the labor involved in this regroupment. It was characteristic of the agricultural economy of Vietnam that following varied activities in connection with the cycle of farm operations’ labor had spare time on its hands, and at these periods it could and should be used for community improvements such as were involved in a program of regroupment.
He also noted that the government had considered an increase in pay for both Civil Guards and village guards a year ago, but that he had been informed by his financial counsellors that the government could not afford to make increased funds available for these purposes.
In another category of criticism which appeared to be directed primarily at USOM, President Diem referred to our reluctance in the early stages of the aid program in 1955 to believe that the Vietnamese, as distinct from French or Chinese, could play a useful and effective role in business enterprise. He pointed out that at that time there were only two Chambers of Commerce in Saigon, one the French and the other Chinese. Efforts which he had made had resulted in the establishment of a Vietnamese business group, who began as importers and who now were established with their own Chamber of Commerce and were working effectively in industry and trade.
[Page 44][Underlying this criticism, one might detect great sensitivity at frequently expressed American opinion that technical, industrial and commercial problems in Vietnam do require advice at the present time from those trained outside of the country.]
In considering the use of military equipment now being made available in such large quantities through U.S. military aid, however, the President took a completely different view. He emphasized that it would be a great error to expect quick results despite the fact that this military equipment is now being made available in admittedly satisfactory quantities. The reason why he could not promise results was that Vietnamese military forces lacked the leadership to put it to full, immediate use. The reason for the lack of leadership was that the French had never trained an adequate number of officers, so that Vietnam was left with the problem of finding enough well trained generals, colonels and majors to mount substantial operations. The officers who are now in command lack sufficient knowledge of the abilities and resources of their troops, and this has led to frequent failures in operations. He sketched on paper, as an example, three columns of soldiers advancing on a given point. He said all too often the estimates of time required for each to reach the given objective were incorrect. The columns either arrived late, or else punctually but at the point of exhaustion, and therefore the operation would be ineffective.
President Diem spoke with very great bitterness of the criticisms of himself and his administration written by journalists who lived off the fat of the land either here or in Hong Kong or in the United States, and who had no responsibility whatsoever for the conduct of the campaign against the communists. He was contemplating writing a letter to President Kennedy, asking for President Kennedyʼs views on the way to handle such unjustified and unwarranted criticism. He implied that this type of criticism played right into the hands of the commies. Communist propaganda could not usefully and effectively criticize the very adequate domestic programs of the GVN which had done so much to build up the economy of the countryside in Vietnam. It was very advantageous for the communists to be able to find material ready made by Free World journalists with which to criticize Diem himself and the top government officials.
Director, USOM
- Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 84, Saigon Embassy Files: FRC 68 A 1814, USIS, 1962. Confidential. Drafted by Gardiner.↩
- Regarding Diemʼs visit to Washington in 1957, see Foreign Relations, 1955–1957, vol. I, pp. 792 ff.↩
- Not printed, but see Foreign Relations, 1961–1963, vol. I, Document 93.↩
- These and following brackets are in the source text.↩