6. Memorandum for the Record by the Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (Hilsman)1
CONVERSATION WITH PRESIDENT DIEM
Forrestal and I spent four and a half hours with Diem. It is perfectly obvious that Diem regards these long conversations as a form of amusement. He schedules them when he has plenty of free time and it is a substitute for bridge, movies, music, or social evenings. He, of course, monopolizes the conversation, but what it does illustrate is his very profound knowledge of his own country. There is no facet of it that he does not know everything about. He spoke at great length about the Montagnards of which he knows a great deal. He concentrated upon the differences in the different tribes and their nature, and the way they behaved, and so on.
Diem also described in great detail the recent activities of the province chief in Tay Ninh and the operations there. There was a headquarters located in Tay Ninh province of the Viet Cong. By accommodation [a combination?] of airdrops and sweeps on the part of civil guard and ARVN forces large quantities of rice supplies, a radio, a Viet Cong colonel and so on and so forth were captured. In addition a great many Viet Cong were killed.
He also described in great detail the operations in Mackaday Zone D. This is adopting the long advocated but rarely done long-range patrols by ranger companies. At the time he was talking, these four or five day patrols had killed a total of 108 VC with very few losses to themselves. Diem’s general plans in this called for keeping the reserves outside of Mackaday but to parachute or helicopter them in if the long-range patrols ran into overwhelming resistance.
Diem also had some criticisms to make of the Plei Mrong operation and of our Special Forces there. His major criticism was that the defense perimeter was badly planned and organized. Unfortunately, I am afraid he is right.
- Source: Kennedy Library, Hilsman Papers, Country Series-Vietnam.↩