385. Telegram From the Embassy in Vietnam to the Department of State 1
1199. CINCPAC for POLAD. After a series of consultations today with General Khanh, Generals Minh and Thu, I have the impression that the business of putting together a new government has reached the following point:
Khanh, Minh and the Secretariat of the High National Council, Suu, Chu, Luc, Van and Huyen, had a reasonably satisfactory meeting of minds yesterday. Khanh concedes that they have deflated the powers of the Chief of State to a point acceptable to him. He did not give the impression, however, of having studied in detail the provisions of the charter as it now stands and had some difficulty showing in chart form the relationships of the principal elements. He claims not to have seen the charter with its latest modifications.
[Page 842]One outcome of yesterday’s meeting was the signing of a document by Minh and Khanh authorizing the dissolution of the triumvirate and the passage of its powers to the High National Council. This document is now in the hands of the Council.
Minh, supported by Thu, gave me a somewhat different version of the state of affairs. They consider they are now on the home stretch and even hope to promulgate the charter today. In their minds, there is no doubt as to the relationship of the principal elements of the new government. There is the Chief of State with nominal powers whom they may prefer to call the President; a civilian Prime Minister with a normal cabinet including a civilian Minister of the Armed Forces; a Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces subordinated to the Minister of Defense. Off to one side is the National Security Council presided over by the Chief of State as President with the Prime Minister as Vice President and the Minister of the Armed Forces and the Commander-in-Chief as additional members. This council will have only the power to make recommendations either to the National Assembly for such matters as a declaration of war or a state of emergency or to the government on matters of defense policy.
According to Minh and Thu, these provisions essentially as described above were in the draft charter shown to Khanh yesterday and to which he agreed. They conceded some last minute changes are being made but consider them insignificant.
Nonetheless, based on Khanh’s statement that he had not yet seen the final papers, I urged them to have one more go-round with Khanh before publishing the charter. This they are strangely reluctant to do, probably because of the disagreeable tone of most of their conferences with Khanh. They charge him bitterly with being unwilling to work on a team and even with frequent violations of his word. They would not have him in the government if they could find some way to get rid of him.
We then got around to talking about personalities in the government.
I pointed out they had the double problem of finding two civilians who could work with Khanh, one a Prime Minister and the other a Minister of the Armed Forces. They said that Khanh was plugging for his uncle, Minister of Interior Nguyen Luu Vien, as Minister of the Armed Forces and asked what I thought of him. I replied that my impressions based upon limited observation had been favorable but the fact that he is Khanh’s uncle will cause some criticism.
I then pressed them for their plan for filling the position of Prime Minister. To my surprise, they said that Khanh, Minh and the Council representatives had reached an informal agreement on a name last [Page 843] night, but they were not at liberty to communicate it to me yet. They assured me the person involved is highly respected and should satisfy all parties.
I stressed the need for careful public and press preparations for announcing the new charter and later the key figures of the government. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, they are now in an enormous hurry to promulgate the charter2 and satisfy those who have been pressing for evidence of progress. They did not promise to have a full scale press conference and a thorough public explanation of the contents of the charter.
The foregoing would seem to mean that we may be getting somewhere in the formation of a new government generally along lines satisfactory to us. I still have my fingers crossed about Khanh. He was too non-committal this morning to give me the feeling that everything is really settled in his mind.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 15 VIET S. Secret; Immediate; Limdis. Also sent to CIA, the Department of Defense, and the White House and repeated to CINCPAC.↩
- The text of the Provisional Charter, which as Taylor feared was promulgated later during the day on October 20, was transmitted in telegram 1204 from Saigon, October 20. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Vietnam Country File, Vol. XX, Cables)↩