171. Telegram From the Embassy in Vietnam to the Department of State1
“There is an indication on the White House copy that the President saw the telegram. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. XV)
1355. For the President. Herewith my weekly telegram. Hope you are feeling better.
1. Current political.
The most striking political news of the week was the complete failure of the Viet Cong’s call for a general strike in Saigon on October 15 to inaugurate a “hate America” month. In Saigon and throughout the countryside the population paid not the slightest attention to the strike call.
Prime Minister Ky went on the air with the first in a series of five planned fireside chats. He talked about the rising cost of living for which he blamed hoarders, speculators and the Viet Cong. He explained that the displacement of a number of families in Saigon was due to the construction of a projected new bridge which would increase access to the port of Saigon and thereby increase the port’s cargo handling capacity. He promised that death benefits to families of deceased servicemen would be paid within a month or that full explanations would be required.
A conference of province chiefs and members of provincial assemblies was held to improve communication between the national and provincial levels of government. The conference came up with a number of recommendations concerning training, standardization of salaries, and tenure for province chiefs. Some older politicians among the provincial representatives took the occasion to circulate a petition calling on the GVN to form an interim assembly from the provincial councils and to prepare for National Assembly elections. This initiative aroused very little public attention.
2. Basic political.
The more I study and learn, the more impressed I am with the savage and thorough way in which the Viet Cong has destroyed the political [Page 459] structure of this country. Everything that I have read about successful counter-guerrilla activity says that one must start in each hamlet by picking out a good man to be chairman of a committee of up and coming young men. In this country the “good man” all too often has had his head cut off, the grade B people have been driven out and what is left are the old and the weak and the children—not a real community at all.
The GVN, therefore, faces the need of actually bringing in the proposed local leadership. I thought the war veterans would be a likely nucleus but I now learn that 80 percent of the war veterans are afraid to live out in the country and have gathered in the cities. We are, therefore, not just starting from scratch but starting well below scratch.
The plan to form cadres of about 200 carefully selected people with above average gumption and recruited as much as possible among men who used once to live in the village which it is planned to pacify seems sensible.
The political action teams which the CIA has formed can be the nucleus and should be a big help.
Lansdale is working on this—and on the psychological and emotional side to try to make people want a new life and stir them up a little bit with songs.
He and I think rural electrification has a great potential as something that can be done quickly—action rather than words—and which has a wonderful psychological effect.
As the GVN picks its first group of 200 and pacifies—or rather rebuilds—its first community, it will, of course, have the USOM resources in back of it.
I believe a few genuine successes can have a profound psychological effect. We saw how radically psychology can change for the better following your decision to send U.S. troops. I have just learned of 1400 refugees in Binh Dinh Province to whom Americans have given such confidence that they actually went back home. A similar change as regards community building is not inconceivable. The Viet Cong clearly do not expect it. But neither did they expect the capacity to destroy main force units which we have demonstrated.
Whatever we do must be durable. Dependable, local security forces must remain. The new village leaders must be protected from assassination. It is better to do nothing rather than simply recreate another pattern of terrorism and assassination.
3. Security.
The total number of Viet Cong incidents increased for the fourth successive week reflecting largely increased acts of terrorism and increased anti-aircraft fire. The total number of actual Viet Cong attacks decreased considerably. Big U.S. sweeps in two provinces failed to trap [Page 460] Viet Cong units but did keep the Viet Cong on the move, thus weakening their ability to mount attacks.
4. Economics.
Saigon retail rice prices dropped slightly during the week, reversing a slow upward trend that had continued for over a month. The prices dropped despite a decrease in rice stocks on hand. This reflected confident expectations that PL 480 shipments will bring in sufficient rice to meet demands. However concern continued over the increased cost of living in general and the Vietnamese piaster continued to weaken in terms of hard currencies and gold.
The government took a number of measures against the increased cost of living. It rationed sweetened condensed milk. It withheld new price schedules, reflecting tariff increases, pending the liquidation of old stocks. It arrested and fined merchants who sold old stocks at new prices.
5. Psychological.
The failure of the Viet Cong’s call for a “day of revenge” to include a general strike and an “hour of silence” on October 15 demonstrated that the Viet Cong enjoy very little real support from the people. The failure of this effort represented a psychological defeat for the Viet Cong and this fact has not been lost on either the Vietnamese people or on foreign correspondents, particularly Asians, who were watching developments closely.
The high cost of living continued to dominate much Vietnamese thinking throughout the country.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 27 VIET S. Secret; Priority; Nodis. The source text does not indicate the time of transmission; the telegram was received at 2:40 a.m. McGeorge Bundy sent a retyped copy of this telegram to the President under cover of an October 20 memorandum that states that Lodge “sheds more light this time on the shape of the political problem. In this sense, it is a better report than last week’s, though the more we learn of the problem the harder the job looks.” Bundy noted that “good reporters coming back from Vietnam are optimistic as they have never been before. I have talked at some length with both Joe Alsop and Warren Rogers—listened rather than talked—and both of them are encouraging.↩