Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume IV, Vietnam, 1966

153. Telegram From the Embassy in Vietnam to the Department of State¹

Saigon, June 8, 1966.

5378. For the President from Lodge. Herewith my weekly telegram.

A. Military Prospects

1. I have been hoping that we could get decisive military results within a year. I had based this hope on our considerable military accomplishments in overcoming the main force units of the Viet Cong and large units of the Army of North Viet-Nam, and in destroying the redoubts in the jungles. But MACV does not think that it can do anything decisive in a year. Their operational plans for the next year, if carried out, would mean that good progress had been achieved, but nothing decisive. The best estimate also is that 20,000 men of the Army of North Viet-Nam have come into South Viet-Nam since January and, as far as I can learn, we canʼt find them.

2. If we are now going as hard and as fast as we can go in South Viet-Nam militarily and cannot get a decisive military result in a year, the question arises as to whether we should not intensify the air attack on North Viet-Nam—whether we cannot thus bring about strains which will neutralize their army in South Viet-Nam, in spite of our inability to do it in South Viet-Nam on the ground within a year.

3. The reports I get are certainly consistent with the proposition that the Hanoi regime is feeling real pain because of our bombing. If there is this change of feeling in Hanoi—as seems likely—I believe the bombing has had a lot to do with it, although ground casualties, of course, play a part. This being true, an intensification of the bombing would be the most effective step we could take to get Hanoi to the negotiating table or—better still—to start “fading away.”

B. Weekly Military Highlights

4. The highlights of last weekʼs military activity were two heavy battles won by U.S. and Korean forces and a sparkling performance by the Vietnamese Second Division which surprised a large Viet Cong force with a midnight assault on its bivouac in Quang Tin Province. After making the initial assault, the attacking force deliberately withdrew and then re-attacked at 3:00 in the morning, catching the Viet Cong survivors in the process of evacuating their dead and wounded. As a result, the Viet Cong lost 100 killed and 56 weapons, while the Vietnamese troops lost only two missing.

5. For the week ended last Sunday, the “killed in action” were: Vietnamese 135; U.S. 69; Viet Cong 902. These figures fluctuate from week to week as relative missions change, and we must expect weeks when there will be more Americans. This is undoubtedly still less than would be the case if we did not make a stand in Viet-Nam and were thus constrained to make it elsewhere. Our choice is not between casualties in Viet-Nam on the one hand or no casualties at all on the other. In the present state of the world, the choice probably is between casualties in Viet-Nam on the one hand and more casualties somewhere else if we were to leave Viet-Nam.

C. Vietnamese Catholics and Elections

6. DʼOrlandi, the Italian Ambassador, and dean of the diplomatic corps, has a wide knowledge of Viet-Nam. He is an accurate reporter, and his opinions are stimulating, although I often disagree. He makes a business of keeping in touch with the different factions among the Vietnamese Catholics, and I have found him particularly well informed about them. He sums up the prevailing Vietnamese Catholic views as follows:

7. While they do not enthuse about holding elections, they probably will not boycott elections if they take place. A commonly expressed attitude early last week was that they should try to get Ky out of office, and then the elections would not take place. But as the Institute Buddhists have more and more turned against Ky, the Catholic desire to force Ky out has moderated. Also elections appear inevitable.

8. They do, however, fear that once the elections are held, the United States will pronounce them to have been good, thereby committing ourselves to what the Assembly may subsequently decide. They also think the Assembly will be the first and only national body ever to have been elected by the people, and will, therefore, at once try to take over from the GVN. They also fear that this Assembly will be badly intimidated by the Viet Cong, and, will in a very short space of time, ask the United States to leave. All this would happen even before the Constitution was drafted.

9. These Vietnamese Catholics believe that there are some who would think that for the U.S. to be thus invited to leave would be a very subtle and clever “out” for the United States. But actually, they believe, with the conditions as they are, it would be a resounding defeat, and the invitation to leave would be a device which would not, in their opinion, fool anybody.

10. They believe that it would immediately lead to the slaughter and enslavement of the Catholics and others in South Viet-Nam; it would turn Indonesia back to the Communists; and have catastrophic results in Southeast Asia.

11. My comment on this is as follows:

12. There are a great many elements here having doubts about the wisdom of having elections. To the Catholics must now be added the Tri Quang Buddhists who were frantically insisting on elections a while ago. A week ago, I would have said that it was totally impractical to think of not having elections. Now, I am not so sure, although the odds are still strongly that the elections will take place as scheduled in September.

13. My guess is that the Assembly to be elected at that time will undoubtedly consider itself more legitimate than the GVN, and that there will be a real row about that. Most of the members of the present electoral commission will probably be candidates and if their attitude is any guide—and I believe it is—I would feel confident that, if not intimidated, they would not invite us to leave.

14. But we must assume that many of them will be intimidated because that is a traditional way of doing things here. I realize this will be hard to explain in the United States where Congressmen and Senators are not influenced to vote a certain way by having their life threatened, and who will naturally think of the Vietnamese Assembly as a counterpart of the U.S. Congress.

D. Paraplegic Veterans

15. This war has caused many Vietnamese to lose arms and legs, and until recently, the facilities for helping these victims were very limited. The National Institute for Rehabilitation had been painfully turning out a very few limbs and braces every month, using primitive hand methods. Mr. Juan Monros, of the World Rehabilitation Fund, who was brought here by Howard Rusk, has held a 4-month training course which 43 student technicians completed on May 27 on the techniques of producing plastic limbs and braces. He expects that the Institute will now be able to turn out some 500 limbs and braces a month, which will be a great help in solving what has been a serious human problem. I recall your personal interest in making this possible.

E. Economic

16. The sharp rise in retail prices over the previous two weeks halted last week, as did the Saigon free market rates for U.S. currency and gold. The price of rice was stable and those of wheat, flour and sugar were down, as were those of most imported commodities.

17. The economic situation in Danang has improved somewhat. The airlift of meat and wheat flour into the city brought down their prices as much as 25 percent. The port of Danang is now operating satisfactorily.

F. Success in Binh Thuan

18. Mission Coordinator Wilson spent last night in Binh Thuan Province, southernmost coastal province of II Corps. Population is roughly a quarter of a million, with more than 75 percent of the people estimated to be under GVN control as contrasted with about 20 percent of the physical territory being controlled by the government.

19. According to the Province Chief and his U.S. advisors on the ground, the people of Binh Thuan sense that the Nationalist side is going to win and thus are shifting their allegiance and support to province and district officials. These officials feel that this in no sense signifies a political conversion, ideological shift or endorsement of the present government. It is merely a pragmatic recognition that the Viet Cong is taking a beating and that it is better to get with the winning side.

20. Province Chief also attributes much of this shift in attitude to the leadership of General Thang, Minister of Revolutionary Development, who has spent some time visiting personally in hamlets and villages of the province and to new sense of urgency Thang has succeeded in imparting to provincial officials. Highly successful operation in the province several months ago by the 101st Airborne Brigade which resulted in a large number of Viet Cong casualties is also reported to have had a dramatic effect on peasant attitudes.

21. Wilson reports: A quick evaluation of such indicators as the number of VC defectors, number of refugees, willingness of people to provide intelligence on the Viet Cong, and the general rate of progress on the pacification front tends to substantiate the conclusion that a positive trend has indeed begun in this one province.

22. Comment: This seems to show all elements of our program working together as we have always hoped they would and that when they do work together the desired result is achieved.

G. Education

23. By the end of May of this year we had completed 43 percent of our program of distributing fourteen million elementary school textbooks throughout Viet-Nam. This program, which we began in mid-1965, will be concluded in second half 1967. The books are distributed to the schools and lent to the students for the school year. We hope to get three yearsʼ use out of each book.

24. The significance of this program and its impact on the system of primary education is worth special note: for the first time, Vietnamese children have textbooks which they can take home and read and show to their parents. Content and illustrations have been carefully worked out with leading Vietnamese educators and cover such subjects as Viet-Namʼs history and geography, along with other standard subjects as arithmetic and personal hygiene and sanitation. I am providing a sample packet of these books separately, including brief descriptive comments, as an item of possible interest.

25. Next to safety of life and limb, there is probably nothing more highly prized in Viet-Nam than education—perhaps greater even than land reform.

H. Chieu Hoi

26. The number of returnees during the period May 28 to June 3 increased slightly to 257, as compared to 247 for the previous period, for a total of 1,237 for May. This compared with a total of 1,620 for April and 2,294 for March.

27. This reduction is due in part to the political crisis, in part to the diminution of combat (combat tends to drive people into the camps) and in part to the fact that there are as yet no reports from I Corps.

28. It is to be noted that since early March, the number of so-called “high quality” defectors has increased to rate of one or two per week, contrasted to a rate of one or less per month before March. “High quality” defector is defined as meaning squad or platoon leaders from Viet Cong main force units.

Lodge

1. 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 7:15 p.m. Rostow forwarded the text of the telegram to the President at 11:45 a.m. on June 9 under cover of a memorandum stating that it was “worth reading through to the end” and had “much more good news than bad.” (Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President—Walt W. Rostow, vol. 5)