Standby. Go.

On the question uh...did we have enough expertise, did we have enough people who knew, there are many aspects to this. Uh we did not have a great many people who really were Vietnam experts. It's not the kind of country that will attract a young careerist on the rise because of the complexity of the language, because it can't be used in other parts of the world, and for a variety of other reasons. Nonetheless, if you count experts on Vietnam both in the government and outside, it seems to me we had a fair number of them.

The purges however of the late 40s and early 50s, what we generally know as the McCarthy period, uh did have a very important indirect effect on...not so much on the number of experts but on their freedom of expression that...it seems to me that the result of McCarthyism in the early 50s in the US and particularly in the State Department was to constrain officials and to constrain both reporting from the field and the attitudes and viewpoints expressed by uh officials in the decision-making process at home, so that people were not as free after they had known of what had happened to uh the experts on China during the previous period of the loss of China.

Good.

But, I don't think there's any question but that the ah purges that occurred in the State Department and the Foreign Affairs and National Security bureaucracy in the late '50's, ah, in the late '40's and early '50's as a result of ah of the phenomenon we know as McCarthyism had an impact on uh our Indochina expertise. It wasn't ah so eh so much a direct impact in terms of cutting the number of experts or reducing the number of experts.

Ah. It was an indirect impact in that it constrained the, those people who knew the country and the region well from fully expressing themselves in the wake of this whole period of "who lost China" and the accusations that were leveled against so many China experts. Ah. It became more difficult and more constraining for experts on Indochina and on Vietnam to fully express themselves both in the field in their reports to Washington, and in ah, in the decision-making process in the State Department and in other places in Washington.

That's good. What was the atmosphere in the US mission in Saigon when you were there in '52?

Now, let me make ah a point clear first of all, which is that I only spent ah roughly around five months in Saigon in 1952. Ah. That I did not serve a full tour in the embassy. The mission I was working on in Vietnam in Washington at the time in the State Department, Research and Analysis Division. The mission was a tense one under ambassador, under the ambassador at the time, and that he and the deputy chief of mission, that is, the number two man in the embassy ahm ah I think were at odds on a number of very vital points. The principle difference was this.

While the ambassador was fully in line with the policy of primacy for Europe and primacy and giving assistance to France, and, in effect not pushing the French too hard for political concessions to the Vietnamese Government of Bao Dai and the administration that was trying to establish itself as an allegedly independent state there ah the ah other element in the embassy really headed by him deputy was ah strongly in favor of ah of the Vietnamese Nationalists, if we can call them that.

Now, I should, should use that term with all due qualifications because ah there are limits to their nationalism. They were not a very strong political group of people in many ways. To me, they're extremely reminiscent of some of the ministers who served in the post-Diem Coup regimes in the later '60's and even early '70's. Ah. However, the ah, one element in that mission was clearly in favor of ah pushing the French very hard to grant various forms of independence and autonomy that the French were not quite willing to give, and the other, led by the ambassador was in favor of, basically, giving assistance to the French and keeping our eye firmly fixed on the communist menace that was perceived to exist to ah the existence of a free Southeast Asia.

Stop please. That sounded good to me, but I don't know enough about it.

Are you going to ask a question?

Could you describe the meeting when you were present where Collins gave his report against the Diem?

In the spring of 1955, (cough) at the same time precisely as Ngo Dinh Diem was waging the so-called battle of the sects through the streets of Saigon, this was ah, a battle that ah his army under Little Minh, General Little Minh, Tran Van Minh, fought against primarily the Binh Xuyen Waterfront thugs gang ah but also to combat in Hoa Hao a political religious sects were associated Binh Xuyen against Diem.

While this battle was being waged in Saigon, General Collins came back to Washington, along with his political advisor and a large meeting was held in the State Department chaired by the Undersecretary of State to the best of my recollection at which General Collins and his advisors presented their objections to continued support for Ngo Dinh Diem.

It seems to me ah that the meeting was in effect preempted by the reports we were getting simultaneously on the battle that was going on in Saigon, which Diem and his loyal ah lieutenant, the General Minh, Little Minh, was winning, so that the sects were eliminated and Diem consolidated his position as a result of that battle.

And, the, the arguments which General Collins was giving ah which, which primarily as I, as I recall them that Ngo Dinh Diem would not be able to muster even if we gave him more time sufficient solid domestic support to really construct ah a viable state in the south without ah alternatives being presented by General Collins as to what might happen if we drop support of Diem. It seems to me that these arguments were not ah really listened to and my clear recollection of the outcome of the meeting is that we left there with marching orders to the new US Ambassador, Frederick Nolting, to ah...

Cut. Frederick Reinhardt. It was a different Frederick. Reinhardt.

Jesus Christ. What did I say? Oh, God.

Nolting.

God.

And that we left the meeting with a very clear appreciation of the marching orders being given to the new US Ambassador to Vietnam, Frederick Reinhardt, to fully support Ngo Dinh Diem from there on. That is ah, ah, to me there is no question but what after this meeting, (cough) the opposition that had been shown by the elem--by the special mission in Saigon headed by General Collins ah which, of course, in Saigon was opposed by the regular staff of the embassy under the ah then ambassador ah ah that that this opposition crumbled. And that the US went fully behind Ngo Dinh Diem and began to increase its support as a matter of fact ah...

I think that's enough. Were the arguments at the meeting...?

By the way he's still there, which is amazing.

Were the arguments at the meeting itself very heated? Did people get very upset? Was Collins adamant?

... Shall I go on?

Ya.

I, I have to confess that I have a fairly dim recollection of the details of the meeting. It impressed me greatly because I was still a very junior officer at the time attending a, a very high-level meeting. Ah. My feeling about the meeting, as I recall it now, almost thirty years later, is that it was a very tense meeting. I don't recall a shouting match at the meeting, (cough) but I think the arguments were forcefully presented ah by General Collins and particularly by his political advisor, and that the counter-arguments were being given by those of us in the State Department who ah felt that Diem ah, held the only hope in the place if we were going to ah continue ah ah any sort of involvement whatsoever with Vietnam.

Stop.

As to whether anyone (cough) at that time advocated a withdrawal from Vietnam, ah the answer to that I think, is clearly, no. I don't recall anyone advocating it and I think the reasons were number one, we were not in it. We were still at that time very subordinate to the French though our, our role was certainly growing.

Ah. Secondly, ah the Geneva Accords called for a number of implementation provisions which had not yet occurred. We were in the process of that. Ah. A period of implementation or non-implementation perhaps in the Geneva Accords.

Ah. Third, ah, the policy, in general, seemed to most of the decision-makers, I think, at the time, whether they were pro-Diem or for some alternative to conform to the general needs of the United States security at the time. That is a perception of threat whether justified or not from the Sino-Soviet bloc in Southeast Asia, a parc--a part and parcel of the containment policy of the United States, and one that fitted, in general with our global, the global context of American security policy.

Stop. How we doing for film?

By the late spring, early summer of 1955 ah Ngo Dinh Diem seemed to be pretty much in full control of the situation in the south and the US (cough) was dispatching a new ambassador, Ambassador Reinhardt ah with ah ah assistance to Diem which began to become ah an annual significant amount of economic and some military assistance.

Ah. At this time the rather crucial question came up of what position the United States would adopt toward the provision in the Geneva Accords of 1954 one year previously ah that all Vietnam elections be held two years later, that is, in July, 1956, with consultations regarding these elections ah to begin in July, '55, one year after the signing of the Accords.

A considerable amount of activity in policy planning went on to prepare a position with respect to the consultations to be held in July, 1955. And, a piece of paper was presented ah was prepared (cough) to be presented to Secretary Dulles. A meeting took place which I recalled very clearly in ah Secretary Dulles' office where he sat and read ah our distillation of over about four pages of a much longer previous paper. He sat very quietly. We all sat very quietly.

I can recall distinctly the clock ticking away on his wall and his breathing heavily as he read through the paper turning to us ah the few of us who were there at that meeting and saying ah "I don't believe Diem wants to hold elections. I believe we should support him in this," or words to that effect, very close to that. Whereupon he returned the piece of paper and ah this paper which had suggested a scheme toward ah the consultations which would be held and eventually an electoral scheme ah was subsequently totally discarded.

Stop. We're about to run out.

Go ahead.

Ah. In the months following the signing of the Geneva Accords of July, 1954 ah Viet Minh propaganda from radio Hanoi ah incessantly talked about the forthcoming consultations between the two zones of Vietnam looking toward the all-Vietnam elections scheduled in the ah Geneva Agreement to be held in July, 1956.

Ah. Along with this propaganda ah the North Vietnamese government, that is, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam sent to the Soviet Co-Chairman of the Geneva Conference, a number of notes directed to ah the other parties. These notes complained ah well, before the summer of 1955 and the scheduled date of the consultations, the notes requested that the arrangements for the consultations be, be gone into and be made.

Ah these, subsequently the notes the complained that no consultations had taken place. Ah. The way those notes went was as follows. They were sent from the foreign office of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to the Soviet Union as the conference co-chairman. The Soviet Union in Moscow transferred them to the British Embassy there so that they would go to the other co-chairman, the British co-chairman. They were sent to London by the British representatives in Moscow and the British would then send them to Washington where the embassy ah the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. would bring them to the Department of State.

And, I myself ah was present on several occasions when notes ah were delivered, sometimes at fairly low levels, normally at the level of Assistant Secretary of State to be ah, ah, to be given to the United States so they'll be cognizant of the position of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam regarding the consultation provisions of the Accords.

Now, as we discussed previously, ahm, ah, the United States decided to support Diem in his policy not to hold consultations and subsequently, not to hold elections. Ah. As a result, no action whatsoever took place. Notes were received in Washington and duly filed in the State Department and they remained merely a memory in the minds of those who, who knew about them, ah, but no official action was taken as a result of those notes.

Stop. It sounds a little too official, and also I think we need to...

Now, the official position of the North Vietnamese was communicated to us in the following way. They would send diplomatic notes of protest to the Soviets. The Soviets were one of the two co-chairmen of the Geneva Conference of '54. Ah. The Soviets, very unhurriedly, without paying very much attention, and without commentary would forward these notes to the British. The British, in turn, without too much hurry, would forward them to the United States so that we'd be apprised of the position that the North Vietnamese had officially ah on their desire to hold these consultations and, subsequently, the elections, and we filed the notes and took no action whatsoever on them.

Ah. I think if there had been a greater amount of concern by the Soviets, which there clearly wasn't, or by the British that some, a possible meeting might have been held on the subject. Ah. But, until very late, there was no meeting on the subject and no one pushed the issue at all so that one can genuinely say, and I would tend to say that the Vietnamese were sold down the river at this point by the Soviets on this particular issue.

Very good. Stop.

Is that enough for this one.

Great.

I'll come in on how we got to the foreign ministers meeting.

There was one party ah that was concerned about this situation that was developing owing to the non-implementation to the fact that nothing was happening with the Vietnam consultations and elections provided for by the Geneva Accord. And, that was India.

India was chairman of the International Control Commission, and in the fall of 1955, the Indian government put considerable pressure on the British ah that the British put the issue of Indochina and the Vietnam elections on the agenda for the meeting of foreign ministers which was to be held in November, 1955, as a sequel to the summit meeting of ah the summer of 1955.

Ah. The United States ah received a formal approach from the British government and the French government joining in the Indian appeal and we consented to have Indochina put as an item on the agenda of the foreign ministers meeting of November '55. During this meeting the interesting thing that occurred—ah the thing that's really worthy of note and marks almost historic watershed is that to the best of my recollection ah the agenda item was pushed back every day of the meeting.

In any event, it did not appeal finally on the agenda till the very last day of that ah foreign ministers meeting and when it appeared Molotov asked to ah get up and said, can it be deleted. So, we asked that it be deleted off the agenda. Accordingly, Indochina was never discussed between the powers, between us and the Soviets and the British. Ah and the other principal parties, after the Geneva 1954 meeting, there was never another international meeting held on Vietnam.

Now, once this had happened, the perception set itself in, in concrete one might say, in the State Department and in much of the United States government that Vietnam was, indeed, partitioned. The Soviets had, in effect, agreed to the partition by virtue of their non-action through this whole period despite the protests they had been receiving from the Vietnamese, from the North Vietnamese, of which they had taken no action. And, this perception which was already very strong in the summer of 1956, was ah further reinforced when in January of 1957 Khrushchev proposed both Vietnams for membership in the United Nations.

This ah rather strange move on the part of Khrushchev ah was ah not responded to ah. I can't find in the research I've done on this that the United States ever made a response to the Soviet proposal. But, in any event, he did propose it and it certainly had the effect of confirming the idea of a permanently partitioned country, as far as the American bureaucracy in the key decision-making elements in, in ah the US government who dealt with Indochina were concerned.

Mac Bundy says in retrospect, the biggest...

In the summer of 1955, it became very clear that ah ah Ngo Dinh Diem was in control in Saigon and ah to confirm that he was in control (cough) he had organized, his government a series of riots against the International Control Commission, which had been there for a year to supervise the Geneva Armistice, part of the 1954 agreements. These riots were ah, ah, wha--somewha--went somewhat out-of-hand. They were a big affair in which ah, ah lots of people demonstrated and marched down the streets and attacked the headquarters building of the International Control Commission.

The interesting thing about it, I was in Saigon at the time and living in the Majestic Hotel, is that there were a lot of ah notable Americans, all at one time in the, in the ah Majestic Hotel. Don't mean to include myself among those, but it by coincidence a lot of very prominent people were in the hotel and the hotel was one of the points because that's where many of the members of the International Control Commission resided.

It was one of the points that the demonstrators attacked, and they flooded the entire hotel. The whole place was completely under water or virtually under water, flooded. All the carpets were gone. There was a, a small fires were set and ah a number of people had to be evacuated and lost their possessions in the, in the hotel. As I said, the ah riot went out-of-hand and the government, subsequently, paid damages to those Americans who had suffered losses in it.

Stop.

Is that what you wanted on that?

On August 29, 1963, I had a four or five-hour meeting, a private meeting with President Diem in the palace in Saigon. Ah. It was just before I was to leave to go back to Washington. I had accompanied ah Ambassador Lodge out after the Honolulu meeting. I'd been in Saigon a number of days and looked the situation over. I thought it was then already a very desperate situation.

Ah. I had this meeting with him probably because he remembered me from the old days when I'd first met him in the United States back in the early '50's. Ah. And, he talked to me very frankly about his problems ah, ah, with Diem when you had one of these long meetings, ah, you had ah to be well-prepared because he went on for hours and hours. He never broke off and in this meeting to some extent I must say he wandered and ah, ah went into a long story which I had great difficulty following about some communist cadres that he was trying to arrest.

Ah. He gave me this, the whole details of ah of this complicated chase after some communist agents and I must say that I ah my interest flagged in it as I, and I think that he himself was not as acute as he used to be. I hadn't seen him for a number of years and ah, ahm, the meeting just went on. Defending, very defensively ah taking on the defense of his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu saying that he'd been accused of all kinds of falsehoods by American propaganda and that we didn't understand Nhu, who was a wonderful man, who was like a saint, he said. I think he said ah the saint my brother ahm he also praised his other brothers.

He struck me as a man in very dire straits already. He, who was aware of a crumbling situation around him politically, of a very difficult socio-economic situation, of growing communist strength in the country and of his own, perhaps, decreasing hold and control of the situation.

Stop. That's all on this roll.

Just a moment. Would you...yes, you were facing right. Go ahead.

I left Saigon June 30 of 1963 to come straight back to Washington. It was a 24-hour long commercial flight.

Wrong date. August 30.

What did I say?

June. Start again.

Start over again. I left Saigon August 30 of ah 1963 as I recall on a very long, 24-hour flight eh to Washington, ah and on the plane ah I reflected ah on the previous few days which, of course, was the period during which the telegram ah ah talking about a coup had, had been received by Ambassador Lodge (clears throat) and mulling over the whole situation, I pretty well made up my mind that there were three major main impediments that seemed to me to continue our effort in Vietnam.

The first was the doctrine of counter-insurgency itself which I felt ah on balance no one really understood, ah wouldn't wash, and didn't meet the needs of that particular situation in this country, the conditions of the country such as they were, at least such as I analyzed them.

Ah. Secondly, I was clear that Diem had lost any measure of support and could not be rescued no matter what we did and I found it very difficult to come with a, with a, an alternative that would have continued fighting the war in a positive way, and third, and this I think is more difficult for me to state, but I really felt that ah ah our leadership did not understand the problem in Vietnam, and did not understand the country and was leading itself down a garden path to illusion.

Now, ah, I saw the secretary of state briefly that evening after immediately after I got off the place, and ah ah subsequently the assistant secretary asked me to join the meeting of the ex-com of the National Security Council, which was to be held the next morning which, as I recall, was a Saturday, August 31.

Ahm. Ah, this was the first time I ever attended ah such an elevated meeting and ah I was, naturally, somewhat nervous and in it, ah ah I went into it without a great deal of preparation and quite tired still from my trip, and ah gave an account at the meeting as one of the numerous people talking at that meeting, which, by the way, was the last of a series that were held that entire week on the situation that was developing in Saigon, and my account essentially was that Diem could not be rescued, that he had lost popular support and the popular mandate ah and that save a miracle, a coup would occur.

I recall a second go-round on the question of whether anybody still felt there would be a coup, because a coup had not occurred, even though it had been expected to, and I responded that I thought it would occur. And, ah, ah, in a, in a further opportunity to speak very briefly to the assembled leadership that was there, it included most of our top officials; ah the vice-president and Johnson chaired a meeting, secretary of state was there, the secretary of defense was there ah all the, General Taylor was there and key personalities involved with the issues were there.

Ah. I blurted out, perhaps it was imprudent for me to do it, but I blurted out, that we consider the possibility of withdrawing with honor, that this was, in other words, a time to review our stakes. This is what I meant to convey to the meeting. Ah. But, the response I got to it, was no, that we would go on and tough it out, as they called it, that we would see it through. It seemed to me always very unclear what it was precisely that we would see through, but ah, no consideration was given at that time at least, to the idea of withdrawing from Vietnam. Is that enough?

Okay.

That enough or do you want more?

(people talking)

As I look upon it now, it was probably imprudent and, and maybe even inappropriate ah for me to, to have made this particular remark about withdrawing with honor ah at that at that meeting, particularly when I think of the, of the reaction to it which was sort of a dead silence for a moment ah and then ah I believe the secretary of state said, well, we, we're going to go on with this effort, and so did several others present, including the vice-president.

So, the, the thought was, in effect, dismissed right away, and ah ah it may have been the, ah, a bad moment for me to introduce what really was, after all, as I look upon it now, as a major, a suggestion for a major change in, in basic policy. Is that bad?

It's good but don't look at me when you say it. (people talking)

Well, it, it's obvious that I entered this meeting on August 31 (cough) very tired and probably somewhat nervous. Ah. I was a, a very junior person at the meeting, since the whole top echelon of the government was present an, I, I blurted out probably imprudently ah a comment ah that we should now consider perhaps this was the moment for us to consider withdrawing ah with honor from Vietnam, which we still had, had the opportunity to do it. This may have been imprudent on my part.

Ah. The result of that statement was a silence for a few seconds ah after which Secretary Rusk and a number of other people at the meeting supporting him said that no, we'll go on with this effort. We'll continue it. And, the thought was, in effect, dismissed ah and never really considered again, at least at that particular session.

Cut.

As best as I recall, Ngo Dinh Diem's name started to circulate in the US Government after a number of people reported him as a strong nationalist figure in the early '50's. He was, ah, you, almost unique among Vietnamese in that he had left Vietnam in disagreement with Bao Dai over some previous agreements Bao Dai had made with the French and had come to the United States. There were very few, if any other, Vietnamese, in the US at that time, and ah he had gone to Catholic Seminary in ah New Jersey.

Eh. He had made some friends among American academics, ah, one of whom, ah, introduced him to members of the State Department in 1953 when ah ah the Viet Minh attacked Laos. The first attack on Laos, ah, was the pretext for Diem's first visit to the State Department. Now, as I recall, he was not received at very high levels.

Ah. But, those of us in research, in the Research Bureau of State and ah, I think, at, at a lower echelon in the Policy Bureau, did see him ah on this first visit and ah we ha, had the impression there of a very sincere man. A rather unique mixture of the western the, the, political theorist. He was a Catholic social reformer on the one hand. A very mandarinal traditional Vietnamese ah of Confucian background on the other.

A, an interesting and somewhat difficult mix, ah reserve person, but nonetheless, one who seemed sincerely devoted to the welfare of his people and to ah bringing about a greater measure of independence for Vietnam. He was full at odds with the Emperor Bao Dai and his government and ah living in the United States in exile.

Cut.