Francesco/who-killed-jfk huggingface dataset:
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-97-and so on, and each time they'd have PnohmjustPenh on the thing, I'd say, "Weld bettercheck the embassy there." Back would comeword that, No, Sihanouk was afraid that ifI were a member of the party, I would begoing in to murder him. I actually went inone time, and the chief of police of PnohmPenh met our party--along with the foreignminister and so on--at plane when we camedown, and the Chief of Police walked rightnext to me, and he said, "I'm your liasonman from now". and I said, "You're keepingan eye on me, I know it's allright. I'mnot going to murder your boss; I have noidea of doing that." (Laughter) That isstrange. And then Sihanouk made a movie--about '65, '66--in which he played theCommander of Royal Naval Intelligence foilinga great American spy, who happened to havemy name, and was a role played by some prince Frenchmanman who was visiting there and I was out tooverthrow the kingdom but, of course, our boyhero thwarted the ugly American and won thegirl, who was the daughter of the Brazilian
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-98-ambassador or something. Some French galplayed the role. I've been trying to geta print of that or some way of seeing thatmovie I'd love to see it, you know. Itsounds great and. . . [Laughter]O'BRIEN: Yeah, I hadn't heard about that. Well, thatdoes hit on something, though, in regard toSoutheast Asia. As I understand, in thatDap Chhuon incident, that there was an Agencyinvolvement with him, through a guy by thename ofand the Agency does seemto have a kind of free hand in some of these AsianSoutheast nations and I'm thinking of the[ALIEN L.] Pope situation in Indonesia as well. Can yousee any breaks put on them as a result ofthe change of administrations? how do youreact to this sort of activity?LANSDALE: Well, most of the things that they did thathad political consequences of any major sizeat all-and certainly a thing with Dap Chhuonand also the Pope thing are only taken by theAgency after approval up at topside so as far
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-99-as brakes are concerned, they've had them from the beginning. However, the objectives and the intent are approved, and not the means of doing it--the nuts and bolts--which are supposedly overseen by an ambassador. And when we get down to the level of a country where these things are happening, then I think much depends on the individuals: the ambassador and the station chief, and how they get along, and again, mostly on the. . .Well, no, it isn't either; it's a fifty-fifty proposition. We have ambassadors who don't want to know or who are opposed all such things, and if an order comes down to do it, they very unwillingly tell the guy to go ahead, but watch it now, not too far. A station chief, then, with orders to do some things, will have told the ambassador he isn't going to do this but getting he starts in things, and he figures, that if he goes back and tells the ambassador what's happening, that he's not going to get any understanding and will probably get an order prohibiting him from doing something, and won't
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-100-be able to explain, Well, if I stop doing this, then this other thing won't work, and Washington wants us to have this happen.The ambassador will say, No, I don't see it that way. Don't do it. So I'm sure there are things there happening that aren't told for this--for operational reasons and again, it's a judgement of an individual on that thing.It's not a policy type of a thing from the Agency.O'BRIEN: Yeah? Do you find any--in the time that you're there in the middle fifties as well as when you go back in '60, '61, and later involvement in Vietnam--do you find differences between the embassies between the U.S. embassy in, particularly, Pnohm Penh and Saigon?LANSDALE: I didn't notice that. It might have existed, and I wouldn't have even known that.O'BRIEN: Well, there's some feeling among people involved with Cambodian relations at that time, as I understand it, that somehow there's an involvement on the part of the South Vietnamese in some of the groups like the .
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-101-LANSDALE: Oh, yeah. Both the South Vietnamese and the Tai were playing around with groups inside Cambodia or with exile groups that wanted to go back in Cambodia, and so on and I'm not certain that the Americans from either Thailand or South Vietnam were fully aware of what all was going on. And I'm not certain that the Americans or the Cambodian government people inside Cambodia knew what was going on, and were tending to exaggerate some of this. Things get blown up out of all proportion in this. But just the fact that there was antipathy and it would take this form of expression, among others that were going on. I don't know which people would rather go in and take over and run Cambodia the Thai's or the South Vietnamese it's about a toss up which one was down more on the Khmers than the other. And Diem used to follow the predictions of the royal fortune-teller in Pnohm Penh to Sihanouk. 'Apparently, they were spending a lot of intelligence money to find out, you know, what's
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-102-happened in each other's sessions and whathe was telling the guy. Then how usefulthis was, mind you, I don't know.O'BRIEN: Well, do you find-again, in passing on tothe task force and the formation of thatVietnam task force in the early part ofthe Kennedy administration--do you find thesensitivity on the part of the people, thepolitical appointees, to what's going onin South Vietnam? Are you able to explainwhat you're telling me right now aboutSouth Vietnam to these people?LANSDALE: Uh, only partially. They were as bemused bythe mechanics of getting decisions in Washing-ton as they were with the problem that they wereemploying the mechanics to solve. It was allsort of new to them, and they wanted to do agood job, but in order to do it, they weresuddenly working with these instruments thatwere foreign to them here. I think that theprinciples in the administration were notentirely aware of the people they were dealingwith in Washington. I recall, at the time, some surprise[^1] Rusk was violently opposed in the department[^1]:
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-103-over where he was by some people and I noticed at times that he wasn't aware that he was turning around and asking a guy who minutes before Rusk had come in to him, was among his comrades, just, "This stupid jerk," and so on, which I felt was disloyal-behind the guy's back, you know. I was always urging them to speak up in front of people and so on, and they wouldn't do it. And the same damn thing was true against some of the military against McNamara, for example.A Well, the McNamara and the Rusk and their unders and deputy types of people, and assistant secretaries, were trying to cope with people that they felt were-instinctively opposing and foot-dragging and so on, and trying to get that working so that to get them working on a given problem was really the thing that they were concerned withA you'd suddenly say, "Well, we're going to talk about Laos," or Vietnam or Israel or something Yes, Yes, Yes. What have you got in the paper, you know And they were
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-104-watching see: "Well, it's just I've really done this homework and-is-it-gonna come up with something or not?" rather than what is the real problem here, and how would I solve it if I weren't sitting in this room in this particular group, and so on. So there was a. . .So then, working on this type of a thing which I saw very much in the task force on Vietnam--Gilpatric, I know, was shocked at the reactions of some of the foreign service people that came in at rank of ambassador and so on, that were sort of the staff assistants on the assistant secretary and undersecretary level. They would start a meeting in fact I was asked to be sort of--I forget what the title was--executive officer or something of it, and they asked me to chair the meetings. Well, I'd no sooner open it. then these guys would be passionately explaining why I shouldn't be sitting in the chair of the meeting, see?O'BRIEN: YeahLANSDALE: I think it shocked some of the Kennedy administration people. It suddenly revealed a
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-105-feud and so on, and I hadn't said it, and I personally didn't care that much, you knowI'd say, "Have you got all the hate out of your system now? Let's go on with the meeting," see. This, of course, would activate it more, but I would say, "Well look, we really do have some problems here we've got to get to, and if you want, I'll meet you afterwards and wecan have lunch or something, and you can spoil my lunch by telling me what a heel I am or something. But we've got work to do." So then, Gilpatric or somebody would tell me afterwards, "Do you think we better take you off?" "Well, yeah. If it's going to get to effect the work done, it's better to take me off. It's no fun for me to sit up and chair something under conditions like this,"O'BRIEN: Were you ever approached with the job as ambassador to Vietnam?LANSDALE: Yes, Yes. Yeah-Yeah.O'BRIEN: Who was pushing that?
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-106-LANSDALE: I don't know. I heard about it this firstSaturday after the inaugural--I think that'sit. It was very early in the administration.McNamara asked me to come down to the WhiteHouse and meet him there, and I thought itwas to brief him on something. And I wasworking on a number of intelligence mattersin Defense at the time, and I showed up,andhe asked me to just wait outside, and theywere meeting in the Cabinet room, and as Isaid, it was essentially an NSC group. Andafter a bit, they asked me to come on, andthey had me sit opposite the president.And he looked at me, and he said, "Did Dean(Rusk) tell you, I want you to be ambassadorto Vietnam?" I said, "No, he didn't mentionthat." Well, he hadn't at all, and there wasa long, painful silence, and I figured, Well,Gee, maybe he's asking me if I want to be,orwould I accept the job." So I finally said,"Well, it would be a great honor," and that wasthe last I ever heard of it. But I heardall sorts of rumors that they use forWashington and things afterwards that Dean Rusk
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-107-O'BRIEN: was very much opposed to it, and opposed on the ground that I was a military man and they didn'twant military people in on the situation.Yeah YesoLANSDALE: And then later I had met one of Rusk's staff officers at the time, and he was telling me that Rusk was figuring, he could get me a job some other place or a promotion or something to get me out of the way at the time.I apparently had become a target for a lot of gossip and rumors at the time. But after that, then, they asked me--Kennedy asked me pretty point blank--about Durbrow, and I said, "Well, after what you just asked me and so forth, I'm a little hesitant, but you're the President and you need the truth, so I'll just tell you right now, I think he's a very ill man, his judgement's impaired by his physical condition he's a fine professional foreign service officer.and could be used some place, but don't keep him on in Vietnam anymore. He's sick, he's on his back a lot of the time, and you need someone very alert, who-whoever it is, and pull him
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-108-out." And they got--Rusk and everything, youknow- "You're off your subject, boy." But Isaid, "Well, Durby's an old friend of mine,and I like the guy and I saw a lot of himwhen I was in Vietnam on this brief visit andI think it's a shame that the guy's kept onthere Lecause he was quite ill, in bad shape."And Durby never forgave me for it it gotright back to him that I had sacked him andso on because he was withdraw withdrawn after that, butthis certainly didn't hurt his career at all,in any way, and even though State put him ona make-work job after that but he held therank of ambassador which is as high as youcan get in the foreign service. And he wasill, he really was.O'BRIEN: Well, how does (Frederick E.) Nolting come intothis . . .LANSDALE: Well, Nolting came in, as the apparently, as theforeign services rebuttal to my going on out I of thereI remember both McNamara and Gilpatric askedme about him, and I didn't know him. I said,"Well, I'd just go on what I have heard from
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-109-other foreign service officers who respecthim very much." So finally, Nolting was--a meeting was arranged with Nolting, andI liked him very much when I talked with him.He asked me if I would give him some briefingson Vietnam, which I did do. And when I woundup the end of that, I was asked again byMcNamara, who said he was going to tellKennedy and I said, "Well, this looks likea very good man, and I think it's a soundappointment." I didn't want to be ambassador.Jesus. During the Eisenhower administration,they wanted to make me ambassador of thePhilippines, and I begged them not to. Ithink that's one of the world's worst jobs.You're stuck where you can't do what yourjob is supposed to be, and I knew they weregoing to put me in places where I'd be upagainst Communist political leaders of somesort, working the other side. And of course,you aren't in that position, but allegedlyyou are going to have people runningcircles around you, if you know it and couldn'tlift a little finger to stop them. And this
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-110-isn't my idea of a good spot to be in. You just get belabored over that.O'3SIENLANSDATE: Well, did Nolting ever try to get you back to Vietnam, in an advisory position?LANSDALE: I think so. There were a number of attempts by the Vietnamese themselves, and unfortunately, some of them werecouched in terms of wanting me to come out as ambassador, by the Vietnamese but Nolting and I had very friendly relations, and I think he had proposed that I come on out several times. But these things would usually only come to me sort of second or third hand, and one time apparently President Kennedy had said something to the JCS because suddenly my relations with the Chiefs went down to less than zero and sub-zero, and I finally asked General [Curtis E.] Lemay of the Air Force, because I'm an Air Force officer, what the trouble was. And he said, "You and your ambitions to have four stars." I said, "What's this again?" Apparently Kennedy had said something to the Chiefs of, what would they think of my being given four stars and being put in charge of operations in Vietnam?
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-111-And I didn't know about it, and they took it that I was pushing myself for it. I said "something again, that isn't I'd want to do." So this was about the time that--no, maybe [William Westmoreland] Westy was coming in about then it was around that time.O'BRIEN: Well, the task force really forms up the instructions for Nolting, doesn't it...LANSDALE: Yes.O'BRIEN: . . . for the next few years. Just what kind of recommendations come out of that task force?LANSDALE: Well, I was only in on the very original one, which was to undertake some things such as changing the specific types of things to meet a situation inthere. One of them was; we would get a political section that would work out better relations with the Vietnamese government, a political section in our embassy, and that the foreign service would go and search through their own personnel for people with some real political savvy to get into guide, rather than control cr belabor or have confrontations with the Vietnamese government
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-112-to carry out essentially political reforms,and getting some of the just criticism ofthe opposition considered in the governingbody. [^7] Another thing was on the police, ofgetting police training done so that theycould cope with meeting enemy units, ratherthan doing urban police work. In this, Iwas begging them to at least get to a statelevelconstabulary as far as American advisors wereconcerned, and I wasn't certain that the U.S.Army's military police could cope with it, butmaybe they could get a team of them in andthen I was pointing out that there wereconstabulary officers and officers from othercountries, including South America and theold Philippine constabulary, who knew thelaw-and-order conditions--quite similar toVietnam--and bring them in if they wanted togo international. I was trying to get themto get very realistic and solving problems bychanging the quality and the approach thatwe had. We drew up an original draft thatwent to the President, out of meetings that[^7]:
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-113-lasted about ten days, at which point, atRusk's insistence, the task force went overto State and became a general, regular bodythere. They then proceeded to rewrite ouroriginal instructions and drafts andeverything, and both McNamara and Gilpatricsaid-coming back from the White House "Ed,you had better not get in there." I said,"If I can help in any way, I will." They said,"Well, right for the time being, you'd better notgo near that group, see" so I actually didn'tget in to some of their policy formation, againin a fairly early period, on the thrust ofthings in Vietnam, except for some of theDefense people who were over there. I wouldtalk to them on what was being proposed andgoing on, but this was sort of second andthird echelon type of a thing, pulling backout of it. But initially, I was actuallytrying to get a quality U.S. representationin Vietnam, and actually smaller again thanit was at the time, and to pick a few keythings, and to concentrate on that, and really
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-114-to get the Vietnamese coping with their ownproblems more effectively than they weredoing.O'BRIEN: Yea. Well, between this time and the time of the Taylor-Rostow mission, are you involved in Vietnam on a kind of regular basis or . . .LANSDALE: Uh, no. Off and on I was, but again with second-and third-echelon type of problems.I was seeing Gilpatric everyday and working very closely with him, so that a lot of times, as things would come up, he would discuss them with me. But again, I was trying to explain who certain people were that were named, their backgrounds, and their qualities, and certain events and places, and going to maps with him and describing terrain, and so on, what the situation really meant that was making the problem. So I was fairly well out of it.As a matter of fact, I was working with some visiting Burmese on their concepts of defense of a country, and they brought me in with the Israeli who had had a mission helping them with their defense problems in Burma. And the Israeli had turned around to their defense
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-115-minister and some of the others, and invitedme to look at their defense system in Israel.I was quite enthusiastic about going and hadeverything arranged and was to leave on aSaturday, when about on a Wednesday or Thursday,I was asked to go to Vietnam with the othermission and unfortunately had tocancel out everything and never got into seewhat I wanted to see there.O'BRIEN: Well, you end up working on border -- actually,the sealing of the border, then, don't youon Taylor-Rostow thing?LANSDALE: Yes. Yes.O'BRIEN: What about that preoccupation? Where doesthat idea come from is that Rostow's?LANSDALE: Well, Taylor was the one that charged mewith it. Taylor said, "Well you folks"--this is a flight which started--Will eachof you write down some of the things thatthink we should look into and what you mightlike to look into." So I gave him a list ofabout twenty things I'd like to look into,none of them being this, of course.
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--116-I suggested some other subjects for other peopleon the thing and gave it to them, and hecalled me back, said that it was a very interestingthat I had given him, and would I please workon building a defense on the border. And Isaid, "what sort of a defense?" He said,"Well, a system of fortifications or a wire likethe Iron Curtain in Europe." I said, "GoodGod, you aren't going to do that, are you?"And he said, "Well, look into it." So thatwas all I was supposed to do, and of course,I got called in on other things immediately.9 But I wasn't even invited along to go in andsee Diem with him. I said, "Look, these areold friends of mine. If you'd like, why I'lldo anything I can you can hit them high, andI'll hit them low if you want. We can getsome things done that way." He said, Well, youaren't on our protocol list, so you don'tattend any of these calls on the President."9 We landed in Saigon, and the people from thepresidency met us, and Taylor and Rostow wereover talking with reporters who were interviewing
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-117-them plane side, and these people from thepresidency said, "President Diem wants youto come to dinner tonight" and I said, "Well,I better check on my boss on this." Taylor wasbusy, but I grabbed Rostow who wasn't talkingat the moment and told him, and he said, "Goahead." So I said, "Well, I wasn't even onthe protocol, and everything. I don't careabout going up to these protocol meetingsanyhow I went in and saw Diem, whosequestion was, "What's this mission doing here?What are you all up to?" I said, "Why don'tyou wait, and they'll be in here to have ameeting with you tomorrow, and you'll findout." And then it became very personal. Wejust started talking over his two old friendswith him, and I had dinner with him. And hebrought his nephew in to join us--Nhu's boy,oldest boy--who had a new toy missile, like arocket with a launcher, and I was trying toexplain to this youngster who was squattingon the floor next to his uncle the President,who was busily eating dinner--you don't point thisat him I didn't know how big a spring this
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-118-thing had on it, whether it would take hishead off or not. [Laughter] I taught him toshoot it up into the ventilating fan in theceiling. We spent dinner, actually, takingparachutes and things out of the ventilatingfans, and the kid and I were climbing upa ladder to get these things out of the thingin the palace. This was very different froman official protocol meeting.O'BRIEN: Yeah. How is Diem at that point?LANSDALE: He was a very changed man. It was the firsttime in our talks with each other...When I met him at the palace that night, hisbrother Nhu came in for the first time andsat next to him, and when I asked Diem aquestion, his brother would answer it andI'd have to tell him I wasn't asking him thequestion; I was asking his brother. A verystrange relationship at the time and Ifound that he was a talker--Diem was--and hewas very clear and concise in his statementsand had too big a grasp of details in what-ever subject he was talking about. It'd goon for hours--details on it, which fascinated
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-119-me but used to bore other people. But hedid know his country and its history, whichhe would give at the drop of a hat. Thisevening in '61, seeing him, he was veryhesitant in his talk and hadn't--it wassomething physical as well as mental hazardor something, I felt.O'BRIEN: Any evidence ofDid he go into that later?LANSDALE: No. There was--mentally, people were tellingme that his brother had taken over in theyear following the dominance on thing.But this was a man that wasn't as sure ofhimself as he had been when I had seen himless than a year before. And there had beenone assassination attempt only, but the bigone had taken place before I saw him inJanuary or December of '60--the attack onthe palace and so on. So it hadn't been anoutside, physical happening like that thathad caused the change.O'BRIEN: Was he a spiritualist at all?LANSDALE: No; no. He wasn't superstitious. Hewas a very rational sort of a person--pragmatic.