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October 29th

I began the day with a call on the Australian ambassador. He had been recommended to me by Alexis Johnson as the best of the foreign diplomats here, which is damning with faint praise, indeed. Most foreign diplomats here whom I have met, with the exception of the Canadian and the ICC representative are a sorry lot. Partly this must reflect the low priority attached to Saigon in most foreign offices in the world; partly it is due to the fact that I know of no capital where sources of information are so scarce and so unreliable as in Saigon. To be dependent on Vietnamese, or even American briefings, to have to access to the provinces, to not be able to speak to subordinate officials, means that one receives a picture of the world that has absolutely no relationship to what goes on in the Vietnamese countryside. This difficulty is compounded by a feature peculiar to the Vietnamese scene. The German psychiatrist in Hue told me that one of the strange aspects of Vietnam is that there is no distinction in Vietnam between rumor and fact. A rumor repeated often enough becomes in itself a fact. Vietnamese are unable, according to

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the psychiatrist, to distinguish between a rumor and reality and will, therefore,
after a while, repeat rumors as if they were reality. Whether or not this
judgment is correct, the fact is that fantastic rumors spread and are repeated
again and again no matter how often they are denied. The diplomatic corps in
Saigon whose social contacts are confined to a very small group of Vietnamese
and American officials are at the complete mercy of these rumors. The same,
incidentally, is true of foreign newsmen, who are a sorry lot--drinking very
evening at the bar of the Caravel Hotel and neurotically keedling on each others
stories. They have no effective means of communication information.

The Australian ambassador was not only an impressive man relatively,
but also in absolute terms. Because there is an Australian military unit in
Vietnam, he was one of the few Ambassadors in a position to get around and he,
therefore, had a reasonable judgment of his own. I asked him to compare the
situation as he found it on his arrival 18 months ago, 6 months ago, and today.
He thought the situation was definitely better than it was 6 months ago when
everybody expected a VC takeover. It has deteriorated compared to what it was

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18 months ago. That 18 months ago it was still possible to travel on some of the major roads. For example, the road to Dalat was open; the roads into the Delta were open. He pointed out several other arteries that were passable.

In the meantime all major roads had been cut and VC control of the countryside had greatly increased. In other words, he felt we were not nearly back to where we were 18 months ago. I asked him whether he thought we had turned the corner toward victory. He said he did not think so; we had turned a corner from avoiding defeat, but we were far from victory. I asked him about the impact of

the mere fact of negotiations. It was his view that/negotiations would have a disastrous impact on the political situation in Vietnam. The greatest necessity in Vietnam at the moment was to have a stable government. If negotiations started they would bring with them an immediate jockeying for position, and above all the civilian politicians would claim that now the military had to relinquish power since the military were not particularly well fit to take over the conduct negotiations.

Moreover the almost neurotic suspiciousness of Vietnamese would convince them that the United States was preparing some secret deal and their deviousness

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would lead them to say that the VC would not accept negotiations. He thought that it was impossible to accept the Liberation Front as negotiating partner, because this would be taken throughout Vietnam as proof of an imminent takeover by the VC and it would, therefore, be next to impossible to gain a modicum of political stability. Finally he felt that the non-Communist elements in Vietnam were so divided, so much wrapped up in their own factional interests, that the Communists would not be confronted with a united group. The result would be that the Communists would be able to play off the various groups against each other. He did not think that infiltration could be monitored and he felt that the

he realized that ICC formula should be avoided. He said all of this sounded very impressive in Saigon, but he had to confess that his own public opinion had absolutely no understanding of the issue in Vietnam and that even his officials in the Foreign Ministry did not always understand that some of the Western concepts simply did not apply here. He thought that the Saigon government was suffering from the four months malaise that had affected every government since the collapse of Diem. Every new government started with euphoria and the expectation

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of stability, but then after four months the divisions within the society re-
asserted themselves, the difficult economic problems became apparent, and
the government has proved unable to carry out its programs and was brought
down by its enemies, who considered their own objectives more important
than anything else. He thought that this was true of the present situation and
he had heard rumors of a possible coup by General Ko. At any rate, he felt
that there was great devisiveness among the generals. In fact, he
was getting so suspicious that he was wondering if any of the troops that were
in town for the November 1st Independence Day Celebration of the overthrow of
Diem might not be used for a coup. He doubted that, but he thought that a
period of stress might easily develop in the ruling directorate, which would give
the civilian politicians a chance. He did not think that the civilian politicians
were capable of forming a united government. He could not see any person around
whom they could rally or who would have more than temporary support. For
the time being he thought that the military was still the stablest element in
the population. He did not believe, however, that the economic situation--unless

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it were remedied--might lead to so much instability that even the military
directorate would disintegrate. We parted with the intent of seeing each other
again, but I do not see how it can fit into my schedule.

I had lunch with Richard Symser, my control officer, and we discussed developments in Hanoi, in which he specializes, and general problems which had come up in my absence--none of which were of any importance.

I then went to see Phil Habib, the Political Consular, to give him
some of the impressions of my trip, which I have already recounted.

At four in the afternoon I called on General OK Schieu, the number
three man in the directorate and secretary-general. He had
requested the meeting, because, he said, he wanted quelques éclairissements;
however, when I came to see him in his office at the elegant Gia Lon Palace
he had no more to say than at our previous meeting. He made a strong attack
on the civilians who had bungled the government and said that the military were
the only group that would be able to handle the government. He said that it was,

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of course, considered to me a transitional period, which might last two years.
It was not intended to be for all eternity. He evidently opposed the attempt by
religious groups to inject themselves into the political life; they were hopelessly
split among each other. I asked him what he thought the Buddhists wanted con-
cretely and he said "La pouvoir". I asked him if he thought they knew what to
do with the power and he said no, they couldn't even agree among themselves,
much less with other religious groups. I made several attempts to draw him into
a discussion of the military situation, but, as with almost all other Vietnamese,
he seemed to be more concerned with the domestic structure than with military
problems. For example, at one point I asked him what would happen if the war
were still going on next year at this time, and no basic change had occurred in
the situation. He said, well, the war has been going on for twenty years and
he didn't think anything would happen. He didn't think that demoralization would
set in. He violently attacked the French for undermining their effort, but when
asked for specifics he said that all he had was a general impression and his

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knowledge of the French mentality. If the French had not sold out the free
Vietnamese in 1954, they would not be in the present mess and they could
never forgive South Vietnam for trying to fight the Viet Cong--a task/which
the French had failed. He again outlined the attempt that would be made to
establish a civilian government and he then took me to the front door of the
palace and we parted.

In the meantime an unbelievable traffic jam had developed in the
center of town because the main thoroughfare was blocked off--the military
having decided to rehearse their Independence Day parade in the middle of
the day. As a result it took us an hour and a half to get to our next appointment
which was supposed to be only fifteen minutes away and which was with the
published of the leading intellectual paper, whose name I have now forgotten,
who is also the closest political operator of former prime minister Quat. H&X
As a result the conversation lasted for less than half an hour. The press asked
the publisher what I told that the publisher that when I came back to American
I would undoubtedly be asked about Vietnam; what was the most important thing
that he wanted American to understand about Vietnam. This question absolutely

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threw him and he seemed incapable of forming any coherent reply to it. I akked him whether he thought the war was the most important fact to understand; this seemed to him an extraordinary idea and he finally said, no, the thing he wanted people to understand was that the government had no roots and that the Vietnamese people were divided. I asked him what prospects he saw. He argued that the thing to do was to establish a socialist government, not socialist in the sense of owning the means of production, but socialists in the sense of fulfilling the aspirations of the people. I asked him whether he could identify any group or any individual or any program which could embody this. He said, as all Vietnamese I have met, that he did not know any individual and could not even specify any good group. He did think that the trade unions might be a possible focus. Considering that the trade unions in the whole country have a membership of only 200,000, that there is practically no industry outside of Saigon, this did not seem to me a very likely prospect and I told him so. He then said that an effort should be made to organize the peasants. Only by organizing the peasants could the battle against the VC be won. I asked

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him whether he thought that the peasants had any understanding of the difference
between various social systems or whether they did not, above all, want to be
left in peace. He said that he thought that the peasants were very shrewd and
could be mobilized. Again, I would not know whether he is right, but my im-
pression is that he is nearly as far removed from the peasants as I am.

I then asked him how he thought the war with the Vietnā Cong could end. He said
that he thought that what we really faced was a confrontation with Communist
China--not with the Vietnā Cong--and that it could never be won by fighting the
Vietnā Cong along; that Communist China had to be attacked. I asked him what
would happen if Communist China were not attacked. He then said, in that
case we have to come to a political settlement. When I asked him what he
meant by a political settlement, he said, well, the Geneva Accords of 1954.
I then asked whether he would be willing to see American troops withdrawn
as would be required by the Geneva Accords, and he escaped into vague
generalities.

I have found that almost all Vietnamese are splendid in making
phrases but extremely weak in specifics and they can get extremely restive

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when they are pressed to give concrete content to their thoughts.

In the evening I had dinner which was given in my honor by Buy Diem, the special assistant to the prime minister and one of the more interesting people in Vietnam. Buy Diem has managed to survive in the prime Minister's office through all the changes of government in the post-Diem period. He is, in fact, considered by many the "eminence grise" of the Ky government. He controls the papers which get on the Prime Minister's desk and he is, therefore, used by many people to bring things to the attention of the government, including our own people. At the same time, he speaks fluent English. Other guests were General Thang, the minister of reconstruction; Tran Van Do, the foreign minister; Mr. Nimh, the minister of social welfare; General Lansdale; Phil Habib; and the Korean Ambassador. It is significant for the hierarchy in this country that the foreign minister was the lowest in the terms of protocol, and that General Thang, who technically would not rate very high, was the highest.

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graceful

Buy Diem, who has extremely GRACIOUS MATTERS manners and a cunning face in the literal sense of the world, was a most gracious host. He served a Vietnamese meal, which is a nice combination of Chinese and French booking.

Before dinner he told me about the thinking of the government with respect to the future political evolution of the country. He said that they realized that sometime before TET, which is a national holiday at the END of JANUARY, they would have to present to the people a program to give the existing government a constitutional rule. The notion was to announce a constituent assembly to meet three months after the announcement which would then have eighteen months to prepare a constitution, which would in turn go into effect a year after it had been approved. In other words, a process of three years. Buy Diem also mentioned that they had not yet decided on the way this constituent assembly would be formed. It might consist of an appointed group; it might be a co-opted group; or it might be an elected group. They were weighing the three choices, but they would make a decision within the next four weeks. Of course, like every thing else in Vietnam, it is next to impossible to say what this statement

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means--if it means anything. It may be that the pressures by Americans on civilian governments have simply led the Vietnamese to keep fobbing us off with general statements and have induced poor Buy Diem to impress me with these vistas.

At dinner we spoke about the possibilities of negotiations. Buy Diem said that Vietnam could never accept the partition of the country. I, misunderstanding him, said that no one had ever proposed the partition of the country and I am sure it would be unacceptable to the United States too. It turned out that he was speaking of the partition of all of Vietnam, while I thought that he meant a partition of South Vietnam into Communist and non-Communist zones. The point he was making was that Vietnam would not accept the 17th parallel as a dividing line. It might accept a de facto division, but not a de jure partition. He also objected violently to the notion that the Geneva Accords of 1954 might regulate the international status of Vietnam, and when asked what he found objectionable to these international accords, he said that it was out of the question for South Vietnam to survive without American protection and it was, therefore, necessary

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that Vietnam be free to make an alliance with the United States. He also stressed that South Vietnam and never signed the Geneva Convention and, therefore, could in no sense be bound by it. General Thang then took the floor to explain his ideas for rural reconstruction. The first point he made was that the ministry that General Ko had taken over, which was supposed to coordinate all the efforts of pacification, was in a sense superfluous because this was properly his job. He then explained at great length how he would train cadres and how these cadres would go into selected provinces. By now I had gotten familiar with Vietnamese grandiloquence and therefore I asked him how many cadres he actually had in training. It turns out that for the whole of Vietnam he has exactly 70 people in training and that of those 70 people, 60 came from the National Police--in other words were already doing the job of pacification for which he was aledgedly training them.

Tran Van Do said next to nothing except while we were talking about negotiations he kept saying that the chief necessity is to beat them, beat them, beat them over the head until they agree. The Minister of Social Welfare

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was also totally silent, as was the Korean Ambassador. The meeting broke up
at 11:30. Since the apartment was located on the main street of Saigon and since
I had never walked around in Saigon, I asked the Political Sonsul of the Embassy
whether he would walk around the block with me to let me see just what went on
in the streets at night. He refused, claiming that it was too dangerous.

The dinner also illustrated the difference of approach between Habib,
the Political Consul, and General Lansdale. By now it is obvious that whena
Vietnamese develops a plan that it is next to meaningless; that at best it repre-
sents an aspiration, but not a reality. The problem is what Americans are
going to do about this. There are two possibilities. (1) To give up in desperation
and listen to it as an interesting piece of fiction; (2) to continue to bound the
table in exasperation and keep in insisting on a performance which is certain
to come; (3) patiently, almost psycho-therapeutically, try to ransform what is
at the moment a dream into a possibility of a reality. Habib follows the second
approach. For a good hour at the dinner table he was pounding away at General
Thang, trying to get him to formulate a concerte program and telling him when

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he was going to do what. He also tried to get Lansdale to assist him in this
effort. Lansdale would not do that. Lansdale, who had always struck me as
a little muddle-headed and disorganized in Washington, has a cruious way with
these Asians. He looks at them with his big eyes, he is enormously gentle and
patience, and gradually they blossom under his tutelage. Whether this will
lead to results is anybody's quess.--Since it is not clear to me if anyting can
lead to results in this country--but I am convinced that if results are possible,
they are more likely to come through the Lansdale method than through the desk
pounding American method.

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October 30th.

Clark Clifford was a house guest of the Ambassador and I, therefore, was at the breakfast table with him. The subject came around to negotiations. Clifford, whose is a good friend of the President, said that the President was very much concerned about world opinion and that if negotiations started he would almost certainly be under severe pressure to agree to a ceasefire. He asked what Lodge and I thought about this. Lodge, who is not the most articulate man in the world, exploded and said a ceasefire would lead to disaster; to the collapse of the government; to disintegration of the military effort; and was untenable. Moreover, he said, he didn't think the American people were that eager for a ceasefire, because they would want a ceasefire and withdrawal. Clifford said that he was giving the President a tough pill to swallow. I said that Clifford was not asking a far question of Lodge. In Saigon all that could be done was to tell the President honestly what the consequences of his actions would be. It was up to the President then to decide what was politically tolerable. It was difficult enough to conduct the effort in Vietnam without also

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trying to gauge American politics. Clifford then asked whether there was any
under
formula by which a ceasefire could be conceived. I suggested that perhaps it
was possible to separate the problem of ceasefire in South Vietnam with an
end to the bombing in North Vietnam. With respect to South Vietnam we should
take the position that the government of Vietnam was free to move on its
sovereign territory whereever it wishes; with respect to the bombing of North
Vietnam, we might be able to agree to an end of the bombing if the following
conditions were met: (1) if there were a time limit on the negotiations; (2) if
North Vietnam withdrew its regular military units from South Vietnam through
international checkpoints; (3) if, during the negotiations, activities by organized
military units of the Viet Cong in South Vietnam would cease. Even those
positions were advanced off the top of my head and would have to be studied most
carefully. In fact, the most useful thing that could be done would be to study

of negotiations for
conditions in South Vietnam in light of the realities of the Vietnamese situation.

Lodge again came back to the notion of ceasefire and withdrawal, but he had to
go off, and Clifford sat down with me to ask me what I thought of expansion of

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the war to Hanoi and Hy Phong. I told him that I was not clear about Hy Phong, but I was preety sure that the bombing of Hanoi would be a mistake at this moement for two reasons: (1) it was always useful to keep in reserve a threat of further damage; and (2) so far Soviet aid had been extremely ineffectual, except for the ring of missile sites around Hanoi, and we should not humiliate the Soviets so much and force them into a demonstration of their impotence unless they step up their commitments to Hanoi. However, I felt strongly that the issue of Vietnam was vital for the future of the United States. Clifford then asked me what I thought of the position of the President. I said that I had great sympathy for the difficulties of the President, but that what was at stake here was the future world position of the United States.

Clifford asked me whether I thought the Vietnamese were worth saving. I said that that was no longer the issue. Clifford then said that the President was overwhelmed with advice. Monday, Wednesday and Friday some of his advisers wanted to destroy Hanoi and Hy Phong; Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday some of his advisers wanted him to get out of Vietnam immediately. He would take some interest in the matter. He asked me to call him as soon as I came back and to have dinner with him.

I then went to the Embassy and spent another hour with Phil Habib of the Political Section to discuss his views of the effort. He felt that there was not enough coordination and that I should stress that the Ambassador not commit himself to completely to one plan least he lose credit in Washington. This, I think, is a good point and I will make that to Lodge when I wrap up things with him on Monday Sunday.

## and Education

I then called on the Minister of Social Welfare, Minh, with whom I had had lunch on the first day in Vietnam. I spent about an hour with him. XXXX We spoke first about the educational problems of Vietnam which are massive and he repeated essentially the same points he had made to me at the lunch

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at the Ambassador's house. We then mentioned the problem of student unrest in Vietnam. He pointed out that one had to have some sympathy for the students because they really saw no future ahead of them. The Army ran the government; there was a war going on; and there was very little for them to look forward to. I said that it seemed to me that they could, after all, dedicate themselves to rebuilding their country. He said that this was easier said than done and that he had some sympathy. On the other hand, he thought that student agitation had to end because it was going to be a permanently disruptive element. He wondered whether the United States was encouraging student discontent. I said that he vastly overestimated the influence of the United States and that we were having student difficulties of our own.

We then talked about the possibility of private American institutions helping Vietnamese universities. He thought that it might be a very good idea if some American faculties would make themselves responsible for various faculties in Saigon and Hue to raise the standards; and if perhaps some senior faculty members would come over for a few months while

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SOME junior assistants would stay for a longer time.

He then asked if he could put a question to me. I said yes. The question was whether the United States was interested in overthrowing the Ky government. in order to bring into power a civilian government which might be more ready to negotiate with the VC. He added immediately that he would be violently opposed to such a measure, but that he had heard many rumors to this effect. I asked him who had started the rumors. He said political opponents of the present government. They ascribed the existing economic difficulties to deliberate manipulation by the United States, just as the United States' cut of the commercial input program in the months before the downfall of Diem had led eventually to his collapse. I told him that all Americans I knew on official levels were interested in governmental stability in Vietnam.

We would certainly not overthrow a government in order to bring about negotiations, but try to get a common view with the existing government.

Indeed, I don't think we would overthrow a government for any reason--or had the ability to overthrow a government. Minh said that he was happy to

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hear that. I supposed this is a legacy of the Diem episode.

After my meeting with Minh I had lunch with Habib and former prime minister Quat. Quat is perhaps the most impressive Vietnamese politician that I have met, although he too is given to someone vague generalizations. He had just returned from a two months trip to Japan and the Philippines and Korea. He said that he had found substantial understanding for the Vietnamese problems everywhere, except in Japan. The Japanese students were unbelievably doctrinaire and did not listen to any argument. He thought that a new wave of Japanese nationalism was just on the horizon and that Japan might present major difficulties for the other Asian nations in a while. As for Korea, he was impressed by their progress but shocked by their brutality. He had asked the CIA chief of Korea how they had dealt with the Communist problem and the man had told him, by shooting all Communists together with their families. This was a solution that was unthinkable for Vietnam, said Quat.

We then talked about the problem of negotiations. Quat said that he thought it extremely unlikely that the Communists would ask for negotiations.

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They were very conscious of their psychological capital and they did not want to give the impression of weakness. If they proposed negotiations it would be to improve their position not in order to "settle" the Vietnamese war. He did not think that the present Vietnamese government was in a position to negotiate effectively, since it was too divided -- a point which he wanted to return to.

We then discussed the various aspects of a possible settlement. For

cease

example, a peace fire. Quat said that a ceasefire within Vietnam was

absolutely out of the question, because it would lead to a partition of South

Vietnam and could be used by the NLF as the first step toward proof of

recognition and therefore as a first step toward a takeover. The Vietnamese

government was in no position to contest the countryside with a legitimized

NLF. I asked him about the end of bombing of North Vietnam. After a long

discussion he said that an end of bombing might be acceptable under the

following conditions: (1) that a time limit be put on the discussions; (2) that

North Vietnamese organized military units withdraw through international

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and
CHECKPOINTS into North Vietnam; (3) that organized military activity by
the Viet Cong cease. Under these conditions it might be possible to agree
to a cessation of bombing. Under any other conditions the consequences
would be extremely dangerous; in fact, disastrous. He absolutely rejected
any possibility of including the NLF as an official organization or of dealing
with it in any form. He said he would rather leave Vietnam than to live under
those conditions.

I asked him about the international status of South Vietnam. If it was
possible to return to the Geneva Accord. Quat said that returning to the
Geneva Accord would be extremely difficult. For one thing, South Vietnam
had never signed it; for another, a Geneva-type conference was bound to
be unfortunate because almost every member of such a conference would be
against the South Vietnamese government. The best forum he could imagine
would be one that includes in which South Vietnam would face North Vietnam
with America advising South Vietnam intimately. We discussed the possibility
of doing it under United Nations auspices, but Quat was extremely suspicious

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of that and he felt that the good officers of the United Nations would work
against the interests of South Vietnam.

Quat also felt that the specific provisions of the Geneva Agreement
were not longer applicable. South Vietnam would not possible survive without
make
American protection and any formal undertaking that would/American protec-
tion impossible would be extremly hazardous. China and North Vietnam were
always present. American protection could only be withdrawn if, as a result
of developments in Indonesia, it were possible to form some kind of an organi-
zation of South east Asia strong enough to resist pressure from the North.
Quat thought that the defeat of the Communists in Indonesia was one of the
hopeful signs of the contemporary situation. It had clearly shaken the Commu-
nists in Hanoi and it would affect Cambodia and Thailand. The major thing
now was to get the war over with, and he seemed to suffer from the same
misapprehension of many other Vietnamese civilians--to the effect that the
war was practically won. I, of course, did nothing to dissuasion him.

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We then talked about the internal structure. He said that Vietnam suffered from historic divisions, which had been exacerbated by Diem's rule and by the series of coups afterward. It was impossible to establish a coherent administration when every four months there was a new government and when every Vietnamese politician put the most petty interest above the interest of stability. He described plasticly and at great length the events that had led to the downfall of his government when he and the chief of state had come to a disagreement and had then made an agreement to patch it up, only to have that agreement broken again by the chief of state within 12 hours. Quat had then called in the Army to arbitrate, but the Army instead of arbitrating, had taken over power. This had the unfortunate result that the Army, instead of removing itself from politics had injected itself more and more and had confused its real functions. It was already a mistake that every provincial governor was a military man. The result was that there was no good military they were not good provincial chiefs and they were also losing their military competence. Now the same

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thing was happening on the national level. I asked him how it had come about
that provincial chiefs were military men. He said that the reason was that
in 1958 Diem decided that by appointing the military men as provincial chiefs their salaries could come out of the American military
assistance program; therefore, easing the strain on the Vietnamese budget,
which indicates the far-reaching effects that budget deficiency can have and
the intended consequences of American aid. Be that as it may, Quat felt
that the military directorate was now running the danger of also becoming
militarily incompetent without improving the political climate. I said that at
least I had been told that the military could guarantee the unity of the country
until such time as constitutional government could be set up. Quat said that
a
it was absurb to speak of/united military. There were at least four factions;
one around General Ko, another one around General Ky and Thieu, and two
other factions which I have forgotten. Ko in particular was extremely dis-
affected and was trying to line up the support of civilian politicans, but the
civilians felt that they should not enter army politics and particularly at this

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moment when the economic situation was so grave. He felt that it was
necessary to have a civil government to which the military were
subordinate. I said that I had the impression that the civilians were just
as divided as the military and I, therefore, did not see how that would im-
prove the situation. Quat said that it was true that the civilians were divided,
but at least they don't have the physical means to fight with each other. I
said, well, they may try to line up army support. He said that as a matter
of fact no civilian since the fall of Diem had tried to line up Army support.
What had happened was that the army had always interjected itself into the
quarrels of the politicians in order to magnify the authority of its own leaders.
He thought that the economic difficulties and general disillusionment would
bring about a collapse of the Ky government and that then it might be the
time to restore civilian government. He did not think that the Ky government
could last many more months.

Insert

He then invited me for dinner at his house, but unfortunately all my
diners are taken. I agreed to come for drinks with him on Sunday.

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politicizing of the
Quat made the point that the/Army had very bad consequences both in magni-
fying the divisions within the Army and in reducing their military competence.

The military had become so conscious of face that some of the most elementary
things in other armies were simply not being observed in the Vietnamese
Army. For example, when he was Prime Minister he had tried to get the
Army to institute a ~~軍事 review of military operations~~ in order to find out
where they went wrong and what lessons could be learned.--something which,
incidentally, the Wiet Cong are doing at every levels of their military organiza-
tion. The Generals had adamantly refused to do this~~ now~~ means
of reviewing military operations in the armed services.

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I returned to the residence at four. In the evening I went to dinner with a member of the Embassy staff who had invited two Buddhist leaders to his house. It was a typical Embassy affairs. Two Buddhists, one of them the chief disciple of Tri Quang, called Tam Chau; the other the head of the Buddhist chaplains in the Embassy. These two Vietnamese were surrounded by no less than six Embassy people, all leaning all over them, including the political consular of the Embassy. My experience with Buddhists has been that it is necessary to be extremely slow and patient and to let them develop their thoughts in their elliptical way. On the other hand, the political consular immediately jumped into the fray beginning with the assumption that the Buddhists were violent anti-Communists--something which I doubt seriously.

He congratulated them on their anti-Communism. He pointed out his experiences in Korea where the Buddhists had been the most militant anti-Communists and he wondered how Korean Buddhism affected Vietnamese Buddhism. As I have pointed out before, my impression of Vietnamese Buddhism is that many of the tough arguments are really a form of alibi for a very soft policy.

The

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CONSTANT proposal that Red China should be attacked is not meant; in my judgment it will be an excuse for other measures. This is indeed what several Tam Chau was saying. He again made a speech I had already heard/times in Hue about the importance of bombing China. Whereupon the political consular congratulated him on his strong anti-Communism and told him that he was undoubtedly on the death list of the Viet Cong--something I doubt seriously; in fact, I would expect him to have some relations with the Viet Cong.

I then asked Tam Chau what he would think if China were not bombed.

He then said, then we have to look for a political settlement. I asked him what he meant by a political settlement and he was extremely evasive. AT this point the political consular again leant on him and asked him sive or seven very precise questions about a ceasefire and the recognition of the NLF among other things, which he refused to answer. The meal continued in this way and turned out to be totally useless. If I had not met the Buddhists in Hue I would not have a clue to what they are thinking.

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After dinner I went briefly to the house of Richard Smyser, the
Embassy control officer. He had invited the deputy ambassador, Porter,
and Neils Po sonby, the British member of the control commision in Hanoi.
I was going to see Po sonby the next evening at a dinner given by the Canadian
member of the International Control Commission in Saigon and we just had
a chance for a brief talk.

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October 31st. I started the day with a brief talk with Lansdale to check my impressions. Lansdale agreed that pacification had not taken place anywhere; that governmental morale was shot; and that was what needed was some new symbol around which people could rally. He told me that at a meeting of his group which was/starting, such a plan would be presented. He then assembled his group and he presented the following plan.

The government of Vietnam requires a rational for pacification. He therefore proposed that all religious villages in Vietnam be given the opportunity to elect to designate themselves as revolutionary religious villages. The revolutionary religious would then be checked by a DVN team which would certify that they were real and back up their in fact secure and had no VC interests. Each revolutionary leadership and a village would elect its own/representative to an advosory assembly in Saigon.

A revolutionary village would get tax relief for two years from the land tax.

In addition to revolutionary religious there would be a category of aspirant revolutionary villages which were not completely secure but which were working toward security. Organic cadres would make a census of each

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village and improve its security. As with all these plans, it is an interesting
conception, but the subsequent discussion brought out many of the difficulties.

One: where were the cadres going to come from. Nobody had any idea. It
was simply assumed that the cadres could be found in the villages. Two: what
would happen if the VC made the revolutionary villages their prime targets.

Was there enough security to keep even two or three from being over-run.

Three: in what way did these so-called revolutionary villages differ from the
strategic hamlet program. Four: as in every American discussion, some people
thought that the plan did not go far enough and that it should include revolutionary
religious groups, revolutionary labor organizations, and so forth. I was asked
what I thought and I said that I simply could not judge, but I was sure that Vietnam
suffered from the fact that there were too many plans and outlines which had
proved fragile and too many hopes that had been shattered and that before I
announced a big, sweeping plan I would make damn sure that it could be carried
out. It would seem to me that success in ten villages was more important than
paper plans for 755, which was the target they had set. Incidentally, in the

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Lansdale assessment only 755 of the 2600 villages could be even considered as eligible for the security necessary for a revolutionary village. In other words, roughly 25%, which roughly coincides with my own observations of the countryside.

I then returned to the residence where I had lunch with Lodge. Lodge asked me about my impressions. I told him that I have the following concerns:

(1) The military planning concerned primarily standards of security which may not be relevant to the military problem here. For example, while I did not think that the battle of Plei Me was a defeat, it did not follow to me that it was a victory. The VC had managed to concentrate two regiments, had fought a sustained battle for five days, and had melted back into the jungle in small groups. This did not indicate low morale to me. I did not know what their purposes were in the battle of Plei Me, but it did not appear obvious to me that it was a defeat for them. It seemed to me that the American military was so concerned with losing battalions that they forget the need to destroy VC main force units. (2) I had a great sense of governmental disorganization.

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(3) I thought many of the programs going on were Americans racing with themselves and not really substantive programs relevant to the situation.

Many of the briefings that I had received in the provinces seemed to me close to being eyewash, and in any case, such things as building bridges, while good in themselves, gave us no clue to how well we were proceeding with pacification. (4) I thought it was unwise in the volatile conditions to tie ourselves to any government in Saigon. Particularly it seemed to me unwise to stake his prestige in Washington on an all-out support of Ky. This was not because I thought Ky was bad, but because it seemed to me that if Ky fell it would hurt his relations with any future government and also hurt his creditability in Washington. (5) I thought that the Americans were building a huge bureaucracy differing operating qualitatively with concepts and extremely bureaucratically.

Something had to be done to bring about better coordination. I thought that this enormous American infra-structure had the following bad effects: (a) it magnified the sense of impotence of the Vietnamese. I had been struck in the villages by seeing eight or ten American advisers fall all over a village

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chief who was barely competent to begin with. (b) The competition among these advisers enabled the Vietnamese to play them off against each other. For example I knew of several cases where the Vietnamese, having been rejected by one American agency, went to another. (c) The American competition made it very hard to tell whether *was* or *wasn't* what was being reported as progress was actually true. (d) I thought that the infighting within the Embassy between the political section and Lansdale group, CIA, and other agencies was not very healthy. KONGSBOCK

Lodge had not counted on such sweeping criticisms and I don't think he took them too well. He said that he had a mission coordinator whose job it was to do precisely what I had in mind. He asked me what I proposed. I proposed that he could put Porter, his Deputy Ambassador, in charge of pulling together the pacification effort. He clearly doesn't want to delegate this amount of responsibility and he received the proposal very coolly. I told him that I would not write down these observations in a report to Washington, but would concentrate on the negotiating aspect, which I would then send directly

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In the afternoon I went to the Circle Sportif for a quick fling.-- The
second
first time I had been there since my first day.

In the evening I had dinner with the Canadian member of the ICC,
Claire Seaborn. Present were the Canadian Ambassador to Cambodia and
his wife, the second man in the Australian Embassy in Saigon, and Posonby,
member of the ICC
the British Ambassador in Hanoi, who has the rank of Consul General.

I spent most of the evening talking to Fernandes and the Australian and
Posonby. After Seaborne had given one of his imitations of various members
of the ICC making border inspections designed to find nothing. Posonby
described the atmosphere in Hanoi as one of incredible ophobia. No
one could imagine how viciously anti-foreign the Vietnamese were. Everyone
hated the post, including the Communist ambassadors from Eastern Europe
and from the Voeit Union. Asfaras he could tell, everybody was restricted to
Hanoi. He had practically no contact whatever with Vietnamese civilians and
only the most restricted contact with Vietnamese officials. His Egyptian
colleague had told him, however, that his treatment was barely better. He

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had no sense whatever that the North Vietnamese were getting ready for negotiations. On the contrary, all indications were to the contrary. Shelters were being dug all over Hanoi; every able-bodied person was being conscripted into some kind of service either supporter or military; and Hanoi made the impression of an armed camp. All public announcements spoke of a long war which would, however, be victorious. There were some signs of tensions in the leadership group, particularly General Giap had been placed further down on the reviewing stand than his status in the Party would indicate, on the occasion of a Chinese Friendship Day. He had also shown signs of extreme displeasure at the reception of the Chinese ambassador, but it was hard to figure out what the reason for it was. Relations between the Chinese and North Vietnamese were funny. It was clear that something was wrong, but it was not easy to figure out what it was. At any rate, whatever was wrong had nothing to do with the conduct of the war, about which if anything, Hanoi was likely to be more vicious and more determined than Peking. Po sonby thought that negotiations, if they ever did take place, would only have the

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prupose, as far as the Communists were concerned, of winning gaining a
tactical advantage. He said that he had reported to London that the pressure
for negotiations could not be very helpful. Fernandes, the Australian, at this
point said that in looking at the situation from VC eyes he did not see any
reason why they should negotiate and why they would feel that they were under
pressure. He had just taken a trip through I, II, IV Corps and he had been
appalled at what he found. He thought that it was next to impossible to find
out if any program that was allegedly carried out did exist. For example,
when he visited I Corps, General Ky had told him that the road between
Quang Nai and Danang was open and that he, Ky, had previously travelled
it two days previously. General Ky then accompanied Fernandes to a province
south of Danang where the province chief in his ubiquitous greeting said that
tree bridges on the road south of his province town had been out for two
weeks and that he had appealed to General Ky to have them replaced. All the
while Ky, who in effect was being called a liar, was sitting next to the province
chief and nodding vigorously. Fernandes said also that he and his ambassador

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WHY one of the reasons for the visit was to give out condensed milk of a

$ program of 250,000 aid for the mountains. To this day they have not

*to account*

been able/for a single penny of this. He noticed that the people, who he

wasn't even sure were mountains, who came to get the milk after receiving

it stacked it on a table by the outside of the building where the distribution

had taken place; God knows what happened to the milk after he had given it

away. He thought that the concept of the *American units* was much too

static. The Australian military were using at most a third of their forces.

in defense of their bases, while the Americans were using more than 2/3 of

their forces in defense of their bases. If one looked at the administrative

tail of the Americans, one could see that the buildup was really much less

powerful in terms of combat-effectiveness than one thought. There were now,

or soon would be, about 200,000 American troops in Vietnam. Of those no

more than 60,000 were likely to be combat troops. Of those 2/3 were usually

tied down in securing their base area, which meant that at most 20,000 units

were free for operations. He gave as an example the Marines, which, with a

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10

total force of a division, had only 9 combat battalions or a little more than 2 regiments--all of which were on the line and none of which were engaged in sweep operations. He thought that the VC probably made a mistake in going into Stage 3 and building up their forces and thereby eliciting the big American response. Having made this mistake, however, he could not see that a corner toward victory had been turned. He completely disagreed with the RAND reports about the collapsing VC morale. He thought that the battle of Plei Me was probably primarily due to a feint to cover a VC movement into some other part of the II Corps area, and a secondary objective may have been to make an ambush for the First Dalvary Division. As for the IV Corps area, he thought that the situation had, if anything, deteriorated. The provincial sector advisors of the United States could blithly speak of pacification since no American troops were involved and since one really could not tell what the purpose of these military operations were designed to do, whether they were headed in a direction where there were known to be no VCs, or whether they were designed to catch VCs. At any rate, if any major VC

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were to show up in IV Corps area, it could overrun major parts of it. Another
difficulty in IV Corps was that by securing the provincial capital first and
operating in concentric circles out from it, there were always major areas
at the edges of each province overlapping into the next province, which were
absolute safe havens for the VC. In other words, Fernandes thought that a
substantial ubildup was still required. In fact, he wondered whether the United
States might not be soon faced with a decision of a very major escalation if it
wanted to bring the war to a conclusion.

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**November 1st.** The day started very early as it was a holiday and there was to be a big parade which had been scheduled for eight in the morning, since the heat would be unbearable the rest of the day. I had been invited to sit on the diplomatic grandstand, but since that was in the open sun I accepted the invitation of an Embassy officer who has an apartment with a balcony overlooking the parade route. On the way to the parade our car got stalled in the crush of traffic and in walking the rest of the way to the apartment while wallet containing several hundred dollars and a large number of credit cards was lifted from my pocket. It turned out to be a rather expensive parade.

The parade itself, though it was supposed to start at eight, didn't activities did not begin until 8:30 because Generals Ky and Thieu were late. They then appeared and entered a open Mercedes which went down the street and was, according to the schedule, to return 5 minutes later. at the end of the parade. However, the car didn't simply disappeared down the street and did not reappear for 45 minutes and no body has yet explained to me what happened. The parade itself was uneventful. The highlights were a very

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interesting group of mountagnards in their tribal customs and their tribal weapons and the American Marines. On the one hand the parade was extremely impressive because it showed an overwhelming amount of modern equipment and on this plane it must have been discouraging to the many Viet Cong who must have been watching. But, on the other hand, it was also somewhat pathetic from the point of view that with all this modern equipment the VC are controlling; 80% of the <u>mountagnard</u> territory and probably 75% of the population.

An eerie aspect of the parade was that <u>all</u> while there were large numbers of people lining the road, the Vietnamese military units passed in complete silence.

The only units that were applauded by the civilians were the Mountagnards and the Americans; there was literally no handclapping for any Vietnamese military unit. There was some light applause for the Australians. I think it shows the disassociation of the population from the government or maybe traditional Vietnamese indifference toward the military. Whatever it is, it was a weird experience.

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I had lunch arranged by our public affairs officer with a group of XXX 8 senior correspondents including Charles Moore, the *NY Times*, Hal Brown, and several others whose names I have forgotten. The correspondents were viciously anti-government, claiming that it was losing the war, and that if present trends continued victory would elude us. They insisted that we needed a revolution to bring the government closer to the people and so on and so forth.

They had not one concrete idea on how to bring this about. They wanted to United States to overthrow this government and institute a government which would command popular support. I asked them whether they had any idea what kind of government might command popular support, and they seemed to be at a complete loss. I asked them whether they could name any individuals who could head such a government and they claimed that there were such individuals in Paris whom we could bring back and install. Given the already enormous fragmentation of the country, such a course would surely be disastrous.

They despised the generals and many of them were saying now that the best government they remembered was that of Diem, even though they seemed to

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me to have been as viciously opposed to Diem as they are now to the existing
government.

I went from the lunch to General Westmoreland to pay a good-bye
visit. Westmoreland asked me whether his officers had been frank with me,
and I told him that I could understand military distrust of civilians though it
was painful to be the victim of it. He then asked me for my impressions, and
I said that I was a little bit discouraged by what I had seen in the Marine area,
which was the only area where I had seen a great deal of military activity.

If pacification was preceding at that pace we would wind up with a million men
in Vietnam, and even then probably wouldn't hold a great deal of the countryside.

General Westmoreland said that he agreed that the Marines were operating
much too cautiously. He thought the reason was that they had first arrived it
was with a gung-ho spirit and General Green, their Commandant, had spoken
of their mission being to kill Vietnamese and not to do anything for the population.

They had then gotten involved in some very unfortunate publicity with the result
of burning houses and indiscriminate bombing. The Marines are even more

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sensitive to unfavorable publicity than other military units. The result has
been that they have been swinging way over to the other side.

Now they were putting a disproporionate amount of effort into civil affairs.

He had had a long talk with General Walt about this and he was trying to get
them to take a more aggressive attitude. I asked him what would happen if
he did not get the two units he had asked for. He said that if he did not get

the two units things would reach a plateau and stay there. I would guess that
by plateau he means a stalemate. I asked him whether it was not odd that
he was not operating in IV Corps. He said that I should talk to General
duPuis, his Chief of Operations. He then told me that it was very difficult
to get the American units used to the kind of fighting that was needed here,
but he thought that soon they could begin operating more aggressively. He
had ordered the 1st Cavalry Division to move into a position close to the

retreating VC
Cambodian border and they had recently brought some of the people from

Plei Me into combat and inflicted thirty casualties on them. His assessment
of the Plei Me operation was that the VC wanted to get a psychological

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6

when victory. It was the first time in his experience that the VC, and large American units were brought to bear, had stood and fought. Most of the casualties from the VC had been inflicted by air attacks, not by ground action. He thought that the ground action on both the American and VC side had not been particularly well conducted. 680 air sorties, however, had inflicted devastating losses. One VC platoon had, according to a prisoner, lost 28 out of 33 members to an air strike.

He then asked a few of his staff officers to come in and give me a briefing on the latest action near Plei Me. I also had the sense that he was not very happy with the commander of the 1st Cavalry Division because on several occasions when I mentioned General Kinnard to him he made no comment. He told me that the restrictions on B-52 operations were ridiculously and were so crippling that he, in effect, thought that they were being reduced in effectiveness. He said that if I ever had a chance in Washington to comment on that he would appreciate it.

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I then had a meeting with General DePuitt. On the way into General dePuitt's office, a Colonel Darnell took me aside. He had been among the team officers giving briefing me the first day. He said he wanted to apologize for a disgraceful performance; that they had been ordered by General Abbey to be evasive, that very strict ground rules had been laid down for them. I told him that I greatly appreciated his courage in making this comment. General dePuitt turned out to be the most impressive officer I have met here. He began by saying that he had just returned from Washington where he had tried to convince the various officials of the importance Phase 2 forces for Vietnam. He said that I had to face the fact that most official figures were eyewashed. The pacification effort to all practical purposes had stopped dead a year ago.

Official figures showed 50% of the country under DVN control; 25% under VC control, and 25% contested. The truth was, in his view, that at most 25% of the country was under DVN control and about at least 50% under substantial degree of VC influence with perhaps 25% contested. The situation was even worse than that because for all practical purposes provincial and district

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administration had collapsed all over the country and had to be rebuilt from scratch. If Phase 2 forces were introduced, ~~it was~~ if an uninterrupted series of military successes were brought about, if General Tang, the Minister of Rural Reconstruction, could carry through what he said, then in five years perhaps the reduction of forces would be possible. General DePuy said that a ceasefire would be the worse disaster under present circumstances, because it would to all practical purposes turn over the country to the VC.

He then explained his concept of Phase 2 operations to me, describing the options for the deployment of two additional divisions and his preference. He told me what his preference was, but he ~~was~~ said that it involved matters about which the Vietnamese government was very sensitive. It was a concept and therefore I am not recording it. I will say, however, that ~~it was the first~~ that I found much more appealing or at least much more intelligent than the ones that I had heard previously. I doubt, however, that two divisions will do the job that they had in mind. I told General DePuy that my view on deployment could be summed up as follows. While it was possible to loose the

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9

war in II Corps, which contained the highland, it had to be won in IV Corps which contained the population and we must not fall into the trap of following every VC deployment. I have the impression that General DePuy essentially agrees with me.

In the evening I took the provincial reporters who had taken me around the province to dinner in a Chinese restaurant in Cholon. Cholon is a few miles from Saigon and has a Chinese population of several hundred thousand. The character is the city is substantially different from Saigon--more crowded, more relaxed, more small town-ish. Americans are much less in evidence. At the dinner the provincial reporters commented on what had also struck me; namely, the dissociation between the crowd and the leaders at the morning's parade. For example, when President Thieu and Prime Minister Ky were riding in the open car down the avenue toward to head the parade, some Americans were surprised that the crowd did not pressure whether the crowd the crowd was obviously at a loss about what to do--whether to bow, to applaud, or what. Similarly the two leaders of Vietnam were obviously ill at ease, neither waving nor smiling, but looking

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straight ahead. The provincial reporters then showed me a view of the
night clubs of Saigon, where extremely graceful Vietnamese were dancing
while on the outside flare were dropping and illuminating the
terrain on the outskirts of Saigon. One could occasionally hear artillery
rumble. This is an absurd situation.

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November 2nd. The day started with a meeting with Tran Quang Phuan, Secretary-General of Van Hanh University, a new Buddhist institution in Saigon, A former minister of social welfare. I began the conversation by asking Phuan about the probable course of events during the next few years.

Phuan expressed great pessimism unless certain things could be accomplished.

What was needed, he felt, was a social revolution, although he was frank in acknowledging this term did not have a precise significance, and in many peoples' minds constituted nothing more than a vague yearning for justice.

As Phuan understood the concept, a social revolution would provide for justice through the development of greater social cohesion. Phuan felt that in an underdeveloped country the government was the instrument that must play the major role in instituting social changes. The difficulty was that the Vietnamese governments had so lacked the requisite cohesion since they had generally been composed of men who did not know each other at the outset so that considerable time was required before any sort of team spirit could be developed. Furthermore, governmental leaders generally did not represent

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any group within the population. They represented nobody but themselves.

This kind of government encouraged the development of three types of attitude within the politically aware population, which was in itself a minority. (1) trouble-making based on a genuine distaste for any political authority.

(2) withdrawal to private concerns and indifference to public matters. (3) individuals who would serve the government because they were in effect paid off. All three attitudes were useless to a government in attempting to effect a social revolution. This created a vicious circle which guaranteed political impotence. Governments were capable enough of drawing up plans which on paper looked good; in reality they were totally impracticable because they failed to take into account consideration the inadequacy of the governmental resources, particularly human resources, to do the job.

I asked Phuan how it might be possible to bring about a situation in which the social revolution he saw as desirable could take place. Phuan answered that currently all viable social groups should be encouraged. Asked to identify these he said that he was thinking of all sorts of groups, if necessary

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including even sports clubs. Of course, he said somewhat slyly, Buddhists constituted a very important social group in themselves and he said that the Buddhists were working hard to improve their team spirit. He acknowledged that within the Buddhist movement the same internal fragmentation and fractionalization were evident, as appeared elsewhere in Vietnamese society.

Phuan was not explicit as to how he envisioned the process would develop from encouraging social groups to achieving the social changes he had in mind. I asked him if he could identify any government which might be able to take the steps he believed necessary. As all my other Vietnamese contacts, Phuan declined to do so. He pointed out that it was difficult to predict ahead how a man would perform before he had actually served. As an example he cited the case of former prime minister Quat, who had appeared to be an extremely capable man, but who had demonstrated in office that while he possessed dignity and administrative skill, he nevertheless lacked the decisiveness that was needed in a leader.

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I noted that I had gained the impression that the Buddhists were planning to form a national political organization with some apparent reluctance. Phuan confirmed that this was indeed the intention and it was observed that any national organization would have to be centered in Saigon, and not in HUe.

I then turned to the question of negotiations with the Communists, and asked Phuan how he visualized an end to the current conflict. Phuan said that he thought that negotiations might take place either in public or privately. Public negotiations would be unfortunate for the anti-Communist cause. Had the other side been wiser they would accept a public call for discussions; they would in fact have done so many months ago. Phuan did not understand why they had not done this, since he believed it evident that South Vietnam was not now prepared for negotiations with the Communists in view of its lack of social cohesion. A Masked him if he thought that South Vietnam might in the near future achieve such cohesion. Phuan did not respond directly but appeared highly sceptical of this prospect. As to negotiations held in

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Privately secret, Phuan first stated that the United States could do this without Vietnam. I pointed out to him that if the United States could not do this, that we could not use small countries as pawns and that any discussion with the other side would have to involve the GVN. Phuan accepted this statement with what appeared to be full agreement. Asked who he thought the Communist participants in any such discussions should preperly be, Phuan replied that he thought that Peking, Hanoi and the National Liberation Front not should be regarded entities, but rather as elements of a single apparatus.

This, however, did not mean that the NLF could be accepted as negotiating agent for the others. No government of Vietnam could accept this, and Phuan personally thought that any such action would be most unwise, since it would legitimize the Front. I asked him what he thought a desirable outcome of negotiations would be. Phuan referred to public statements on the subject and stated that he thought the goal should be a South Vietnam independent of North Vietnam and free of the violence of war. Economic ties with the North might be envisaged. Broader questions of the reunifications of the

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country could be left to the more distant future. At the close of the conver-
sation Phuan volunteered the belief that changes in educational policy were
an important element in the social revolution he desired. He identified three
fundamental errors in current educational policy: (1) It rewarded the
wrong course of action from a national point of view; that is, students who
contributed nothing to the nation lived a life of safety and leisure and had the
affluent positions in society reserved for them, whereas the combattants who
suffered and sacrificed were unable to achieve the means of advancement
and were therefore condemned to lower ranks on the social scale. (2) In its
current tuition practices educational policy favored the rich. Phuan desired
a system in which tuition was made higher and the money used to institute
a broader scholarship program for the poor. The wealthy could easily afford
to pay more for their children's education and than they were. Even at the
elementary level though tuition was free in theory, it was often expensive for
parents to support a child in school. Higher tuition and broad scholarships
would help give children of the poor more equal opportunity. (3) The

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system of education stressed the wrong subjects. University education was
aimed at producing a group of men trained in literature and the liberal
arts who could do little that was useful. The nation had a great need for tech-
nically trained men who would emerge from school with badly needed, but the
current system was not producing them. I asked Phuan whether he thought it
might be helpful if American universities established direct relations with
Vietnamese universities. Phuan said, of course, this would raise suspicions,
but it should be done nevertheless.

I then spent the rest of the morning getting together documents that
had been stolen from me. I had lunch with Roy Wurley, the director of
programs for USAM. Wurley is a brilliant economist who previously served
in Laos. We spent most of our time reviewing the situation in South Vietnam
and he tended to confirm all the points that most others have also told
me. For example, He said that there were four basic problems in Vietnam:
(1) the conduct of military operations; (2) the problem of pacification on the
village level; (3) the problem of political stability in Saigon; (4) the problem

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of economic reconstruction. He thought that the first and fourth of these
items could be handled reasonably effectively, because the United States would
simply saturate the country with its economic resources. He had his doubts
however, about the second and third items. He felt that the structure of civic
administration had gone completely to pieces in the last year under the impact
of repeated changes of government and that to all practical purposes there did
not exist any village authority. American programs were competing with each
other and there was no effective means of telling which areas were pacified
and which were not. I said that to me it was interesting to find out who
governed where at night. He said even those figures might be mis-
leading because in many cases a village chief stayed in office through a tacit
bargain with the VC, looking the other way during VC operations, and
they in turn permitted him to operate as long as he did not get in their way
too much. As for political stability in Saigon, he thought that the situation was
still highly unstable. He believed that the vestige of colonial rule was still
very strong. The Vietnamese were born intriguers and having had to maneuver

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through 100 years of French rule had fragmented them even further and turned every politician into a kind of conspirator. He thought that it was essential to conduct programs in a manner that would enable direct appeal to the countryside, because otherwise he feared that the impact of programs might be lost through changes of government which he considered unavoidable.

I asked him about negotiations and he said that this was not his field, but that he doubted that the government could now withstand political competition with the National Liberation Front. In face, if negotiations were strated the Vietnamese Army would collapse as a functioning unit and the United States would have to do all the fighting. He did not think we could afford a ceasefire because we would confirm the [SECRET] [CONFIDENTIAL] [EX] Viet Cong in control of 90% of the country.

I spent the afternoon making farewell calls to Mr. Jorgenson, and Bill Porter and then I worked with Lodge for an hour on a letter which he is sending to Washington on the subject of negotiations. Porter said that he was afraid of the lack of coordination and the different approaches that were

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being pushed by different people in the Embassy, and he was worried about
being able to pull all of them together. He said, remember, I am only a
Vice President, I can only do what the Ambassaodr asks me to. He said
every time he turned a stone some worm was squirming away underneath it.
He sited as an example the experience of General Tang, the minister of
reconstruction, who had drawn up tremendous plans, but when all was said
and done all he wanted was to take over cadres which the political actions
teams had already created, While he thought these should be turned over to
the Vietnamese sooner or later, the problem was to create cadres not in the
paramilitary field, but in the field of agriculture, social services, and so forth.

He also mentioned the jurisdictional disputes between the Army and
USOM about control of the police. He urged that I came back in one of
two cases--in any event in six months to see whether any progress has been
made. Immediately if negotiations were started because they would need a
strong hand to pull things together. He urged me to take this up with Lodge.
I am not so sure that I am eager to follow the advice. So Now I've come to
the end of nearly three weeks in Vietnam. I came with the conviction that it

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[Y]

area
was the most important/in which the United States was now engaged, if only
because so much of our honor had been staked on it. I am still convinced of
this. I came also with the expectation that while the struggle might be difficult,
with patience and fortitude we would be able to see it through. I had expected

in
the Vietnamese administration to be efficient, but I had thought that there

to
would be some people in the country dedicated/the cause that for which they
were fighting and who might, with patience and understanding, become the
basis of future efforts. Indeed, I was worried that the major problem was the
mercurial attitude of Washington, rather than the Vietnamese. It would be
idle to deny that the visit here has been a shattering experience from this
aspect. I believe we have to come out honorably in Vietnam. I think we
should not kid ourselves about what honorable is, No matter how clever our
solution, five years from now if a Communist government exists in Saigon
or in South Vietnam, no one will ever trust the United States again. Even
our present critics will have to remember that we made our most
solemn commitment and when we engaged over a quarter million Americans
forces, we did not know or were not able how to achieve what we wanted.

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And yet committed as I am to success here, it would be idle to deny that the problems are enormous, Even making allowance for the fact that there are many soreheads, even granting that in an underdeveloped country one cannot expect WESTERN standards of efficiency, the situation here is serious indeed. There is, for all practical purposes, no central government. What exists is a group of individuals who are doing paper-planning and who command an army--an army which rarely fights unless it is attacked and which has is in itself in danger of dissolution. The provincial administration is rapacious or incompetent. The American advisers are here for such a short time that they cannot possible learn the intricacies of the situation. Moreover they are in competition with their own reporting system and they cannot face the fact that all this effort has been in vain. Finally they must get along with corrupt and venal province chiefs, and if they try to carry out their jobs they would find themselves in constant difficulty, which in turn would get them in trouble with their agencies. All of this is a grim picture, which is not relieved by the fact that I cannot think of a brilliant remedy. I suppose that

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at this point having gone this far, we have no choice except to go down the
road further. It is not impossible that our military superiority will simply
overwhelm the Viet Cong. Also, if we deal perhaps directly with the pro-
vincial administration on major subjects, we can impose some standards of
performance. The Lansdale operation might bring fruit. Yet I have to say
with great sadness that all of these are hopes, not realities. (If I were a
dictator here I would not know where to begin, because it is not simply a
matter of giving orders, it is also a matter of building a nation in the middle
of a vicious civil war. ) Perhaps one is too hard on a country, whenever
serving where every evening one hears artillary; where every morning the
windows shake because of B-52 raids close by; where one cannot fly into
airports because of danger of snipers in the surrounding countryside; where
the roads are impassable because the VC controls the countryside.

The other day I spoke to the American Vice Consul from Laos who was here
madly enough for a weekend of rest and recuperation, which I suppose, given
the proliferation of nightclubs in Saigon, is not too hard to attain. He went

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Frenchmen down with a group of ~~ assignment ~~ to Cape San Jac about 50 miles 15 miles from Saigon to the beach resort. On the way back his car was stopped at a regular VC roadblock. He escaped only because his French *friends* with *their* friends identified him as a Frenchman. It is the kind of city where one can joke that if one gets into a car and if the driver has been bought by the VC one might be taken to a suburb and never emerge again. One can joke about it and yet it isn't very real. After the first week, ~~xxx~~ when I did feel somewhat jumpy, I felt no more insecure here than in New York. And I would suppose the danger of Viet Cong attacks in the cities are no greater than of mugging in New York. This is in self eerie. There must be tens of thousands of Viet Cong in Saigon who have arms, yet there is never an unpremeditated attack. All attacks are meticulously planned so that those who are assassinated at least have the consolation that they were not the victim of a random move.

As for the government, it is hard to know where to go. On the one hand, it is easy to say that the military should give way to civilian government sooner or later, but I do not think a civilian government would have any more support

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than the current military government. Moreover the military at least control an instrument of power and one which WAS ESTABLISHED on an international basis. The civilians, as far as I can tell, have no following at all, even in Saigon and certainly none in the countryside, with the possible exception of some Buddhists, who do not have a general following either, but who can at least, if they get the Buddhist monks on their side, have the ability to create some HAVOC. How can one build a nation among a people that have a great sense of individuality that is mostly NOT GOVERNMENTAL? I do not know. How does one win a war THAT IS MORE POLITICAL THAN MILITARY? These are some of the problems with which we will have to deal.

Three weeks ago it seemed to me that we needed above all fortitude and stability. Today I think we need understanding, wisdom and fortitude.