Office of the Historian

115. Memorandum of a Conversation, Quai d’Orsay1

US/MC/9
Paris, August 7, 1961, 10:30 a.m.

PARTICIPANTS

  • United States
    • The Secretary of State
    • Ambassador Gavin
    • Ambassador Harriman
    • Mr. Steeves
    • Mr. Sullivan
    • Mr. Usher
  • United Kingdom
    • Lord Home
    • Mr. Malcolm MacDonald
    • Mr. Edward Peck
    • Mr. Michael Butler
    • Sir Pierson Dixon
    • Mr. J. W. Russell
  • France
    • M. Couve de Murville
    • M. Jacques Roux
    • M. Charles Lucet
    • M. M. Richer
    • Ambassador Falaize
    • Mr. Baraduc

SUBJECT

  • VietNam

Couve de Murville asked the Secretary whether he wished to say something on VietNam.

The Secretary said he would be glad to do so and that he would appreciate any comments which his British and French colleagues would like to make.

He said we have been working with Diem in bringing about improvements in the economic and military field. We have been [Page 268] working in conformity with the counter-insurgency plan and on economic plans which might help to bring the situation in Viet Nam under control.

Vietnamese military forces have had some successes with their counter-insurgency tactics. We are also prepared to put in larger resources to strengthen the civil situation. All of these efforts encounter the problem of intimidation by the communist insurgency throughout the country. One of our great concerns is the flow of fresh elements from North Viet-Nam through Laos.

The Secretary said we plan to make a very substantial investment of effort in South VietNam. There are advantages in Viet Nam as compared with Laos-a better army with a will to fight, a better economy and in fact a situation in general far in advance of conditions in Laos.

Couve said that the United States is doing the maximum amount to help the Vietnamese. On the military side, he understood that the Secretary thought the situation not too bad. The Secretary interposed that he thought it was not too bad and not too good. Couve went on to say that the real problem is always the same, namely, the domestic political problem. He said the difficulty is to change the present government, which is a strong government, into a popular government. He thought we had all more or less failed in our efforts.

Couve went on to say Diem and the people around him are from the central part of Viet-Nam around Hue, and that it has been impossible up to now to give more positions in the government to the Cochin-Chinese. Couve said he had talked to Sihanouk about this, and that Sihanouk had said he thought this was the heart of the problem. The elite of the Cochin-Chinese south has the feeling that it is excluded from the government and is therefore in the opposition.

Lord Home said the British think the situation in Viet-Nam has gotten a little worse.2 He said that the British have made arrangements to send Colonel Thompson to Viet Nam with rather a small mission. There is nothing that Thompson doesn’t know about counter-insurgency methods, and he should be able to be of help. Lord Home said that he didn’t know how the government could be made more popular.

[Page 269]

Lord Home remarked that the problem is Diem, who continues to exhibit his well-known defects, but there is no alternative but to try to help him improve.

The Secretary thanked Couve for his observations about the Cochin-Chinese, and said he thought we might do something about trying to get more of them into the government. He said it might be helpful if the French could give us some suggestions regarding able Cochin-Chinese who might be brought into the government. Couve agreed to do this.3

  1. Source: Department of State, Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 65 D 330, August 1961. Secret. Drafted by Usher on August 7, edited and approved by Steeves, and approved in S on August 8. This discussion took place during the Ministerial Consultations on Berlin, August 4-9.↩
  2. According to a memorandum of conversation between Rusk and Lord Home on August 6, Home implied that British reports indicated that many considered Diem “hopeless.” Rusk replied that Diem was improving but that he feared “it would be a long drawn-out matter.” Rusk expressed his hope that the countries in the area-Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, and others-could form a regional organization which countries like India could support, thus permitting the demise of SEATO. (Ibid.)↩
  3. No paper from the French Government along these lines has been found.↩