Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume IV, Vietnam, August–December 1963

37. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, August 31, 1963, 11 a.m.

SUBJECT

• Viet-Nam

PARTICIPANTS

• Department of State
  • Secretary of State
  • Mr. Hilsman
  • Amb. Nolting
  • Mr. Kattenburg
• Department of Defense
  • Secretary McNamara
  • Mr. Gilpatric
  • Gen. Maxwell Taylor
  • Maj. Gen. Krulak
• White House
  • McGeorge Bundy
  • Mr Forrestal
• CIA
  • Gen. Carter
  • Mr. Helms
  • Mr. Colby
• The Vice President
  • USIA—Mr. Edward Murrow

The Secretary of State began the meeting by saying that we were back to Wednesday of last week.² He suggested that we go to the original problem: What factors made us think well of a coup? These factors were still relevant to our basic problem. He felt that we should not rule out our attitude towards Nhu as an individual. The problem is what Diem-Nhu did, the policies they followed that eroded solidarity in Viet-Nam for pursuing the war, international support, and US public opinion.

The Secretary of State said that we should consider a message to Lodge picking up his suggestion³ of telling Diem the problem in the US of continuing support and opening a discussion with Lodge as to what we should get [from?] the Government of South Viet-Nam with respect to the following: Buddhists, students, the military command, free scope for US advisers, and Madame Nhu out of the country on a visit. Additional measures might be a real effort to patch up relations with neighboring countries including Cambodia—in other words, a total program to achieve what the Nhus were undercutting. The Secretary was reluctant to start by saying that the number one problem was removing Nhu. He was also clear that engineering a coup ourselves was something we could not do.

The Secretary of Defense said that he strongly favored the Secretary of State’s ideas. He felt that the initial step was to reestablish relations between US representatives and their opposite numbers in the GVN, and especially Lodge and Harkins with Diem.

The Secretary of State said that an extremely important item to tell Diem was that he must not decapitate the military command because of rumors of a coup attempt but get on with the war.

The Secretary asked if anyone had any doubts that the coup was off. Mr. Kattenburg said that he had some doubts. He said that the VOA broadcast of suspension of aid⁴ had had a most remarkable effect and that it was an enormous pity that this effect was counteracted by a too rapid pull-back from that broadcast the next day. Mr. Kattenburg said that the Generals were very, very suspicious of the US and needed the reassurances they had asked for but had never gotten. In this respect it was tragic⁵ that Harkins had not carried out his instructions, i.e., had not given Khiem the reassurances even though Khiem had said that the plotting had stopped. The Secretaries of State and Defense said that they thought that Harkins was absolutely right to stop before giving reassurances in the light of what Khiem had told him.

Mr. Hilsman said that he quite agreed that Harkins was right in not following through with reassurances. He thought that what Mr. Kattenburg meant by what he had said was that the Generals’ need for reassurances that the US was really behind them was a crucial factor. Whether or not it was true, the Generals believed that the authors of the 1960 coup had been encouraged in their action by low level CAS people in violation of US Government policy. On this occasion the Generals had been contacted only by two low level CAS people and they feared a repetition of 1960. Their suspiciousness was enhanced by the close relationship Richardson, the CAS Station Chief, has had with brother Nhu. Against this background, they tended to believe what Nhu had told them—that he was in communication with the US, that he was doing what the US wanted him to do and that he had had the approval of President Kennedy.

Mr. Hilsman asked the Secretary of State if he could pick up the Secretary’s suggestion of getting back to the basic factors in the situation and give his analysis of them. Mr. Hilsman said that there were four factors in the basic problem. The first factor was the attitude of the people and especially of the middle level officers and bureaucrats who would have to carry on the war under any government.

Mr. McNamara asked why Mr. Hilsman thought this was key and what evidence he had that these people were in fact disaffected. Mr. Hilsman distinguished between what we knew of the attitude of these people and why they were key. He felt that they were key because they were the ones who had to carry on the activities of the government. (What Mr. Hilsman should have said explicitly but only implied was that of his four factors the reason he had put this one first was that pursuing the war to a successful conclusion was the most important of all and that doing this required the cooperation and support of the middle level officers and bureaucrats.)

On the question of evidence of the attitude of these people, we had relatively little information and certainly no statistics. However, we had some information from conversations between these people and Embassy officials.

Mr. Kattenburg said that he felt that they were disaffected, that he himself had talked to only three such people who were, but that other Embassy officers had talked to others who were. Also, Mr. Kattenburg said, we must consider as valid evidence the testimony of seasoned newspapermen such as Trumbull and Keyes Beech who talked to these people and who uniformly reported disaffection. The Secretary of Defense felt that this reflected that the disaffected people that we had talked to were only those in Saigon.

Mr. Hilsman said that his second factor was the effect of an American acquiescence in what had happened in Viet-Nam especially in Southeast Asia but also in Korea where they were watching us closely to see how much repression we would tolerate as a guide to the repression they contemplated during their upcoming election.

The third factor was Mr. Nhu. We had the experience of his attempting to throw out the key American advisers in the provinces and the strategic hamlet program. This would undoubtedly be revived. Also Ambassador Nolting had said Nhu would engage in shenanigans in Laos and Cambodia. Mr. Hilsman said he thought he would also do so with the North Vietnamese and we knew he had been in contact with them some months ago. Mr. Hilsman said that sensitive information showed that Nhu had been behind the De Gaulle statement, at least to the extent that what he had told the French Ambassador gave De Gaulle the notion.

The fourth factor was US domestic opinion and world opinion.

Mr. Hilsman said that his recommendation was we now move to the political and diplomatic arena; that we open tough negotiations with President Diem, maintaining with him and publicly our position of disapproval of recent actions; that we ought to consider telling Diem that we had temporarily suspended aid pending the outcome of these negotiations; that this was not an ultimatum but only a position for negotiations to bring about a GVN posture that would permit us to continue our support. This move had the advantage of giving Lodge some leverage, of signaling the rest of Asia that we were not condoning GVN actions and also help with domestic public opinion. Most importantly of all, however, it would signal to the rest of Viet-Nam that we were doing our utmost to change the nature of GVN policies. We would then negotiate with Diem for an acceptable arrangement. The disadvantage was that it would interrupt the momentum of the war effort, but this had perhaps already happened. The Secretary of State said he would not exaggerate what Nhu said to the French, that was not exactly treasonable and, if it was, we have been a little treasonable too.

The Secretary said that we should look at the things that we wanted to extract from these negotiations. It might well be that the effect of the transaction would be wholesome in getting more cooperation from South Viet-Nam. They might have had a scare during these recent days too.

The Secretary was not inclined to start with an actual suspension of aid but a statement that without GVN changes it might not be possible to continue aid. On the question of international opinion as a result of the repression of the last few weeks, this might be turned around if there was in fact a turn-around by the GVN. On Vietnamese opinion, his feeling was that the disaffection had not yet spilt outside Saigon but, if the policies of repression continued, then the disaffection would seep out.

Mr. Nolting said that this was not a problem of religious persecution, that the Buddhists had never been persecuted, that the line should be that the action against the Buddhists was not religious persecution but to remove political efforts under the cloak of Buddhism. The Secretary said that this was impossible for us to maintain and he was not at all sure it was true, but that if there was anything to what Mr. Nolting said it would have to come out of the actions of conciliation the GVN now took.

Mr. Murrow said that there had been world-wide condemnation of GVN actions; that if US policy implied that we continued to support such a government without complaint the world would blame us for supporting both the GVN and its action if its actions continued bad, as, for example, the censorship remained in force. Mr. Murrow’s point was that it would be no easy task to turn around world opinion.

The Secretary of Defense said that we must work out a way of continuing to help the GVN against the Viet Cong. He agreed that it should not start with a suspension of aid. We need to reopen communications with Diem to get his ideas about what comes next. He said that part of the problem was the press-an assumption that the US was willing to change the situation when in fact it may not be able to change the situation.

Mr. Kattenburg said that his feeling, and he felt Lodge’s and Trueheart’s was that if we acquiesce in what has happened or even if we acquiesce with halfway measures—i.e., GVN negotiations with puppet bonzes—we will be butted out of the country within six months to a year⁶ and he felt that it would be better to withdraw in a dignified way.

Mr. Bundy asked what was behind this conclusion. Mr. Kattenburg said that the recent actions of the GVN have made the people the unwilling allies of the Viet Cong; that he had known Diem for 10 years and admired him, but that he had fumed into a petty dictator inseparable from Nhu and that the general expectation in South Viet-Nam would be that the Viet Cong would win.

Ambassador Nolting said that the discontent was confined to the cities which was only 15 percent of the population; the villagers were not affected. The feeling in the cities is worse now than ever before but not that much worse. The government had actually done well with US help that had begun in 1961 and though this was a bad period he felt the government could succeed. Mr. Kattenburg said that there was one new factor. The population was in high hopes following the VOA broadcast but could do nothing because of the many guns in the street. If we patch up with Diem and Nhu, we may survive for a few months but popular discontent will crescendo. The Secretary of State said that this was speculation. We must start with the situation we are now facing. He felt that we, first, should decide that we will not pull out of Viet-Nam and, second, that the US is not going to operate a coup d’etat itself. We were making steady progress during the first six months of this year and what we should do is go down the middle of the track and hope to recover that.

The Vice President said that he agreed. He recognized the evils of Diem but has seen no alternative to him. Certainly we can’t pull out. We must reestablish ourselves and stop playing cops and robbers. We might cut down on aid and tell Diem that he had created a situation which we cannot handle politically and he must do 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Certainly the US itself could not pull a coup and certainly there were bad situations in South Viet-Nam. However, there were bad situations in the US. It was difficult to live with Otto Passman but we couldn’t pull a coup on him.⁷

1. Source: Kennedy Library, Hilsman Papers, White House Meetings, State Memcons. Top Secret; Eyes Only; No Distribution. Drafted by Hilsman. The meeting was held at the Department of State. Krulak’s memorandum of this meeting is printed in United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967, Book 12, pp. 540-544. A brief memorandum of discussion of this meeting by Bromley Smith is in Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Meetings and Memoranda, Meetings on Vietnam.
2. August 21.
3. See Document 34.
4. See vol. III, p. 636.
5. Hilsman added the following change in his own hand: “it should be noted,” which was apparently intended to replace “it was tragic.”
6. Kattenburg later stated that Lodge specifically asked him, if he got the chance, to make this point. (Department of State, Office of the Historian, Vietnam Interviews, Paul M. Kattenburg, March 14, 1984)

7. Regarding Vice President Johnson’s remarks, Smith’s memorandum of discussion reads as follows:

   “The Vice President stated his view that he had not known of U.S. actions taken last Saturday until the following Tuesday meeting. He had never been sympathetic with our proposal to produce a change of government in Vietnam by means of plotting with Vietnamese generals. Now that the generals had failed to organize a coup, he thought that we ought to reestablish ties to the Diem government as quickly as possible and get forward with the war against the Viet Cong.”