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

38. Memorandum of Conversation Between the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Hilsman) and the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)¹

Washington, August 31, 1963, noon.

SUBJECT

• Viet-Nam

The Cable²

The important thing is to win the war. It is important to maintain the leverage of US discontent both in our public posture and in our private conversations with Diem. We want to go to Diem with a frank but tough line. We must insist he lay off the Generals and not arrest them and we must be blunt about this. We must return to the situation before the 24th of August. Diem ought to have a dialogue with the real Buddhists (Nolting suggested the venerable Khiet as a possibility). We ought to hit hard on press censorship. Lodge ought to open his conversations with Diem by saying that he has come to talk. The US is troubled and these are the reasons. The conversation ought to close with the problem of the Nhus. This could be settled in later discussions—leave them till last. Our sanction is that Congress may have to force us to suspend aid. The President at his next press conference would have to express his disapproval of what has happened in Viet-Nam. One reason for this is that the US continues to suffer casualties in Viet-Nam—e.g., The New York Times today juxtapositions the repression of the Buddhists and the US disapproval of GVN actions with a story of two more Americans killed. Diem must face these facts. Diem will say that public opinion and Congress don’t understand the true situation because of erroneous press reports but our reply should be tant pis. The fact is thus what they believe, whether the information they base their conclusion on is right or wrong. Lodge should not say that aid has been suspended but that suspension is around the bend and will be forced upon us. We must establish a posture of candid and critical discussion privately and also this should be the general impression publicly both in Viet-Nam and abroad. If the people of South Viet-Nam decide to make a change of government they know where we are. Diem knows where we are too if he wants to change his policies. The impression should be left with the people of South Viet-Nam that we are there trying not to operate a coup d’etat on the government but to improve the government.⁴

1. Source: Kennedy Library, Hilsman Papers, Countries, Vietnam. Top Secret, Eyes Only; No Distribution. Hilsman wrote “post mortem” on the first page of the source text. He also attached two pages of fragmentary handwritten notes which are neither decipherable nor comprehensible. They are not printed.
2. The reference is not clear, but may be to telegram 243, vol. III, p. 628.
4. Hilsman wrote the following note at the end of the source text: “1st para—require conciliatory actions which are attributed [?] to him personally, a system of his [?] efforts to improve his int’1 position, and a demonstrat. to Amer. people that we are not asking Americans to be killed to support [?] Mde Nhu’s desire to barbecue bonzes.”