193. Telegram From the Embassy in Vietnam to the Department of State1
Archbishop Palmas said, “Then you would be willing to receive somebody who would bring you the letter”.
I said that I did not think I should commit myself to see some junior person not of the equivalent rank to me and that the letter should probably be delivered to someone I would indicate. Archbishop Palmas thought this was reasonable.
He then asked me if I would receive the former Vietnamese Cabinet Minister2 referred to in my 16053 and that he hoped that I would talk to him.
I said, “He is not the Viet Cong representative, is he?”
Archbishop Palmas explained, with a laugh, that he certainly was not.
He agreed to convey the message about my seeing the letter and said he would get in touch with me to give me the result.
We then had a more general discussion in which he agreed with me that unless there was sincerity in this proposition there was no point in wasting time on it. He and I agreed that it might be skullduggery designed to get me in wrong with General Ky. Archbishop Palmas said it had long been evident to him that when I was appointed Ambassador many Vietnamese thought that the Viet Cong would take note of my experience at the United Nations and my interminable negotiations with Communists and might think that my presence here might give a way out.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 27 VIET S. Top Secret; Priority; Nodis. The source text does not indicate a time of transmission; the telegram was received at 8:07 a.m. 1623. Eyes only for Bundy. I called on Archbishop Palmas and said that nothing could be said or done as far as I was concerned unless I could see the so called “letter of credentials”.↩
- In telegram 1282 to Saigon, November 10, the Department postulated that the “former Cabinet Minister” might be Le Van Hoach. His Cao Dai affiliation made him a likely candidate as a possible intermediary, but he had a “fairly checkered past.” (Ibid.)↩
- Text in Document 191.↩