162. Telegram From the Embassy in Vietnam to the Department of State1
5710. 1. I gave Thieu gist of your 40112 (Ky not in Saigon today) and used appropriate material from the explanatory notifications being given to troop contributing countries.
2. Thieu listened with a most intense concentration and said that the President had chosen a “most favorable moment”. It had been clear, he said, that if we could survive the last political crisis, it would be much harder for the Communists to attempt any more troublesome maneuvers in the future. It is now clear, he said, that “this year will be a decisive year for the Viet Cong.” It is also clear that “they will make their maximum deployment this year.” We here in South Viet-Nam, he added, hope that this is what will happen. For the Presidentʼs decision to come after we have surmounted our political crisis and as the Viet Cong face such a bleak prospect is most welcome.
3. The Viet Cong, he said, cannot do any more than they are now doing; it is their maximum effort. It was clear to them in February that they could not reasonably hope for military success and that they needed some political gains. Before going to any peace talks, said Thieu, they hoped at least to have a government in Saigon which was weak and which, in the political field, would compensate for their own weakness in the military field. Now, if they accept conversations, they must hold them under conditions which are very unfavorable to them. If they cannot win militarily and if they cannot win politically, they will have no choice but to either stop the fighting or return to guerrilla war for ten or twenty years, and for them to do this will not be profitable for them. What can it accomplish? Nothing decisive.
4. If fact, he added, with our program of pacification, which contrasts so markedly with their terrorism, they will lose further public support without accomplishing anything militarily or politically.
5. What kind of conversations, therefore, he asked, can they have? If they stop the war in the South, they will surely have it in the North because there will be so much dissatisfaction with them which an admission [Page 454] of defeat would crystallize and bring to a head. Those who are running the show up there will surely lose their positions.
6. When I asked whether that meant Ho Chi Minh would go down, he said, “Maybe not. Maybe he could maneuver at the top and let the ones immediately under him be sacrificed.”
7. Under questioning by me, he said that there were really three courses open to them rather than two. The first was to have conversations, which meant that they would in effect have to admit defeat and which would bring down the responsible parties in Hanoi; the second was to continue the war by switching all their efforts to guerrilla fighting. Then he said, in response to my questioning, that there was a third possibility: they could look as though they were continuing the war but actually it would be at very low gear, and on a very small scale.
8. He believed they were now in a state of mind where it would be expedient to challenge them to accept the Geneva Accords of 1954. He did not believe they would do so.
9. Returning to the recent political crisis, he said it had been “a test for us”, for Hanoi and for all the accomplices of Hanoi. It was unquestionably the most serious political crisis which South Viet-Nam had had in three years. Their opponents had tried everything. In particular, they had tried to stir American emotions by the self-immolations, the demonstrations, putting the altars in the streets, etc. But this had failed.
10. Maybe, he said, “some people thought the GVN had been a little bit soft. But, he said, “if the GVN had operated against Danang early the consequences might have been dangerous.” The GVN, he said, wanted to allow time for the people to understand so that when they finally did move, they had public support and people thought they were reasonable.
11. During the conversation, I was called to the telephone to be given news of the tidal wave approaching the city of Danang. Komer, who came with me, then said to Thieu that if this year was the year of decision, as Thieu had said, and as Komer agreed, then it behooved both of our forces, Vietnamese and American, to make maximum effort. To this Thieu agreed.
12. When the time came to leave, Thieu, apparently recalling what Komer had said, commented on the fact that Komer had four more days in Viet-Nam and said that would give him plenty of time to speak with Vietnamese and see for himself how strong their determination was. He had said earlier that it was true there was war weariness in Viet-Nam, but that did not mean that they were for peace at any price, or that they were indifferent to the kind of a peace which would be made. He obviously thought that there was a great deal of war weariness in North Viet-Nam too.
[Page 455]13. Comment: A. This is the first time any high ranking and responsible Vietnamese has talked to me about a decision coming as quickly as this year and about specifics of the courses open to Hanoi. Thieu showed a new and unprecedented confidence. B. He was very clear that he thought that the President had picked an extremely favorable time to bomb POL facilities, having in mind all the factors in Southeast Asia with which he, Thieu, could not have first hand knowledge. End comment.
14. I gave him the pictures of the Moon, with the Presidentʼs covering letter, for which he was most grateful.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 27 VIET S. Secret; Immediate; Nodis/Nina. The source text does not indicate the time of transmission; the telegram was received at 9:02 a.m. Rostow forwarded the text of the telegram to the President at 11:50 a.m. on June 23 under cover of a memorandum stating: “Thieuʼs reaction to your decision is worth reading.” (Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President—Walt W. Rostow, vol. 7)↩
- See footnote 4, Document 161.↩