291. Memorandum From the Presidentʼs Special Assistant (Roche) to President Johnson1
At your instruction I went to Saigon from Manila and spent three days trying to convince the mission that a period of profound calm in Vietnamese politics was a top United States priority.
I discovered on arriving that—with the elections here a mere ten days off—Ambassador Lodge was off on vacation in Thailand.
Deputy Ambassador Porter has been virtually forbidden by the Chief of Mission to deal with Thieu and Ky.
—The Kyʼs talk only to Lodges. And Lodge doesnʼt talk to anybody—in Saigon at least.
This has as its practical consequence that effective American pressure on the GVN can come only from Ambassador Lodge. And he is seldom really there—he puts in a five or six-hour day.
I went to make it clear that I consider Ambassador Lodge a fine American who has loyally undertaken what may be an impossible task.
But we need in Saigon a man with immense vitality, who can and will work an 18-hour day.
- —one who can assert real administrative authority over that sprawling, feudal American mission.
- —one who can keep two jumps ahead of the Vietnamese, anticipate and head off trouble, and put the arm on them when they play French games.
- —For example, they have—in the best French tradition—agreed “in principle” to the reform of the Port of Saigon.
- —Which means they really havenʼt agreed to anything that will specifically remedy the problems; they are stonewalling at the administrative level.
Plenty of trouble is coming. Some time this winter or spring there will be a moment of truth between the Directorate, the Peopleʼs Army Council and the Constituent Assembly.2
- —The recent resignations were a precursor and the lines of stress run through all three bodies.
- —There are generals in every camp and a, to me, ominous fact is that Chief of State Thieu (who has played second fiddle to Ky so far) is a very old buddy of two generals Ky is out to purge: Co and Quang.
- —None of them is Northern. (Thieu is from the center, Co and Quang from the south.)
- —They were together at Hue Military Academy (1948–49), at Infantry School in France (1949–50), Tactical Command School, Hanoi (1951–52) and at Fort Leavenworth (1956–57).
Our task is to prevent any confrontations and disruptions—or we are likely to be back where we were after Diem fell—which would be disastrous in terms of American public opinion and the long-range conduct of the war.
And somebody out there in top authority should be worrying about this sort of thing seven days a week, 18 hours a day (possibly even 24).
In my considered judgment this is our top priority in Vietnam. We canʼt lose the war, but we can find ourselves fighting it endlessly in a political vacuum.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Vietnam, vol. LXI. Secret. The source text is marked with an indication that the President saw the memorandum.↩
- On October 4 Roche sent a memorandum to the President warning of a “head-on collision between the Directorate and the Constituent Assembly” and expressing criticism of the U.S. Missionʼs role in the matter. (Ibid., Office of the President File, John Roche)↩