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The Pentagon Papers
Section 1, pp. 201-232 Summary and Analysis
The Diem coup was one of those critical events in the history of U.S. policy that could have altered our commitment. The choices were there: (1) continue to plod along in a limited fashion with Diem--despite his and Nhu's growing unpopularity; (2) encourage or tacitly support the overthrow of Diem, taking the risk that the GVN might crumble and/or acommodate to the VC; and (3) grasp the opportunity--with the obvious risks--of the political instability in South Vietnam to disengage. The first option was rejected because of the belief that we could not win with Diem-Nhu. The third was very seriously considered a policy alternative because of the assumption that an independent, non-communist SVN was too important a strategic interest to abandon-and because the situation was not sufficiently drastic to call into question so basic an assumption. The second course was chosen mainly for the reasons the first was rejected-Vietnam was thought too important; we wanted to win; and the rebellious generals seemed to offer that prospect. In making the choice to do nothing to prevent the coup and to tacitly support it, the U.S. inadvertently deepened its involvement. The inadvertence is the key factor. It was a situation without good alternatives. While Diem's government offered some semblance of stability and authority, its repressive actions against the Buddhists had permanently alientated popular support, with a high probability of victory for the Viet Cong. As efficient as the military coup leaders appeared, they were without a manageable base of political support. When they came to power and when the lid was taken off the Diem-Nhu reporting system, the GVN position was revealed as weak and deteriorating. And, by virtue of its interference in internal Vietnamese affairs, the U.S. had assumed a significant responsibility for the new regime, a responsibility which heightened our commitment and deepened our involvement. The catalytic event that precipitated the protracted crisis which ended in the downfall of the Diem regime was a badly handled Buddhist religious protest in Hue on May 8, 1963. In and of itself the incident was hardly something to shake the foundations of power of most modern rulers, but the manner in which Diem responded to it, and the subsequent protests which it generated, was precisely the one most likely to aggravate not alleviate the situation. At stake, of course, was far more than a religious issue. The Buddhist protest had a profoundly political character from the beginning. It sprang and fed upon the feelings of political frustration and repression Diem's autocratic rule had engendered. The beginning of the end for Diem can, then, be traced through events to the regime's violent suppression of a Buddhist protest demonstration in Hue on Buddha's birthday, May 8, in which nine people were killed and another fourteen injured. Although Buddhists had theretofore been wholly quiescent politically, in subsequent weeks, a full-blown Buddhist "struggle" movement demonstrated a sophisticated command of public protest techniques by a cohesive and disciplined organization, somewhat belying the notion that the movement was an outraged, spontaneous response to religious repression and discrimination. Nonetheless, by June it was clear that the regime was confronted not with a dissident religious minority, but with a grave crisis of public confidence. The Buddhist protest had become a vehicle for mobilizing the widespread popular resentment of an arbitrary and often oppressive rule. It had become the focal point of political opposition to Diem. Under strong U.S. pressure and in the face of an outraged world opinion, the regime reached ostensible agreement with the Buddhists on June 16. But the agreement merely papered over the crisis, without any serious concessions by Diem. This intransigence was reinforced by Diem's brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and his wife, who bitterly attacked the Buddhists throughout the summer. By mid-August the crisis was reaching a breaking point. The Buddhists' demonstrations and protest created a crisis for American policy as well. The U.S. policy of support for South Vietnam's struggle against the Hanoi-supported Viet Cong insurgency was founded on unequivocal support of Diem, whom the U.S. had long regarded as the only national leader capable of unifying his people for their internal war. When the Buddhist protest revealed widespread public disaffection, the U.S. made repeated attempts to persuade Diem to redress the Buddhist grievances, to repair his public image, and to win back public support. But the Ngos were unwilling to bend. Diem, in true mandarin style, was preoccupied with questions of face and survival-not popular support. He did not understand the profound changes his country had experienced under stress, nor did he understand the requirement for popular support that the new sense of nationalism had created. The U.S. Ambassador, Frederick Nolting, had conducted a low-key diplomacy toward Diem, designed to bring him to the American way of thinking through reason and persuasion. He approached the regime during the first weeks of the Buddhist crisis in the same manner, but got no results. When he left on vacation at the end of May, his DCM, William Truehart, abandoned the soft sell for a tough line. He took U.S. views to Diem not as expressions of opinion, but as demands for action. Diem, however, remained as obdurate and evasive as ever. Not even the U.S. threat to dissociate itself from GVN actions in the Buddhist crisis brought movement. In late June, with Nolting still on leave, President Kennedy announced the appointment of Henry Cabot Lodge as Ambassador to Vietnam to replace Nolting in September. In the policy deliberations then taking place in Washington, consideration was being given for the first time to what effect a coup against Diem would have. But Nolting returned, first to Washington and then to Saigon, to argue that the only alternative to Diem was chaos. The U.S. military too, convinced that the war effort was going well, felt that nothing should be done to upset the apple cart. So Nolting was given another chance to talk Diem into conciliating the Buddhists. The Ambassador worked assiduously at the task through July and the first part of August, but Diem would agree only to gestures and half-measures that could not stop the grave deterioration of the political situation. Nolting left Vietnam permanently in mid-August with vague assurances from Diem that he would seek to improve the climate of relations with the Buddhists. Less than a week later, Nolting was betrayed by Nhu's dramatic August 21 midnight raids on Buddhist pagodas throughout Vietnam.
One of the important lessons of the
American involvement in South Vietnam in support of Diem was that a
policy of unreserved commitment to a The raids, themselves, were carefully timed by Nhu to be carried out when the U.S. was without an Ambassador, and only after a decree placing the country under military martial law had been issued. They were conducted by combat police and special forces units taking orders directly from Nhu, not through the Army chain of command. The sweeping attacks resulted in the wounding of about 30 monks, the arrest of over 1,400 Buddhists and the closing of the pagodas (after they had been damaged and looted in the raids). In their brutality and their blunt repudiation of Diem's solemn word to Nolting, they were a direct, impudent slap in the face for the U.S. Nhu expected that in crushing the Buddhists he could confront the new U.S. Ambassador with a fait accompli in which the U.S. would complainingly acquiesce, as we had in so many of the regime's actions which we opposed. Moreover, he attempted to fix blame for the raids on the senior Army generals. Getting word of the attacks in Honolulu, where he was conferring with Nolting and Hilsman, Lodge flew directly to Saigon. He immediately let it be known that the U.S. completely dissociated itself from the raids and could not tolerate such behavior. In Washington the morning after, while much confusion reigned about who was responsible for the raids, a statement repudiating them was promptly released. Only after several days did the U.S. finally establish Nhu's culpability in the attacks and publicly exonerate the Army. On August 23, the first contact with a U.S. representative was made by generals who had begun to plan a coup against Diem. The generals wanted a clear indication of where the U.S. stood. State in its subsequently controversial reply, drafted and cleared on a weekend when several of the principal Presidential advisors were absent from Washington, affirmed that Nhu's continuation in a power position within the regime was intolerable (words missing) and did not, "then, we must face the possibility that Diem himself cannot be preserved." This message was to be communicated to the generals, and Diem was to be warned that Nhu must go. Lodge agreed with the approach to the generals, but felt it was futile to present Diem with an ultimatum he would only ignore and one that might tip off the palace to the coup plans. Lodge proceeded to inform only the generals. They were told that the U.S. could no longer support a regime which included Nhu, but that keeping Diem was entirely up to them. This was communicated to the generals on August 27. The President and some of his advisors, however, had begun to have second thoughts abought switching horses so suddenly, and with so little information on whether the coup could succeed, and if it did, what kind of government it would bring to power. As it turned out, Washington's anxiety was for naught, the plot was premature, and after several uncertain days, its demise was finally recognized on August 31. Thus by the end of August, we found ourselves without a leadership to support and without a policy to follow in our relations with the GVN. In this context a month-long policy review took place in Washington and in Vietnam. It was fundamentally a search for alternatives. In both places the issue was joined between those who saw no realistic alternatives to Diem and felt that his policies were having only a marginal effect on the war effort, which they wanted to get on with by renewing our support and communication with Diem; and those who felt that the war against the VC would not possibly be won with Diem in power and preferred therefore to push for a coup of some kind. The first view was primarily supported by the military and the CIA both in Saigon and in Washington, while the latter was held by the U.S. Mission, the State Department and members of the White House staff. In the end, a third alternative was selected, namely to use pressure on Diem to get him to remove Nhu from the scene and to end his repressive policies. Through September, however, the debate continued with growing intensity. Tactical considerations, such as another Lodge approach to Diem about removing the Nhus and the effect of Senator Church's resolution calling for an aid suspension, focused the discussion at times, but the issue of whether to renew our support for Diem remained. The decision hinged on the assessment of how seriously the political deterioration was affecting the war effort. In the course of these policy debates, several participants pursued the logical but painful conclusion that if the war could not be won with Diem, and if his removal would lead to political chaos and also jeopardize the war effort, then the war was probably unwinnable. If that were the case, the argument went, then the U.S. should really be facing a more basic decision on either an orderly disengagement from an irretrievable situation, or a major escalation of the U.S. involvement, including the use of U.S. combat troops. These prophetic minority voices were, however, raising an unpleasant prospect that the Administration was unprepared to face at that time. In hindsight, however, it is clear that this was one of the times in the history of our Vietnam involvement when we were making fundamental choices. The option to disengage honorably at that time now appears an attractively low-cost one. But for the Kennedy Administration then, the costs no doubt appeared much higher. In any event, it proved to be unwilling to accept the implications of predictions for a bleak future. The Administration hewed to the belief that if the U.S. be but willing to exercise its power, it could ultimately always have its way in world affairs. Nonetheless, in view of the widely divergent views of the principals in Saigon, the Administration sought independent judgments with two successive fact-finding missions. The first of these whirlwind inspections, by General Victor Krulak, JCS SACSA, and a State Department Vietnam expert, Joseph Mendenhall, from September 7-10, resulted in diametrically opposing reports to the President on the conditions and situation and was, as a result, futile. The Krulak-Mendenhall divergence was significant because it typifies the deficient analysis of both the U.S. civilian and military missions in Vietnam with respect to the overall political situation in the country. The U.S. civilian observers, for their part, failed to fully appreciate the impact Diem had had in preventing the emergence of any other political forces. The Buddhists, while a cohesive and effective minority protest movement, lacked a program or the means to achieve power. The labor unions were entirely urban-based and appealed to only a small segment of the population. The clandestine political parties were small, urban, and usually elitist. The religious sects had a narrow appeal and were based on ethnic minorities. Only the Viet Cong had any real support and influence on a broad base in the countryside. The only real alternative source of political power was the Army since it had a large, disciplined organization spanning the country, with an independent communications and transportation system and a strong superiority to any other group in coercive power. In its reports on the Army, however, General Harkins and the U.S. military had failed to appreciate the deeply corrosive effect on internal allegiance and discipline in the Army that Diem's loyalty based promotion and assignment policies had had. They did not foresee that in the wake of a coup senior officers would lack the cohesiveness to hang together and that the temptations of power would promote a devisive internal competition among ambitious men at the expense of the war against the Viet Cong. Two weeks after the fruitless Krulak-Mendenhall mission, with the Washington discussions still stalemated, it was the turn of Secretary McNamara and General Taylor, the Chairman of the JCS, to assess the problem. They left for Vietnam on September 23 with the Presidential instruction to appraise the condition of the war effort and the impact on it of the Buddhist political turmoil and to recommend a course of action for the GVN and the U.S. They returned to Washington on October 2. Their report was a somewhat contradictory compromise between the views of the civilian and military staffs. It affirmed that the war was being won, and that it would be successfully concluded in the first three corps areas by the end of 1964, and in the Delta by 1965, thereby permitting the withdrawal of American advisors, although it noted that the political tensions were starting to have an adverse effect on it. But, more importantly, it recommended a series of measures to coerce Diem into compliance with American wishes that included a selective suspension of U.S. economic aid, an end to aid for the special forces units used in the August 21 raids unless they were subordinated to the Joint General Staff, and the continuation of Lodge's cool official aloofness from the regime. It recommended the public announcement of the U.S. intention to withdraw 1,000 troops by the end of the year, but suggested that the aid suspensions not be announced in order to give Diem a chance to respond without a public loss of face. It concluded by recommending against active U.S. encouragement of a coup, in spite of the fact that an aid suspension was the one step the generals had asked for in August as a sign of U.S. condemnation of Diem and support for a change of government. The report was quickly adopted by Kennedy in the NSC and a brief, and subsequently much rued, statement was released to the press on October 2, announcing the planned withdrawal of 1,000 troops by year's end. The McNamara-Taylor mission, like the Krulak-Mendenhall mission before and the Honolulu Conference in November after the coup, points up the great difficulty encountered by high level fact-finding missions and conferences in getting at the "facts" of a complex policy problem like Vietnam in a short time. It is hard to believe that hasty visits by harried high level officials with overloaded itineraries really add much in the way of additional data or lucid insight. And because they become a focal point of worldwide press coverage, they often raise public expectations or anxieties that may only create additional problems for the President. There were many such high level conferences over Vietnam. Of the recommendations of the McNamara-Taylor mission, the proposal for selective suspension of economic aid, in particular the suspension of the commercial import program, was the most significant both in terms of its effect, as an example of the adroit use or denial of American assistance to achieve foreign policy objectives. In this instance economic sanctions, in the form selected aid suspensions in those programs to which the regime would be most sensitive but that would have no immediate adverse effect on the war effort, were used constructively to influence events rather than negatively to punish those who had violated our wishes, our usual reaction to coups in Latin America. The proposal itself had been under consideration since the abortive coup plot of August. At that time, Lodge had been authorized to suspend aid if he thought it would enhance the likelihood of the success of a coup. Later in September he was again given specific control over the delay or suspension of any of the pending aid programs. On both occasions, however, he had expressed doubt about the utility of such a step. In fact, renewal of the commercial import program had been pending since early in September, so that the adoption of the McNamara-Taylor proposal merely formalized the existing situation into policy. As might have been expected (although the record leaves ambiguous whether this was a conscious aim of the Administration), the Vietnamese generals interpreted the suspension as a green light to proceed with a coup.
While this policy was being applied
in October, Lodge shunned all contact with the regime that did not
come at Diem's initiative. He wanted it clearly understood that they
must come to him prepared to adopt our advice before he would
recommend to Washington a change in U.S. policy. Lodge performed
with great skill, but inevitably frictions developed within the
Mission as different viewpoints and proposals came forward. In
particular, Lodge's disagreements and disputes with General Harkins
during October when the coup plot was maturing and later were to be
of considerable embarrassment to Washington when they leaked to the
press. Lodge had carefully cultivated the press, and when the
stories of friction appeared, it was invariably Harkins or
Richardson or someone else who was the villian. Shortly after Ambassador Lodge and Admiral Felt had called on Diem on November 1, the generals made their move, culminating a summer and fall of complex intrigue. The coup was led by General Minh, the most respected of the senior generals, together with Generals Don, Kim and Khiem. They convoked a meeting of all but a few senior officers at JGS headquarters at noon on the day of the coup, announced their plans and got the support of their compatriots. The coup itself was executed with skill and swiftness. They had devoted special attention to ensuring that the major potentially loyal forces were isolated and their leaders neutralized at the outset of the operation. By the late afternoon of November 1, only the palace guard remained to defend the two brothers. At 4:30 p.m., Diem called Lodge to ask where the U.S. stood. Lodge was noncommital and confined himself to concern for Diem's physical safety. The conversation ended inconclusively. The generals made repeated calls to the palace offering the brothers safe conduct out of the country if they surrendered, but the two held out hope until the very end. Sometime that evening they secretly slipped out of the palace through an underground escape passage and went to a hide-away in Cholon. There they were captured the following morning after their whereabouts was learned when the palace fell. Shortly the two brothers were murdered in the back of an armored personnel carrier en route to JGS headquarters. Having successfully carried off their coup, the generals began to make arrangements for a civilian government. Vice President Tho was named to head a largely civilian cabinet, but General Minh became President and Chairman of the shadow Military Revolutionary Council. After having delayed an appropriate period, the U.S. recognized the new government on November 8. As the euphoria of the first days of liberation from the heavy hand of the Diem regime wore off, however, the real gravity of the economic situation and the lack of expertise in the new government became apparent to both Vietnamese and American officials. The deterioration of the military situation and the strategic hamlet program also came more and more clearly into perspective. These topics dominated the discussions at the Honolulu Conference on November 20 when Lodge and the country team met with Rusk, McNamara, Taylor, Bell, and Bundy. But the meeting ended inconclusively. After Lodge had conferred with the President a few days later in Washington, the White House tried to pull together some conclusions and offer some guidance for our continuing and now deeper involvement in Vietnam. The instructions contained in NSAM 273, however, did not reflect the truly dire situation as it was to come to light in succeeding weeks. The reappraisals forced by the new information would swiftly make it irrelevant as it was "overtaken by events." For the military coup d'etat against Ngo Dinh Diem, the U.S. must accept its full share of responsibility. Beginning in August of 1963 we variously authorized, sanctioned and encouraged the coup efforts of the Vietnamese generals and offered full support for a successor government. In October we cut off aid to Diem in a direct rebuff, giving a green light to the generals. We maintained clandestine contact with them throughout the planning and execution of the coup and sought to review their operational plans and proposed new government. Thus, as the nine-year rule of Diem came to a bloody end, our complicity in his overthrow heightened our responsibilities and our commitment in an essentially leaderless Vietnam. End of Summary and Analysis
CHRONOLOGY 8 May 1963 Hue incident
10 May 1963 Manifesto of Buddhist clergy
18 May 1963 Nolting meeting with Diem: Embassy Saigon message 1038
30 May 1963 Buddhist demonstrations
4 Jun 1963 Truehart meeting with Thuan
4 Jun 1963 Tho Committee appointed
5 Jun 1963 The committee meets Buddhists
8 Jun 1963 Madame Nhu atacks Buddhists
11 Jun 1963 First Buddhist suicide by fire
12 Jun 1963 Truehart repeats U.S. dissociation threat
14 Jun 1963 Tho committee meets again with Buddhists
16 Jun 1963 GVN-Buddhist communique
Late June- July Buddhist protest intensifies
27 June 1963 Kennedy announces Lodge appointment
3 Jul 1963 Tho committee absolves regime
4 Jul 1963 White House meeting on Vietnamese situation
5 Jul 1963 Nolting in Washington
10 Jul 1963 SNIE 53-2-63
11 Jul 1963 Nolting's return to Saigon
11 Jul 1963 Nhu squelches coup plotting
15 Jul 1963 Embassy Saigon message 85
19 Jul 1963 Diem speaks on radio
5 Aug 1963 Second Buddhist suicide
14 Aug 1963 Nolting-Diem meeting
15 Aug 1963 New York Herald Tribune article by Marguerite Higgins
18 Aug 1963 Generals decide on martial law
20 Aug 1963 Generals propose martial law to Nhu and Diem
21 Aug 1963 Nhu's forces attack pagodas
22 Aug 1963 Lodge arrives in Saigon
23 Aug 1963 CIA information Report TDCS DB-3/656,252
24 Aug 1963 Embassy Saigon message 316, Lodge to Hilsman
25 Aug 1963 Embassy Saigon message
27 Aug 1963 CAS agents meet generals
28 Aug 1963 MACV message 1557
29 Aug 1963 CAS agents meet Minh
31 Aug 1963 MACV message 1583; Embassy Saigon message 391; and CAS Saigon message 0499
2 Sep 1963 Kennedy TV interview
6 Sep 1963 NSC meeting
7 Sep 1963 Archbishop Thuc leaves Vietnam
8 Sep 1963 AID Director Bell TV interview
9 Sep 1963 Mme Nhu leaves Vietnam
10 Sep 1963 NSC meeting
11 Sep 1963 Embassy Saigon message 478
12 Sep 1963 Senator Church's Resolution
14 Sep 1963 State message 411
16 Sep 1963 Martial law ends
17 Sep 1963 NSC meeting
21 Sep 1963 White House press release
23 Sep 1963 McNamara-Taylor mission departs
25 Sep 1963 Opening meeting of McNamara-Taylor with country team
27 Sep 1963 National Assembly elections
29 Sep 1963 McNamara, Taylor and Lodge see Diem
30 Sep 1963 McNamara, Taylor and Lodge meet Vice President Tho
2 Oct 1963 SecDef Memo for the President: Report of the McNamara-Taylor mission
5 Oct 1963 NSC meeting
6 Oct 1963 CAP message 63560
7 Oct 1963 National Assembly convenes
Oct 1963 UN General Assembly vote
Oct 1963 CAS officer meets Minh
17 Oct 1963 GVN informed of aid cut-off to special forces
22 Oct 1963 Department of State, JNR Research Memo RFE9O
23 Oct 1963 CAS agent meets Don
24 Oct 1963 Diem invites Lodge to Dalat
25 Oct 1963 CAS Saigon message 1964
26 Oct 1963 Vietnamese National Day
27 Oct 1963 Lodge-Diem meeting
28 Oct 1963 Don contacts Lodge
29 Oct 1963 CJNCPAC alerts task force
30 Oct 1963 MACV messages 2028, 2033, and 2034
31 Oct 1963 Lodge defers departure
1 Nov 1963 Lodge and Felt meet with Diem
Late morning Coup units begin to deploy
12:00 a.m. Officers meet at JGS
1:45 p.m. U.S. notified
2:00 p.m. Key installations taken
4:00 p.m. First skirmishes, Diem told to surrender
4:30 p.m. Coup broadcast, Diem calls Lodge
5:00 p.m. Generals again call Diem to demand surrender
8:00 p.m. Diem and Nhu flee
9:00 p.m. Palace bombarded
2 Nov 1963 3:30 a.m. Assault on the palace begins
6: 20 a.m. Diem calls generals to surrender
6:30 a.m. Palace falls
6: 45 a.m. Diem and Nhu again escape
6:50 a.m. Diem and Nhu are captured
afternoon Vice President Tho confers on new government
3 Nov 1963 Lodge meets with Generals Don and Kim
4 Nov 1963 Lodge meets with General Minh
5 Nov 1963 New government announced
6 Nov 1963 Composition of the Military Revolutionary Council announced
7 Nov 1963 NLF makes post-coup policy statement
8 Nov 1963 U.S. recognizes new government
9 Nov 1963 Embassy Saigon message 986
12 Nov 1963 CJNCPAC message to JCS 120604Z 63
17 Nov 1963 NLF releases stronger set of demands
20 Nov 1963 Honolulu Conference
22 Nov 1963 Lodge confers with the President
23 Nov 1963 NSAM 273
I. INTRODUCTION
In the spring of 1963, the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem seemed to exhibit no more signs of advanced decay or imminent demise than might have been discerned since 1958 or 1959. Only in hindsight can certain developments be identified as salient. Of these, certainly the steadily increasing influence of the Nhus was the most ominous. Nhu came more and more to dominate Diem in the last year of the Diem rule. But as his power increased, Nhu's grip on reality seems to have slipped and he was reported in that last year to have been smoking opium and to have been mentally ill. Meanwhile, Mrne. Nhu was developing a power obsession of her own. The catastrophic effect of their influence during the ensuing crisis, however, was impossible to have predicted. As one perceptive observer noted, the Ngo family "had come to power with a well-developed persecution complex and had subsequently developed a positive mania for survival." Another source of concern should have been the regime's self-imposed isolation from the populace. It had left the peasants apathetic, a cause for real concern in a struggle with the zealous, doctrinaire Viet Cong; but, more importantly, it had alienated large portions of the restive urban population who felt most directly the impact of the regime's arbitrary rule. The regime, in fact, had no real base of political support and relied on the loyalty of a handful of key military commanders to keep it in power by forestalling any overthrow. The loyalty of these men was bought with promotions and favors. Graft and corruption should also have drawn concern, even if governmental dishonesty was endemic in Asia, and probably not disproportionate at that time in South Vietnam. It was not, however, the strains that these problems had placed on the Vietnamese political structure that were ultimately decisive. The fundamental weakness of the Diem regime was the curious rigidity and political insensitivity of its mandarin style in the face of a dramatic crisis of popular confidence. With regard to the war, the consensus of the U.S. military mission and the U.S. intelligence community in the spring of 1963 was that the military situation in South Vietnam was steadily improving and the war was beginning to be won. A National Intelligence Estimate in April 1963 concluded that the infusion of U.S. advisors had begun to have the desired effect of strengthening the ARVN and increasing its aggressiveness. [Doc. 121] The Viet Cong retained good strength, but could be contained by the ARVN if they did not receive a great increase in external support. Statistical indices showed a decline in Viet Cong attacks from the previous year, increased ARVN offensive activity, and improvement in the weapons loss ratio. Continuing problems were Diem's loyalty-based officer promotion policy, ARVN desertions and AWOL's, poor intelligence, and low grade NCO's and company grade officers. Nonetheless, the overall outlook was sanguine. Particular reason for encouragement was the adoption in February 1963 of the National Campaign Plan urged by the U.S. The hopeful prospects were summarized for Secretary McNamara in a briefing paper for the Honolulu Conference of May 6:
Even as seasoned an observer of insurgency as Sir Robert Thompson, Chief of the British Advisory Mission, was able to report that, "Now, in March 1963, I can say, and in this I am supported by all members of the mission, that the Government is beginning to win the shooting war against the Viet Cong." One reason for the optimism of these appraisals was the vigor with which the government, under the direction of Nhu, was pushing the Strategic Hamlet Program. Nhu had been initially cool to the idea, but once he established the U.S. willingness to fund the program, he focused on it as the principal vehicle of the counterinsurgency campaign and as an excellent means of extending the oligarchy's control into the countryside. In April the GVN claimed it had completed 5,000 strategic hamlets and had another 2,000 under construction. There was already official U.S. misgiving, however, about the quality of many of the hamlets and about overextension of the country's limited human resources in the program's frantic rate of expansion. Nevertheless, field reports seemed to support the success of the program which was seen as the key to the struggle against the Viet Cong. U.S.-GVN relations in the spring of 1963 were beginning to show signs of accumulating stress. As the U.S. commitment and involvement deepened, frictions between American advisors and Vietnamese counterparts at all levels increased. Diem, under the influence of Nhu, complained about the quantity and zeal of U.S. advisors. They were creating a colonial impression among the people, he said. Diem chose to dramatize his complaint by delaying agreement on the commitment of South Vietnamese funds for joint counterinsurgency projects. The issue was eventually resolved, but the sensitivity to the growing U.S. presence remained and as the long crisis summer wore on, it gradually became a deep-seated suspicion of U.S. motives. The report of the Mansfield mission, published in March, further exacerbated relations between the two countries. Diem and Nhu were particularly incensed by its praise of Cambodian neutralism and criticism of their regime. Coup rumors began to circulate again that spring, and the prevailing palace state of mind hearkened back to suspicions of U.S. complicity in the abortive 1960 coup. Mme. Nhu's ascorbic public criticism of the United States was a further source of friction. By May 1963, these problems in U.S.-GVN relations were already substantial enough to preoccupy officials of both governments. Within a matter of weeks, however, events thrust them into the background of a far more serious crisis. II. THE BUDDHIST CRISIS: MAY 8-AUGUST 21 A. THE CRISIS ERUPTS The incident in Hue on May 8, 1963, that precipitated what came to be called the Buddhist crisis, and that started the chain of events that ultimately led to the overthrow of the Diem regime and the murder of the Ngo brothers, happened both inadvertently and unexpectedly. No one then foresaw that it would generate a national opposition movement capable of rallying virtually all non-communist dissidence in South Vietnam. More importantly, no one then appreciated the degree of alienation of Vietnam's people from their government, nor the extent of the political decay within the regime, a regime no longer capable of coping with popular discontent. The religious origins of the incident are traceable to the massive flight of Catholic refugees from North Vietnam after the French defeat in 1954. An estimated one million Catholics fled the North and resettled in the South. Diem, animated, no doubt, by religious as well as humanitarian sympathy, and with an eye to recruiting political support from his coreligionists, accorded these Catholic refugees preferential treatment in land redistribution, relief and assistance, commercial and export-import licenses, government employment, and other GVN largess. Because Diem could rely on their loyalty, they came to fill almost all important civilian and military positions. As an institution, the Catholic Church enjoyed a special legal status. The Catholic primate, Ngo Dinh Thuc, was Diem's brother and advisor. But prior to 1962, there had been no outright discrimination against Buddhists. However, among South Vietnam's 3-4 million practicing Buddhists and the 80% of the population who were nominal Buddhists, the regime's favoritism, authoritarianism, and discrimination created a smoldering resentment. In April 1963, the government ordered provincial officials to enforce a longstanding but generally ignored ban on the public display of religious flags. The order came just after the officially encouraged celebrations in Hue commemorating the 25th anniversary of the ordination of Ngo Dinh Thuc, the Archbishop of Hue, during which Papal flags had been prominently flown. The order also came, as it happened, just prior to Buddha's birthday (May 8)-a major Buddhist festival. Hue, an old provincial capital of Vietnam, was the only real center of Buddhist learning and scholarship in Vietnam and its university had long been a center of left-wing dissidence. Not surprisingly, then, the Buddhists in Hue defiantly flew their flags in spite of the order and, when the local administration appeared to have backed down on the ban, were emboldened to hold a previously scheduled mass meeting on May 8 to commemorate Buddha's birthday. Seeing the demonstration as a challenge to family prestige (Hue was also the capital of the political fief of another Diem brother, Ngo Dinh Can) and to government authority, local officials tried to disperse the crowds. When preliminary efforts produced no results, the Catholic deputy province chief ordered his troops to fire. In the ensuing melee, nine persons were killed, including some children, and fourteen were injured. Armored vehicles allegedly crushed some of the victims. The Diem government subsequently put out a story that a Viet Cong agent had thrown a grenade into the crowd and that the victims had been crushed in a stampede. It steadfastly refused to admit responsibility even when neutral observers produced films showing government troops firing on the crowd. Diem's mandarin character would not permit him to handle this crisis with the kind of flexibility and finesse it required. He was incapable of publicly acknowledging responsibility for the tragedy and seeking to conciliate the angry Buddhists. He was convinced that such a public loss of face would undermine his authority to rule, oblivious to the fact that no modern ruler can long ignore massive popular disaffection whatever his own particular personal virtues may be. So the government clung tenaciously to its version of what had occurred. The following day in Hue over 10,000 people demonstrated in protest of the killings. It was the first of the long series of protest activities with which the Buddhists were to pressure the regime in the next four months. The Buddhists rapidly organized themselves, and on May 10, a manifesto of the Buddhist clergy was transmitted to the government demanding freedom to fly their flag, legal equality with the Catholic Church, an end of arrests and freedom to practice their beliefs, and indemnification of the victims of the May 8th incident with punishment for its perpetrators. These five demands were officially presented to President Diem on May 15, and the Buddhists held their first press conference after the meeting. Publicized hunger strikes and meetings continued throughout May, but Diem continued to drag his feet on placating the dissenters or settling issues. On May 30, about 350 Buddhist monks demonstrated in front of the National Assembly in Saigon, and a 48-hour hunger strike was announced. On June 3, a demonstration in Hue was broken up with tear gas and several people were burned, prompting charges that the troops had used mustard gas. On June 4, the government announced the appointment of an interministerial committee headed by Vice President Tho to resolve the religious issue, but by this time such gestures were probably too late. Large portions of the urban population had rallied to the Buddhist protest, recognizing in it the beginnings of genuine political opposition to Diem. On June 8, Mme. Nhu exacerbated the problem by announcing that the Buddhists were infiltrated by communists. Throughout the early days of the crisis, the U.S. press had closely covered the events and brought them to the attention of the world. On June 11, the press was tipped off to be at a downtown intersection at noon. Expecting another protest demonstration, they were horrified to witness the first burning suicide by a Buddhist monk. Thich Quang Duc's fiery death shocked the world and electrified South Vietnam. Negotiations had been taking place between Vice President Tho's committee and the Buddhists since June 5, with considerable acrimonious public questioning of good faith by both sides. After the suicide, the U.S. intensified its already considerable pressure on the government to mollify the Buddhists, and to bring the deteriorating political situation under control. Finally, on June 16, a joint GVN-Buddhist communique was released outlining the elements of a settlement, but affixing no responsibility for the May 8 incident. Violent suppression by the GVN of rioting the next day, however, abrogated the spirit of the agreement. The Nhus, for their part, immediately undertook to sabotage the agreement by secretly calling on the GVN-sponsored youth organizations to denounce it. By late June, it was apparent that the agreement was not meant as a genuine gesture of conciliation by Diem, but was only an effort to appease the U.S. and paper over a steadily widening fissure in internal politics. The evident lack of faith on the part of the government in the June 16 agreement discredited the conciliatory policy of moderation that the older Buddhist leadership had followed until that time. In late June, leadership of the Buddhist movement passed to a younger, more radical set of monks, with more far-reaching political objectives. They made intelligent and skillful political use of a rising tide of popular support. Carefully planned mass meetings and demonstrations were accompanied with an aggressive press campaign of opposition to the regime. Seizing on the importance of American news media, they cultivated U.S. newsmen, tipped them off to demonstrations and rallies, and carefully timed their activities to get maximum press coverage. Not surprisingly, the Ngo family reacted with ever more severe suppression to the Buddhist activists, and with acrimonious criticism and even threats to the American newsmen.
Early in July, Vice President Tho's
committee announced that a preliminary investigation of the May 8
incident had confirmed that the deaths were the result of an act of
Viet Cong terrorism. Outraged, the Buddhists denounced the findings
and intensified their protest activities. On July 19, under U.S.
pressure, Diem made a brief two-minute radio address, ostensibly an
expression of conciliation to the Buddhists, but so written and
coldly delivered as to destroy in advance any effect its announced
minor concessions might have had. Within the regime, Nhu and his wife were severely criticizing Diem for caving in under Buddhist pressure. Mme. Nhu publicly ridiculed the Buddhist suicide as a "barbecue," accused the Buddhist leaders of being infiltrated with communists, and construed the protest movement as Viet Cong inspired. Both Nhu and his wife worked publicly and privately to undermine Diem's feeble efforts at compromise with the Buddhists, and rumors that Nhu was considering a coup against his brother began to circulate in July. A U.S. Special National Intelligence Estimate on July 10 concluded with the perceptive prediction that if the Diem regime did nothing to implement the June 16 agreement and to appease the Buddhists, the likelihood of a summer of demonstrations was great, with the strong possibility of a non-communist coup attempt. [Doc. 21] By mid-August a week before Nhu launched general raids on Buddhist pagodas in Saigon and elsewhere, the CIA had begun to note malaise in the bureaucracy and the army:
This estimate went on to detail numerous rumors of coup plots in existence since at least late June. But Nhu, in a bold move designed to frighten coup plotters, and to throw them off guard, had called in the senior generals on July 11, reprimanded them for not having taken action to squelch revolt, and questioned their loyalty to the regime. Nhu's move seemed to have temporarily set back all plans for an overthrow. CIA also reported rumors that Nhu himself was planning a "false coup" to draw out and then crush the Buddhists. In August, Buddhist militancy reached new intensity; monks burned themselves to death on the 5th, 15th, and 18th. The taut political atmosphere in Saigon in mid-August should have suggested to U.S. observers that a showdown was on the way. When the showdown came, however, in the August 21 raids on the pagodas, the U.S. mission was apparently caught almost completely off guard. B. THE U.S. "NO ALTERNATIVES TO DIEM" POLICY The explanation of how the U.S. mission became detached from the realities of the political situation in Saigon in August 1963, is among the most ironic and tragic of our entire involvement in Vietnam. In dealing with Diem over the years, the U.S. had tried two radically different but ultimately equally unsuccessful approaches. Under Ambassador Elbridge Durbrow from the late '50s until 1961, we had used tough pressure tactics to bring Diem to implement programs and ideas we felt necessary to win the war against the Viet Cong. But Diem soon learned that the U.S. was committed to him as the only Vietnamese leader capable of rallying his country to defeat the communists. Armed with this knowledge he could defer action or ignore the Ambassador with relative impunity. He became adept at playing the role of offended lover. Thus by 1961, Durbrow was cut off from the palace, with little information about what was going on and even less influence over events. Under Frederick Nolting as U.S. Ambassador, the U.S. pursued a very different tactic. Forewarned not to allow himself to be isolated, Nolting set out through the patient cultivation of Diem's friendship and trust to secure a role for himself as Diem's close and confidential advisor. But there had been no basic change in the American belief that there was no alternative to Diem, and Diem must have quickly sensed this, for he continued to respond primarily to family interest, at best only listening impatiently to Nolting's carefully put complaints, secure in the knowledge that ultimately the U.S. would not abandon him no matter what he did. Both tactics failed because of American commitment. No amount of pressure or suasion was likely to be effective in getting Diem to adopt ideas or policies which he did not find to his liking, since we had communicated our unwillingness to consider the ultimate sanction--withdrawal of support for his regime. We had ensnared ourselves in a powerless, no alternatives policy. The denouement of this policy, the ultimate failure of all our efforts to coerce, cajole and coax Diem to be something other than the mandarin that he was, came in the midnight attack on the pagodas on August 21. And it created a fundamental dilemma for U.S. policy with respect to Diem. On the one hand, withdrawal of support for his regime was the only lever likely to force Diem to redress the Buddhist grievances and to make the political reforms prerequisite for popular support in the common fight against the Viet Cong. On the other hand, withdrawal of U.S. support for Diem would be signal U.S. approval for an anti-Diem coup, with all its potential for political instability and erosion of the war effort. We found ourselves in this predicament not entirely unexpectedly. In May 1963, though it had failed to anticipate the Buddhist upheaval, the U.S. mission nevertheless quickly recognized the gravity of the threat to Diem and reported it to Washington. Nolting met with Diem on May 18 and outlined the steps he felt were necessary to retrieve the situation. These included a government acknowledgment of responsibility for the Hue incident, an offer to compensate the families of the victims, and a reaffirmation of religious equality and nondiscrimination. As an alternative, he suggested an investigatory commission. Diem's noncommittal response led the Ambassador to think that Diem really believed the Viet Cong had caused the deaths and that the Buddhists had provoked the incident. Diem felt the U.S. was over-reacting to the events. Thus, at a critical time Nolting, in spite of his two years of careful groundwork, was unable to exercise any real influence over Diem. Nolting left on a well-deserved holiday and home leave shortly after this frustrating meeting. By the end of May, Washington had become concerned at Diem's failure to act, and at the widening Buddhist protest. The Chargé d'Affaires, William True-hart, was instructed to press the GVN for action. Working with Secretary of State for Defense Thuan, Truehart tried to move the government toward negotiations with the Buddhists. After the demonstrations in Hue on June 3, the State Department instructed Truehart to tell Diem or Thuan that the U.S. also had a stake in an amicable settlement with the Buddhists. On the following day, True-hart met with Thuan and told him that U.S. support of South Vietnam could not be maintained if there was bloody repressive action in Hue. This seemed to get action. Later that day, Truehart was informed that Nolting's second suggestion had been adopted and a high-level commission had been named to settle the problem. The commission, headed by Vice President Tho, met belatedly with the Buddhists on June 5. On June 8, Truehart had an interview with Diem to protest Mme. Nhu's public criticism of the Buddhists, which was poisoning the atmosphere for a settlement. When Diem refused to disavow her statements, Truehart threatened a U.S. "dissociation" from any future repressive measures to suppress demonstrations. Truehart left the meeting with the impression that Diem was more preoccupied with security measures than with negotiations. Nolting's low-key policy had by now been abandoned, both in Washington and in Saigon, in favor of a new tough line. The situation was dramatically altered by the first Buddhist suicide on June 11. Alarmed, the State Department authorized Truehart to tell Diem that un'ess drastic action was taken to meet the Buddhist demands promptly, the U.S. would be forced to state publicly its dissociation from the GVN on the Buddhist issue. Truehart made his demarche on June 12. Diem replied that any such U.S. announcement would have a disastrous effect on the GVN-Buddhist negotiations. The negotiations finally got under way in earnest June 14 and the joint communique was issued June 16. Truehart made repeated calls on Diem in late June and early July, urging him in the strongest language to take some action indicating the government's intention to abide in good faith by the June 16 agreement. His effort's were unavailing. Diem was either noncommittal, or talked in generalities about the difficulties of the problem. On June 27, President Kennedy named Henry Cabot Lodge to replace Ambassador Nolting effective in September. After a brief stop in Washington, Nolting was hurried back to Saigon on July 11 to make one last effort to get Diem to conciliate the Buddhists. Nolting, evidently resenting the pressure tactics used by Truehart, met immediately with Diem and tried to mollify him. He succeeded only in convincing Diem to make the shallow gesture of the July 19 radio speech. Otherwise, Diem merely persisted in appeals for public harmony and support of the government, without any real attempt to deal with the Buddhist grievances. Nolting spent his last month in Vietnam trying to repair U.S.-GVN relations and to move Diem to resolve the Buddhist crisis, but his attempts were continually undercut by the Nhus both publicly and privately. They had grown increasingly belligerent about the Buddhists during the summer, and by August spoke often of "crushing" them. Washington asked Nolting to protest such inflammatory remarks, and began to suspect Diem's capacity to conciliate the Buddhists in the face of Nhu sabotage. Nolting was instructed to suggest to Diem that Mme. Nhu be removed from the scene. Nolting asked Diem for a public declaration repudiating her remarks but after initially agreeing, Diem then demurred and postponed it. Finally, as a parting gesture to Nolting, he agreed on August 14 to make a statement. It came in the form of an interview with Marguerite Higgins of the New York Herald Tribune. Diem asserted that conciliation had been his policy all along and that it was "irreversible." He further said, in direct contradiction of a previous remark by Mme. Nhu, that the family was pleased with Lodge's appointment. Washington was apparently satisfied by this statement, which Diem viewed merely as a going-away present for Nolting. Less than a week later, Nolting's two years of careful work and an American policy would be in a shambles, betrayed by Nhu's midnight raid on the pagodas. Underlying the prevailing U.S. view that there was no alternative to Diem was the belief that the disruptive effect of a coup on the war effort, and the disorganization that would follow such a coup, could only benefit the VC, perhaps decisively. Military estimates and reports emanating from MACV through the summer of 1963 continued to reflect an optimistic outlook, indicating good reason to continue our support of Diem even in the face of his inept handling of the Buddhist crisis. In retrospect, it can be seen that by July the GVN position in the war had begun to seriously deteriorate. At the time, however, this weakening was not yet apparent. The then prevailing view also held that the Buddhist crisis had not yet detracted from the war effort, although its potential to do so was recognized. Secretary McNamara on July 19 told a press conference that the war was progressing well and that the Buddhist crisis had thus far not affected it. The intelligence community, however, had already begun to note depressing effects of the crisis on military and civilian morale. Meanwhile, the U.S. press corps was reporting a far different view of both the war and the Buddhist crisis, one which was, in retrospect, nearer the reality. In particular, they were reporting serious failures in the Delta in both military operations and the Strategic Hamlet Program. Typical of this reporting was an August 15 story in the New York Times by David Halberstam presenting a very negative appraisal of the war in the Delta. Such reports were vehemently refuted within the Administration, most notably by General Krulak, the JCS Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency. At the lower echelons in the field, however, there were many U.S. advisors who did not share Krulak's sanguine view of the war's progress. Within the Administration, no real low-risk alternative to Diem had ever been identified, and we had continued our support for his troublesome regime because Diem was regarded as the only Vietnamese figure capable of rallying national support in the struggle against the Viet Cong. The Buddhist crisis shattered our illusions about him, and increased the domestic U.S. political price to Kennedy of supporting Diem. But the only other option for us seemed a coup, with highly uncertain prospects for post-coup political stability. At a briefing for the President on July 4, the possibilities and prospects for a coup were discussed. [Doc. 123] It was the consensus that the Nhus could not be removed, but that there would surely be coup attempts in the next four months. Nolting's reported view, with which then Assistant Secretary of State, Roger Hilsman, did not entirely agree, was that a coup would most likely produce a civil war. Hilsman felt that the likelihood of general chaos in the wake of a coup was less than it had been the preceding year. (Notes on this briefing, reproduced in the Appendix, provide the first documentary evidence of highest level consideration of the ramifications of a coup.) In a meeting at State the following day, July 5, Ambassador Nolting, who had cut short his vacation to return to Washington in the wake of the Buddhist crisis, told Under Secretary of State George Ball:
Earlier in the same interview he had said:
Nolting, no doubt, expressed similar views when he met with Secretary McNamara before returning to Saigon.
In spite of the mounting political
pressure on the President in Congress and in the press because of
the Buddhist repressions, the Administration decided to send Nolting
back for another try at getting Diem to settle the dispute with the
Buddhists. Anxiety in Washington mounted as the summer wore on, and
Nolting's efforts with Diem produced evident progress. By the time
of the August 21 raids, Washington's patience with Diem was all but
exhausted. Glossary of Acronyms and Terms Go to Volume 1, Chapter 1 of the Pentagon Papers, "Background to the Conflict, 1940-1950." pp. 1-52 Go to Volume 2, Chapter 5 of the Pentagon Papers, "US-GVN Relations, 1964-1967," pp. 277-407. Go to Volume 2, Chapter 6 of the Pentagon Papers, "The Advisory Build-up, 1961-67," pp. 408-514
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