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PAGfc 8 GEORGIA BULLETIN THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 1964
SAIGON SUMMARY
U.S. Played Inglorious Role In Fall Of Diem Regime
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1)
vatcd. In an admiring magazine article written bv his
close friend George J. \V. Goodman, Mr. Halberstam
is quoted as saying: “I always said it. The Buddhist
campaign was political. ... I thought I always empha
sized that this was a political dispute under a religious
banner—the only place an opposition had found to
gather in an authoritarian regime. . . ."
Whatever Mr. Halberstam’s intentions, his and other
press dispatches last summer and fall did create the
impression in the outside world that some kind of reli
gious crisis was going on inside Vietnam. And it was
the image of religious persecution—false as it was—
that pared the way for Diem’s downfall. Without the
embarrassment of being the patron of a country sus
pected of battling Buddhists, it is doubtful that the
United States would ever have reached the decision to
try to get rid of Diem. The authorities in Washington
knew, of course, that the conflict in Vietnam was politi
cal, not religious. But they were reluctant to speak out
lest, in the process, they attract to Washington some of
the onus being poured—with hardly any contradiction
—on Diem.
Bv staying silent, Washington acted as if it thought
Diem guilty. And this helped to complete the vicious
circle.
Or as Roger Ilillsman, Assistant Secretary of State
for Far Eastern Affairs, put it: “After the closing of
the pagodas on August 21, the facts became irrelevant.”
So, evidently, did a sense of perspective. What, for ex
ample, about the fact that President Diem was far
more lenient to his political opposition than President
Sukarno of Indonesia or Premier Sarit Thanarat of
Tlmiland, both recipients of American aid? Whereas
some 300 political prisoners, at most, were found in
Diein’s jails, the prisons of Thailand, Indonesia and
Burma were filled—and
arc? still filled—with tens
of thousands of politi
cal victims.
“But,” explained a
pro-coup State Depart
ment officer, “the world
spotlight is not on those
countries, and it is on
Vietnam.”
At the State Depart
ment, there have been
some attempts to ra
tionalize the coup d’etat by describing it as neces
sary to save the Vietnamese war effort from going to
pieces. One difficulty with this argument is that it
makes liars out of Secretary of Defense McNamara,
Chief of Staff Maxwell D. Taylor and Gen. Paul Hark
ins, who testified under oath to Congress in October
that the war was making reasonable progress. If the
State Department ever took seriously the argument
that the disturbances in the cities would affect morale
in the countryside, it betrays a regrettable lack of
understanding of the structure of Vietnam and of the
gap between the countryside, where the war will be
won or lost, and the cities, where less than ten per cent
of the Vietnamese live.
For the Buddhists, intellectuals and students who
marched the streets in anti-Diem demonstrations could
not have eared less about the war—before the coup, or
after the coup. Vietnamese students in particular tell
you quite frankly that one reason they pi.. e admission
to a university is that it enables them to avoid the draft.
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\ ietnam s intellectuals have narrow horizons, are exces
sively inward-turning, and make constant and factional
criticism their specialty. Except for a handful of terribly
militant leaders, Buddhist monks are rather passive. If
the success or failure of the war were to depend on
these groups, Vietnam would have been lost from the
start. As to the effects in the countryside of the critical
clamoring by Vietnam’s spoiled young intellectuals in
the cities, it was virtually nil. The American attitude
seemed to be that if a Vietnamese student demon
strates, virtue is on his side and the government is
wrong. But in the countryside there were many peas
ants and plain soldiers who disapproved of the defiance
of the regime—in those rare places where anyone knew
anything whatsoever of what went on beyond the next
village.
If there was any slowdown in the war in September
and October of 1963, it was because the Vietnamese
generals—under American prodding—were concentrat
ing on thoughts of a coup d’etat, while Diem and Nhu,
out of fear of America, were concentrating on how to
prevent a coup.
It was not until after the coup d’etat that the Viet
namese war took a decidedly downward turn. The
military junta with its uncertain leadership, after
purges of key (and scarce) officials, finally plunged
much of the countryside into the confusion from which
it purportedly was trying to save Vietnam.
No wonder the Vietcong took advantage of the situ
ation to seize the military initiative for the first time in
many months. No wonder that, in the two months after
the coup d’etat, the military junta lost more real estate,
lives and weapons to the Vietcong than at any previous
time in the war.
It was precisely out of fear of such predictable con
sequences of trying to change regimes in midwar that
Secretary of Defense McNamara and Central Intelli
gence Director John McCone opposed a coup d’etat.
But they were overruled by the pro-coup d’etat faction
led by Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Undersecre
tary of State Averell ffarriman, and Assistant Secretary
of State for Far Eastern Affairs Roger Hillsman.
The Diem-must-go decision came shortly after the
temporary closing of about a dozen (out of 4,000) pa
godas on August 21, which outraged Washington.
Diem said that his only aim was to get the Buddhist
leaders out of politics and back to religion. The Viet
namese leader insisted that unless he shut down the
propaganda machinery of the pagodas and put a halt
to the glorification of suicide by burning, public dis
order in the cities would mount and world misunder
standing would deepen. Washington disagreed. Fur
ther, it felt that Diem had not only humiliated it and
flouted its advice, but had broken a promise to be con
ciliatory. Washington’s anger was heightened by hor
rendous stories of alleged killings and brutalities dur
ing the pagoda raids. (There were no such killings, as
the monks themselves later said.)
I n any case, on August 24, the State Department sent
out word—without the knowledge of Secretary
McNamara or of C.I.A. Director John McCone—
instructing Ambassador Lodge to “unleash” the Viet
namese generals with a view to toppling the Diem
Government if they could. Plotting among educated
Vietnamese, including the generals, is a kind of na
tional pastime, as chess is to the Russians. Until lately
it had been a pretty harmless pastime, because every
body knew that real action was dependent on an Amer
ican green light—and until August such a green light
had been withheld.
But on Sunday, August 25, Washington publicly
gave the generals a green light in a Voice of America
broadcast that virtually called on the Vietnamese mili
tary to take over. At the same time, Ambassador Lodge
asked the C.I.A. to poll the Vietnamese generals and
see when and if they were ready to translate revolt
talk into action.
Diem’s shock at the Voice of America broadcast and
the C.I.A. poll of the Vietnamese generals can only be
imagined by turning the tables around. Suppose the
United States were engaged in a war against the Com
munists in which we depended almost totally on aid
from Vietnam; suppose, in the middle of that war,
Vietnam issued a broadcast calling for the American
Joint Chiefs of Staff to overthrow the American govern
ment?
The miracle is that the Diem regime survived as long
as it did the virtual declaration of political war served
on it that August by Washington.
What, after many months of hesitation, finally de
cided the generals (in mid-October) to stage the coup?
In separate interviews with this correspondent, mem
bers of the military junta spoke of these factors;
1. The late President Kennedy called, at a press con
ference, for “changes of policy and maybe personnel”
in Vietnam.
2. Washington announced the withdrawal of 1,000
American soldiers by the end of 1963, and possible
total withdrawal by 1965. (Said one general: “That
convinced us that unless we got rid of Diem, you
would abandon us.”)
3. The economic aid was cut. Many generals agreed
that this cut was psychologically the most decisive goad
to a coup d’etat. “It convinced us,’’ a key plotter ex
plained, “that the United States was serious this time
about getting rid of Diem. In any case, this was a war
jWe wanted to win. The United States furnished us with
the jeeps, the bullets, the very guns that made the war
possible. In cutting economic aid, the United States
was forcing us to choose between your country’s help
in the war and Diem. So we chose the United States.”
Ironically, President Diem did make some important
concessions to the United States in September and Oc
tober. For example, in mid-September President Diem
agreed to every point put forward by the United States
in a program to reform and consolidate the strategic
hamlet program in the Mekong delta. Many Americans
had long felt that this program had been overextended.
At last President Diem agreed with the diagnosis and
decided to do something about it. Why was this move
toward the American position never publicized? One
Western diplomat put it this way: “Ambassador Lodge
and his deputy, William Truehart, were so determined
to get rid of Diem that they were opposed to putting
him in a conciliatory light. They were afraid this would
strengthen the hands of those in Washington against
a coup d’etat.”
Even at the eleventh hour, Ambassador Lodge
could, of course, have turned off the revolt if he had
chosen to give the slightest sign that the New Frontier
and President Diem were even beginning to move to
heal their rent. As one member of the military junta
put it: “We would never have dared to act if we had
not been sure that the United States was giving us its
moral support.”
In the last hours before his death, President Diem
was stripped of any doubt whatsoever of Washington’s
hostility. Telephoning the American Embassy from
the Palace at 4:30 P.M. on November 1, after the bom
bardment had started, President Diem asked Ambas
sador Lodge: “What is Washington’s attitude toward
this?” Lodge replied: “I don’t know Washington’s atti
tude. After all, it is four-thirty in the morning there.”
“But you must have some idea,” Diem said.
Whereupon Lodge turned the conversation to the
matter of Diem’s safety, offering him an airplane to
take him out of the country. Could anything have indi
cated more clearly that in American eyes the success
of the coup d’etat was a fait accompli?
The only certain thing about the murder of President
Diem and Counselor Nhu is that they were shot in the
back (Diem in the neck, Nhu in the right side) with
their hands tied behind them. Nhu also had a dagger
or bayonet wound in the chest, which was apparently
indecisive.
These facts were established beyond all doubt by
this reporter through photographs and through talks
with military eyewitnesses, attendants at St. Paul’s
Hospital (where the bodies were first taken) and from
information given by two relatives, a niece and nephew
who handled the preparations for the burial.
In the light of the way Diem and Nhu died,
there is a strong possibility that the shootings were
ordered by some or all members of the military junta.
Would a junior officer take such a responsibility on
himself?
Now for the Buddhist leaders who started it all:
have they got what they wanted? I use the word
“leaders” advisedly, for of the Buddhists in Vietnam,
who form about 30 per cent of the population of 14
million people, the overwhelming majority are largely
nonpolitical. Buddhist monks tend to be somewhat pas
sive. They would never have dreamed of resorting to
violent demonstrations had they not been subjected to
the skillful and inflammatory propaganda that poured
from the humming mimeograph machines of the Xa
Loi pagoda. By the end of last summer, the original
grievances of the Buddhist leaders in Hue—matters of
property rights, flag flying, etc.-had largely been met
by the Diem regime.
In the midst of the anti-Diem ferment I wrote an
article asking: “What do the Buddhists want? They
want Diem’s head—not on a silver platter, but wrapped
in an American Flag.”
You have to hand it to the Buddhist leaders that they
got what they wanted. But will this satisfy the more
militant Buddhist leaders? It is heady stuff, even for
Buddhists, to have the attention of the entire world
focused on you, and to exercise the kind of political
power that can topple governments. Will, for instance,
the venerable Thich Tri Quang, the mastermind of the
Buddhist campaign and by far the most intelligent and
militant of all, be satisfied to take a political back seat?
Thich Tri Quang is a Buddhist leader from Hue who
was granted asylum at the American Embassy even
though his past is in some controversy. According to
records of the French Colonial Office, he had twice
been arrested during the postwar French occupation of
Indochina for dealings with Ho Chi Minh. By his own
admission, he was a member of the Vietminh Commu
nist Liberation Front. He claims to have fallen out
with the Communists later. Again according to the
French, who still have representatives at Hanoi, Thich
Tri Quang’s brother is currently working for Ho Chi
Minh in the Communist Vietnam’s Ministry of the
Interior. The duties of Thich Tri Quang’s brother are
the direction of subversion in South Vietnam.
None of this, of course, proves anything about Thich
Tri Quang’s current attitude toward the Communist
Vietcong. What does seem clear is that he learned a
lot from the Communists about organization and prop
aganda. He ran his emergency headquarters at the Xa
Loi pagoda like a company command post. Orders
were barked out, directing a demonstration here, a
protest meeting there. Messengers scurried in and out,
carrying banners with their newly painted slogans.
Respectful monks brought in the latest anti-Diem prop
aganda blast for Thich Tri Quang to review word by
word.
In my discussion with Thich Tri Quang, l was some
what taken aback at his indifference about the war
against the Communists. When I asked whether the
occasional outburst of turmoil might not offer the Viet
cong the opportunity to infiltrate among the demonstra
tors, Thich Tri Quang shrugged his shoulders and said:
“It is possible that the current disorders could lead to
Communist gains. But if this happens it will be Diem’s
fault, not ours.”
In the same interview in the Xa Loi pagoda, Thich
Tri Quang told me that his preferred solution for Viet
nam was “neutralism,” adding: “We cannot get an
arrangement with the North until we get rid of Diem
and Nhu.”
The Vietcong are suspected of having led several of
the attacks against property on November 1, the day
of the coup d’etat. For instance, a small but violent
gang of young people attacked and demolished the
newly opened headquarters in Saigon of the Asian
Anti-Communist League. This league had no connec
tion, financial or otherwise, with Diem. Yet the coup-
day rioters systematically removed its anti-Communist
literature onto the streets, burned it, then wrecked the
headquarters.
Whether the new military junta’s government bv
committee can do any better than Diem and Nhu re
mains in doubt. The junta is ripe for further coups and
countercoups. In any case, it was not because he en
joyed being condemned by world public opinion that
President Diem engaged in repressive measures (mild
as they were by Asian standards). The new govern
ment will be faced by similar problems, because the
fundamental situation has not changed. For example,
the change of government has not altered the tendenev
of Vietnam’s citified intellectuals to take to the streets.
Within two weeks after the coup d’etat, 10,000 stu
dents at Hue demonstrated noisily against the military
junta because it had not dismissed several professors
who had been loyal to Diem. Tliis is but one example
of pressure by mob. Can the military junta long toler
ate derisions enforced by street mobs, or justice by
demand of the newly “freed” and utterly irresponsible
Vietnamese press? Three Saigon newspapers have
closed—and rightly—already. The smut and sheer men
dacity of. the post-coup “free press” of Vietnam is one
of the blackest marks of recent months in the annals of
Vietnam’s so-called “intellectuals.” In view of the in
discipline, factionalism and irresponsibility of citified
Vietnamese, can the military' junta long escape resorting
to the same tight rein held by President Diem?
The only sure thing in Vietnam today is that the
United States has set an extremely controversial prece
dent by encouraging, for the first time in our history,
the overthrow in time of war of a duly elected govern
ment fighting loyally against the common Communist
enemy.
tuiuiui lien
Tribune bureau chief in Berlin and Tokyo, has just returned
from Saigon. She now reports for Netvsday, Carden City, N. Y.
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HOLY LAND: OUTSIDE HELP?
This letter arrives from the Holy Land Just as the Pope U
scheduled to visit there on a pilgrimage . . . BISHOP ACtf-
CHAER, In LEBANON, writes about
DAYR MIMAS. a village rooted in
history and the land. DAYR MI
MAS is on the border of “no man's
land." cut off from the Sea of Gall-
C* S fabout 20 miles to the south) by
1 I he fortified Israeli border . . . The
H^rish church in DAYR MIMAS is
the center of village life. Damaged
by earthquake years ago. it is now
dreadfully unsafe. Besides, It is
much too smatl . . . “For an ade
quate church we must have outside
help,” writes BISHOP ACH-CHAER.
“Will you please ask someone to help us?” . . . We piss on this
appeal to you. Like you. we cannot ignore the needs of the poor
who want to pray . . . Will you help? To repair and enlarge the
church will cost §2,500 altogether. $1, $5, $10, $50, $100, will
buy building-supplies, rent builder’s equipment, pay for a hnn
dred necessary things.—-We'll be looking for your letter.
The Holy fatber’t Minion Aid
foe the Oriental Church
PALESTINE
In some dioceses marriage jubilarlans meet in the cathedral
or their parish churches on the Feast of the Holy Family for a
special blessing. It's a lovely custom . . . We ask you, at such
a time, to remember the families of PALESTINE REFUGEES,
still unsettled in the Middle East ... A $10 FOOD PACKAGE
helps us feed a family for a month. A $2 BLANKET will mean
warmth and comfort to a Bedouin.
MATARIA, six miles from CAIRO, is said to be the Town
where the Holy Family rested on the flight into Egypt. Both
Coptic Christians and Moslems point out trees they insist date
from that visit. The Moslems believe the trees must be tended
by Christians alone, else the trees will die . . . The work of
carrying Christ’s message to the Holy Land depends so much
on fostering vocations. We have the names of many semina
rians like JOSEPH SCALIA and Sisters-to-be like SISTER
ROSE MARTIN who need help In their seminarian and con
vent training. The cost is $100 a year for six years for the
seminarian and $150 for two years for the Sister-to-be. *
MASS STIPENDS
These are often the sole daily support for the priests in the
Near and Middle East. We ask your continued remembrance
of them.
ST. AUGUSTINE
When God sends a problem, He sends the answer ahead of
time. G. K. Chesterton explained Providence In another de
lightful way. One day on an English seacoast, he saw a scene
he wished to draw. He had paper but no pencil or crayon. Then
he realised he was standing on one of England's great chalk
cliffs . . . Our priests in 18 countries need the help of Provi
dence, They are confident you will be there first to help them.
Your STRINGLF.SS GIFTS enable us to give immediate help.
KINDLY REMEMBER THE CATHOLIC NEAR EAST WEL
FARE ASSOCIATION IN YOUR WILL. THANKS.
Dear Monsignor Ryan:
Enclosed please find for
Name ....
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480 L.xlngton Av«. at 44th St. M«w Tort 17