Sixty one years ago this day; there were young boys who climbed over the iron fence of the Gia Long villa, to witness what happened to the resident of the President Diem and the fall of his regime, one of them… was me! There were lots of things were happened at that time that I never know until to day: 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, Nhus 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 regimes 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 regimes 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. 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 Vietnams 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 Diems brother and advisor. But prior to 1962, there had been no outright discrimination against Buddhists. However, among South Vietnams 3-4 million practicing Buddhists and the 80% of the population who were nominal Buddhists, the regimes favoritism, authoritarianism, and discrimination created a smolIn 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 Buddhas 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 Buddhas 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. Diems 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 Ducs fiery death shocked the world and electrified South Vietnam. Negotiations had been taking place between Vice President Thos 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 Thos 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 Diems 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: Since the Buddhist dispute with the Diem government erupted on 8 May, there have been a series of reports indicating not only intensified plotting and grumbling among Diems traditional non-Communist critics, but renewed restiveness and growing disaffection in official civilian and military circles over Diems handling of the dispute. 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. Nhus 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 Diems friendship and trust to secure a role for himself as Diems 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 Noltings 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. Diems 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 Diems failure to act, and at the widening Buddhist protest. The Chargé dAffaires, 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 Noltings 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. Nhus 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. Noltings 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 uness 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 governments intention to abide in good faith by the June 16 agreement. His efforts 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 Diems 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 Lodges appointment. Washington was apparently satisfied by this statement, which Diem viewed merely as a going-away present for Nolting. Less than a week later, Noltings two years of careful work and an American policy would be in a shambles, betrayed by Nhus 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 Krulaks sanguine view of the wars 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. Noltings 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: In his view if a revolution occurred in Viet-Nam which grew out of the Buddhist situation, the country would be split between feuding factions and the Americans would have to withdraw and the country might be lost to the Communists. This led to the question of how much pressure we could exert on Diem. Mr. Nolting replied that if we repudiated him on this issue his government would fall. The Ambassador believed that Diem would live up to the agreement (June 16) unless he believed that he was dealing with a political attempt to cause his overthrow. [Doc. 124] Earlier in the same interview he had said: ....that although interference by the Nhus was serious, he believed that the GVN would be able to come through this one slowly. As to tactics, the more Diem was prodded the slower he went. While Nhu was troublesome he was chiefly responsible for gains which had been made in the provincial pacification program. [Doc. 124] 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 Noltings efforts with Diem produced evident progress. By the time of the August 21 raids, Washingtons patience with Diem was all but exhausted.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 19:21:53 +0000
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