Listening In (41 page)

THE WORD “VIETNAMESE” APPEARS AT THE CENTER OF THIS PAGE OF PRESIDENTIAL DOODLES FROM OCTOBER 25, 1963

MEETING WITH VIETNAM ADVISORS, SEPTEMBER 10, 1963

In the fall of 1963, President Kennedy continued to receive conflicting reports on Vietnam and whether U.S. efforts were succeeding or not. These contradictions were brought into unusual focus on September 10, when a group of top advisors gathered to hear reports from General Victor Krulak and State Department advisor Joseph Mendenhall. Krulak reported that the American military effort was proceeding well and that the growing war would be “won” if the United States remained committed. Mendenhall, reporting immediately afterward, warned of the “complete breakdown of the civil government of Saigon” and described a city riven with fear, with government agencies shuttered and a top economic minister reading detective novels in his office.

MENDENHALL:
My conclusion is that, and this conclusion is shared, I might say, by Mr. Trueheart, our deputy chief of mission, who is the American with political experience who has been longer on the scene I think than anyone else, also shared by our consul [unclear], is that Mr. Nhu must go, or we will not be able to win the war in Vietnam if he stays. Trueheart commented, at a meeting in the ambassador’s office, that he was very much afraid that the people were going to begin to move over toward the VC if the alternative was only between Nhu and the Vietcong. I found that on the part of other U.S. civilian officials in central Vietnam. That is my conclusion as well, Mr. President.

JFK:
You both went to the same country? [nervous laughter]

MENDENHALL:
Yes, sir.

KRULAK:
One talked to military, one to civilians.

JFK:
But I mean, how is it that we get this difference, this is not a new thing, this is what we’ve been dealing with for three weeks. On the one hand, you’ve got the military saying the war is going better, on the other hand you’ve got the political saying there’s a deterioration that’s affecting the military. Now, you gentlemen have a lot of experience, we’ve got a lot of confidence in both of you. What is the reason for the difference? You must have an explanation, what is the reason for the difference?

KRULAK:
I’ll tell you the reason. It’s metropolitan versus national. That’s my judgment, sir. Mr. Mendenhall has expressed a metropolitan viewpoint, and I have expressed one that reflects more of the countryside. Now, this is not to say that my viewpoint should prevail, at all, but the city of Saigon is like the bull’s-eye in a target, but there’s a great big target around it, too. The attitudes in Saigon indeed are different, they are far more political, far less pragmatic, than are those in the countryside. With respect to Mr. Mendenhall’s comments regarding degradation in the war effort in one of the northern provinces, I was there, and talked to our military advisors, whose view is the reverse, and I believe that their view is correct. It would seem difficult to make a synthesis between these two widely divergent views, until our attention is focused on our purpose in Vietnam, which is to win. And I believe in military terms, we are winning. And this wretched government that is there, much as we deplore it, and Mr. Nhu is certainly the figurehead of the things that we deplore, we can still [unclear] through and win the war if somehow we could be permitted to tolerate their conduct, I feel sure of it.

PRESIDENT KENNEDY AT A PRESS CONFERENCE DISCUSSING SOUTHEAST ASIA, MARCH 23, 1961

PRIVATE DICTATION, NOVEMBER 4, 1963

The mere fact that he recorded this dictation indicates that President Kennedy was upset by the events that had led to the overthrow of President Diem and his brother, and by the faulty planning process that had allowed the coup to move forward. As he had done during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy paused to outline how an event of unusual historic significance had germinated and how the members of his top staff had felt about it. Midway through taping, he was interrupted by his son, which deepened the personal tone of his remarks, and the shock he expressed into the Dictaphone.

JFK:
Monday, November 4, 1963. The … Over the weekend, the coup in Saigon took place, culminated three months of conversation about a coup, conversation which divided the government here and in Saigon. Opposed to a coup was General Taylor; the attorney general; Secretary McNamara; to a somewhat lesser degree, John McCone,
⁸
partly because of an old hostility to Lodge, which causes him to lack confidence in Lodge’s judgment, partly, too, as a result of a new hostility because Lodge shifted his station chief. In favor of the coup was State, led by Averell Harriman, George Ball, Roger Hilsman, supported by Mike Forrestal at the White House.
⁹
I feel that we must bear a good deal of responsibility for it, beginning with our cable of early August in which we suggested the coup. In my judgment, that wire was badly drafted, it should never have been sent on a Saturday, I should not have given my consent to it without a roundtable conference in which McNamara and Taylor could have presented their views. While we did redress that balance in later wires, that first wire encouraged Lodge along a course to which he was in any case inclined. Harkins
¹⁰
continued to oppose the coup on the grounds that the military effort was doing well. There was a sharp split between Saigon and the rest of the country. Politically the situation is deteriorating. Militarily they had not had its effect. There was a feeling however that it would for this reason, Secretary McNamara and General Taylor supported applying additional pressures to Diem and Nhu in order to move them …

[John F. Kennedy, Jr., enters room]

JFK:
Do you want to say anything? Say hello.

JOHN:
Hello.

JFK:
Say it again.

JOHN:
Naughty, naughty Daddy.

JFK:
Why do the leaves fall?

JOHN:
Because it’s autumn.

JFK:
Why does the snow come on the ground?

JOHN:
Because it’s winter.

JFK:
Why do the leaves turn green?

JOHN:
Because it’s spring.

JFK:
When do we go to the Cape? Hyannisport?

JOHN:
Because it’s summer.

JFK:
It’s summer.

JOHN:
[laughter] Your horses.

[John F. Kennedy, Jr., exits room]

PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND ATTORNEY GENERAL ROBERT F. KENNEDY WITH JOHN F. KENNEDY, JR., AND CAROLINE KENNEDY, THE WHITE HOUSE, OCTOBER 14, 1963

JFK:
I was shocked by the death of Diem and Nhu.
¹¹
I’d met Diem with Justice Douglas many years ago. He was a extraordinary character, and while he became increasingly difficult in the last months, nevertheless, over a ten-year period he held his country together to maintain its independence under very adverse conditions. The way he was killed made it particularly abhorrent. The question now, whether the generals can stay together and build a stable government, or whether Saigon will begin to turn on public opinion in Saigon. The intellectuals, students, et cetera, will turn on this government as repressive and undemocratic in the not too distant future.

Also, we have another test on the Autobahn
¹²
today. This is serious, and not the result of any misunderstanding. It’s obviously a determination by the Soviets to demonstrate that they determine the conditions under which we move on the Autobahn. We are attempting to determine that we have free access and that therefore are not subject to their artificial rules. This is a substantive matter, and we cannot tell how it will end.

Also concerned about the prospective annulment of all the American oil contracts. The Argentine. This will mean that the Hickenlooper Amendment
¹³
goes into effect, and we’ll find it very difficult to give them assistance, and it will make our relations more bitter. We may have a similar situation in Peru. The use of the Hickenlooper Amendment in Ceylon has not been a happy augury for its use in other countries, particularly in Latin America, where nationalist passions run high.

Adenauer said that we should have pulled the wall down in 1961, that for sixty hours we were immobilized in spite of their fervent pleas. This is totally erroneous. I asked Bundy to get together a whole record on that period to show that no German party, no major paper, certainly not our military, nor that of France or England, advocated any actions such as that.