Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
dreams three years ago to see what has happened in South Vietnam." The Admiral also reported that while the Hoa Hao were still presenting difficulties in some areas, the Binh Xuyen and the Cao Dai were "pretty well eliminated."[1]
But U.S. policy in Vietnam did not again achieve the status of a national issue until the summer of 1959, when a Scripps-Howard newspaperman published a series of articles alleging that the U.S. aid program in Vietnam was ill-directed, encumbered by waste and delay, and administered by bumbling, plush-living bureaucrats. Both the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs thereupon conducted hearings, and Ambassador Durbrow and General Williams were among the Administration officials called to testify.[2] The picture presented in their testimony was so roseate that Senator Mansfield, for one, was inclined to look for an early termination of U.S. aid:
"SENATOR MANSFIELD. It would be correct to say, would it not, that a principal purpose of U.S. policy in Vietnam has been to prevent Communist aggression from the north?
"MR. DURBROW. That is one of our basic policies, sir.
"SENATOR MANSFIELD. And in a general way, another principal purpose has been to foster internal political and economic stability in South Vietnam, is that correct?
"MR. DURBROW. Correct.
"SENATOR MANSFIELD. Still another would be to maintain friendly ties with the Vietnamese?
"MR. DURBROW. Yes, sir.
"SENATOR MANSFIELD. You have instructed the various missions along these lines, have you not?
"MR. DURBROW. I have sir.
"SENATOR MANSFIELD. Have you ever instructed them to the effect that one of our purposes was to encourage the development of conditions of economic self-support in Vietnam which would enable us to reduce and eventually eliminate grants of aid?
"Before you answer that, I want to compliment General Williams for what he had to say relative to his contacts with
- ↑ U.S. Congress, Senate, Mutual Security Act of 1958, Committee on Foreign Relations, 85th Congress, Second Session (Washington: GPO, 1958), 120-121.
- ↑ U.S. Congress, Senate, Situation in Vietnam, Committee on Foreign Relations, 86th Congress, First Session (Washington: GPO, 1959), 168 -171, 198-199 ; House, Current Situation in the Far East, Committee on Foreign Affairs, 86th Congress , First Session (Washington : GPO, 1959), 34 ff., 45 ff.
