Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
behind in the south, along with stay-behind organizations and arms, caches, Although the pacification campaigns of 1955-56 cleaned up what the Communists had left behind to, some extent, there were remnants remaining which the Viet Cong have since exploited and augmented greatly over the past 5 years.
President Ngo Dinh Diem
President Diem and I are friends. Also, he is a man who put other Vietnamese friends of mine in jail or exiled them. It is hardly a blind friendship.
Prior to my departure from Washington, Jeff Parsons asked if I would please size-up President Diem carefully to see if he had changed much from vhen I had worked with him so closely in 1954-56. In our first meeting, he was a bit cautious with me, I suspected that he was waiting for me to drop Washington's other shoe as a follow-up to the Ambassador's demands that he reform his ways. So, I reminisced on what we had been through together in the past and he joined in, adding the story of the 11 November coup as he saw it. Our meetings: from then on became more like the old days -- with plenty of give and take … but only after I convinced him that I still had affection for the Vietnamese people and was trying to understand their problems before sounding off.
He seems to have a better grasp of economic matters than formerly. Also, I believe he sincerely wants to pass some of his daily burden of work to others, He said that he had found this extremely hard to do, since too many others were soft in carrying out responsibilities or else were too vain to knuckle-down to hard work. This has forced him to over-burden Nguyen Dinh Thuan, Secretary of State for the Presidency, who doesn’t hesitate to make tough decisions when needed, who has had to act as hatchet-man when other s were too soft to get rid of incompetents, and who has been loyal to his boss (although he speaks right up for his ovm views), Vice President Tho is so soft-hearted that he really never takes corrective action against wrong doers. Vu Van Thai is a "blackmailer" by threatening to resign after convincing the Americans that he is the most brilliant Vietnamese in economic matters, although he is a poor executive whose work is in bad shape; if Diem accepted Thai's resignation, the Americans would feel that the Vietnamese Government was going to hell. (Unfortunately, there's some truth in these feelings of Diem's about Tho and Thai).
