NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive
the pressure approach in the CIP negotiations; the "get on his wave length" approach following the Task Force review -- and both produced an identical lack of results.
Second, Galbraith's analysis of the situation really has a good deal in common with that of the Taylor Mission. Obviously, he thought we must be rid of Diem, and he apparently thought it was a mistake to put this move off by making new aid offers to Diem rather than letting word get around that we would be prepared to offer more support to Vietnam if Diem should be removed. But at this time, even people like Galbraith (and Schelsinger, as is clear from his memoir) saw no alternative to continuing to support Vietnam, although not to continuing to support Diem personally. Galbraith was, if anything, more optimistic about the chances of putting down the insurgency (given a change in Saigon) than was the Taylor Report. For his optimism was not at all contingent on any hopes of the efficacy of bombing threats against the north. For all we know, he may have been right in supposing any "moderately effective" Saigon government could do all right against the insurgents; but we now know all too well how over-optimistic was his fairly confident expectation that a military replacement of the Diem regime would be at least moderately effective.
To return to the negotiations in Saigon, in late November, we now had the following situation:
1. It was clear that Diem was, to say the least, disappointed with the bargain Kennedy had proposed.
2. Kennedy was obviously aware that he had offered Diem less than Diem expected, and demanded much more in return.
3. Both supporters of Diem, like Lansdale and Kenneth Young, and his severest critics, like Galbraith, were agreed that it was futile to try to force Diem to reform. Kennedy had already had his own experiences with such efforts earlier in the year.
4. Presumably, although we have nothing to show it in the available record, there was some unrest within the Administration about the limited offer that was being made, the demands being pressed, and the delay it was all causing. To put off an agreement too long raised the dual threat of an awkward public squabble and renewed pressure on the President to send the task force after all.
It is hard to think of any realistic counter-arguments to the case for settling the dispute and get on with either trying to do better in the war, or get rid of Diem.
The next phase was a brief flurry of anti-American stories in the government-controlled Saigon press. The U.S. was accused, among other
