NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive
C. President Diem
Ngo Dinh Diem's perspective and expectations were the most different of all. U,S. groups differed in dregr; Diem's expectations were different in kind. He wanted, first of all, to obtain unequivocal U.S. support, not just to his nation but to his administration. It was essential, in his eyes, that this support not compromise his authority or Vietnamese sovereignty. He did not want to give credence to communist claims that he was a puppet of the U.S., on one hand, or concentrate the coercive instruments of power in the hand of potential antagonists, on the other.
A revealing assessment of Diem's frame of mind is provided by Ambassador Nolting. Diem invited increased U.S. aid and U.S. participation because he feared that, especially with an impending settlement in Laos, South Vietnam, would come under increasing communist pressures. If Diem's government could not win over these pressures -- and Diem feared it could not -- it had only the choice of going down fighting or of being overthrown by a coup. Thus, in requesting additional U.S. help. Diem had "adopted an expedient which runs against his own convictions, and he is apparently willing to accept the attendant diminution of his own stature as an independent and self-reliant national leader." 67/
But when Ambassador Nolting presented to Diem the U.S. quid pro quo for its "limited partnership," this apparent acceptance of decreased stature and independence suddenly seemed less apparent. 68/ Then, as Nolting reported, President Diem feared the reaction even among his own cabinet aides. 69/ Secretary Thuan, in whom Diem did confide, said that the President was brooding over the fact that the U.S. was asking great concessions of GVN in the realm of its sovereignty in exchange for little additional help. 70/ Diem argued that U.S. influence over his government, once it was known, would play directly into the communists' hands. The first priority task, he added, was to give the people security, not to make the government more popular. To try it the other way around was to place the cart before the horse. 71/
Diem saw himself caught in a dilemma in which he was doomed if he did not get outside assistance and doomed if he got it only at the price of surrendering his independence. To him the trick was to get the U.S. committed without surrendering his independence. One possible solution lay in getting U.S. material aid for a program that would be almost wholly GVN-implemented. The strategic hamlet program offered a convenient vehicle for this purpose and one which was also appealing for other reasons. It put achieving security before winning loyalty -- in an operational context in which it was difficult to differentiate between security for the rural populace and control of that populace, since many of the actions to achieve one were almost identical to the acts to realize the other.
D. The Central Issue
The U.S., for its part, was asking Diem to forego independence by accepting the wisdom of the American recommendations for reform. The
