Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Indochina, Volume XIII, Part 2
751G.00/12–354
The Ambassador in France (Dillon) to the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Merchant)1
official–informal
Dear Livie: The enclosed memorandum from Bill Gibson regarding his conversation with Jean Daridan describes such strong statements on the part of Daridan that I felt it better to send it along to you personally, as an indication of how difficult the situation has become in the minds of some Frenchmen.
I am also attaching a short memorandum containing Don Heath’s comments on Daridan’s statement.
Best wishes.
Sincerely,
[Enclosure 1]
Memorandum of Conversation, by the First Secretary of the Embassy in France (Gibson)2
I had lunch alone today with Jean Daridan. He was in a depressed mood and soon set off on Indochina. What he had to say was so disturbing that I thought it best to outline the high points to you in a restricted memorandum rather than in the usual widely distributed “memorandum of conversation”.
[Page 2331]As you know, Daridan was French Minister in Washington for six years and is now Deputy High Commissioner in Indochina. He has enjoyed the respect and friendship of virtually all American officials who have been associated with French affairs in recent years. I am sure they would agree with me that there has never been reason to question his honesty and integrity.
He admitted that General Ely wanted to leave Indochina as soon as possible and that he was the leading candidate to replace him as High Commissioner. He said, however, that he had just informed Guy La Chambre that he could not accept the job. His reason was simply, as told La Chambre, that he could “no longer agree to support a policy which no intelligent Vietnamese or Frenchman with any knowledge of Indochina believed in,[”] which had no basis in reason, which had been invented by the “American Special Services” (des Services Speciaux Americains) and which would result in the absorption of Free Vietnam by the Viet Minh in the near future. I asked Daridan to explain himself and he said he was making a distinction between the Embassy in Saigon and the other “American Services” operating in Indochina because he was convinced that the Embassy had recognized the error of supporting the Ngo Dinh Diem formula early in the game but the Embassy’s voice was drowned by that of the “other U.S. representatives” in Indochina and the sympathy with which their suggestions were received in Washington.
I asked Daridan what La Chambre’s answer had been to his refusal to take the job of High Commissioner. He replied that he had begged him not to make his decision final and to carry on for the time being. Daridan agreed to return to Saigon next week before making any final decision. If he should stay after that he wants to go to Washington in January to try and convince the Departmental officials there of the error of the present U.S. policy.
U.S. intelligence activities in Indochina were, he said, madness (fou) and although money spoke as well in Indochina as in any other place in the Orient it was not enough to win political battles. Our attachment to Ngo Dinh Diem, apparently on the grounds that he was the only honest man in Vietnam, had, he said, become a fixation. Daridan said that although Diem himself was honest his advisers, in whose power he was, were not so the end result was the same. He referred to the latest scandal in Saigon wherein it is alleged that the Ministers charged with the resettlement of refugees from the North have in some instances pocketed a portion of the sums set aside for that purpose. He referred to Ngo Dinh Diem’s family advisers with contempt.
Diem, a religious fanatic, was putty in the hands of the crafty Vietnamese, Daridan claimed. He expressed the conviction that unless something radical were done now, Vietnam would be taken over by [Page 2332] the Viet Minh by the next “tet” (February 10). This would be accomplished according to the method now being used—gradual infiltration, province by province. The final step would be a coup d’état in Saigon which would be easily accomplished after the Viet Minh had thoroughly infiltrated the provinces. One morning everyone would awaken to find the Viet Minh in control in Saigon. The Diem Government’s utter ineffectiveness was advancing the Viet Minh purpose.
Daridan spoke in enthusiastic terms of Ambassador Heath and Kidder. He referred to Heath as a martyr—a man who had given his utmost to setting things right and had lost because he was operating against hopeless odds within his own Government. He had been a victim of other American Services in Vietnam which were so overextended, overlapping and generally complex that it was impossible to set an orderly policy and adhere to it. He remarked that while Heath was doing his best to set things straight the “American intelligence Services”, STEM Mission and MAAG were going off on separate tangents and acting as though each individual functionary set his own policy and followed it. One often got the impression that their principal objective was to remove all French influence and prestige as quickly as possible—not because they wished to acquire it themselves but simply because they did not wish the French to enjoy it.
When I expressed satisfaction at the decisiveness of Bao Dai’s action yesterday in dismissing General Hinh, Daridan said he was not at all surprised because the French had ascertained that Ngo Dinh Diem has just “bought” Bao Dai and received his promise to dismiss Hinh in exchange. This had been accomplished both by making “suitable financial arrangements” and other promises to Bao Dai. The financial considerations made to Bao Dai by Diem had been made possible by “U.S. Special Services” who supplied the necessary funds. Daridan observed that Diem is becoming as clever in making Vietnamese “deals” of this kind as any of his predecessors and was particularly clever in getting money from “the American Services”.
Daridan said that even if American aid for the French Expeditionary Corps were forthcoming he did not see how a move to repatriate the French Expeditionary Corps could be avoided. France, for all practical purposes, would soon have to wash her hands of Indochina and hand the problem over to us, lock, stock and barrel. He said that there was a great deal of talk at the moment in the Assembly “corridors” concerning the budgetary problem which the uncertainty of U.S. aid for the Expeditionary Corps in Vietnam was causing. The talk included the possible need to find funds to repatriate the Expeditionary Corps (it is noted that Rotvand’s privately-circulated letter made a reference to this latter point today as well).
[Page 2333]He remarked that the Government’s principal purpose in seeking U.S. aid to maintain the Expeditionary Corps in Vietnam was not motivated by any belief that South Vietnam could be saved from the Viet Minh but rather by the French obligation to protect the lives of the French community, including Eurasians and loyal Vietnamese, in free Vietnam. Daridan did not think this would take long for more and more of the French and Eurasians in South Vietnam were seeing the light and preparing to leave permanently. Once they were in the majority and the Indochina lobby in the Assembly ceased to function the Government would, he thought, take the decisive step of casting off lines. At that point they would be glad to have us do whatever we liked in Indochina without offering any further comment. For, he stated bitterly, that was what we were doing anyway.
I was considerably taken aback by the depth of Daridan’s bitterness and intensity of his views. He appeared to be anxious to relieve himself of a burden which was weighing heavily upon him. His observations were delivered in a long monologue which afforded me little opportunity to speak. His customary cold professional approach was notably absent. I did, of course, speak of the need for working together, the fact that Diem must be given a full chance to succeed before being condemned, the fallacy of attempting to do business with the Viet Minh, the success of the September and November high level Franco-US conversations on Indochina in Washington, etc. When I said that the most recent Mendès–Dulles conversations had improved the degree of Franco-U.S. coordination on Indochina and cited the joint instructions which had gone forth to Ely and Collins in Saigon Daridan asked whether we knew that Collins was referred to in Saigon as “the Governor General”.
Note—P.S.—Since drafting the above, the articles by Guillain on Indochina have appeared in Le Monde. As you know, they have created a sensation in Paris and cover much of the same territory which Daridan did in his conversation with me. The second of the three articles touches on U.S. activities in Saigon under the heading “Mr. Diem, American puppet”. It states inter alia; “The young Turks of the Embassy and the American services who are constantly being multiplied tear each other apart in their rivalry as do the sects. They see in Mr. Diem only what they consider as his qualities. He is not only, in their eyes, an honest man and ardent Catholic, but he is also the first Chief of the Government since independence; he has above all the merit of affirming that independence by his anti-colonial and anti-French sentiments. Finally, he has that one rare quality, so precious in Asia,—he is pro-American. He is so much so and with such imprudence that he doesn’t even hesitate to install American advisers in the corridors of the Palais Norodom and have them appear with him at his side. The [Page 2334] Americans, on the other hand, push themselves ahead with great naivete. It was General O’Daniel himself who, in Saigon, went to have a frightful scene with General Hinh, the adversary of the Prime Minister, and to demand his resignation. It was Senator Mansfield in Washington who announced that American aid dollars would go to Mr. Diem but would be suppressed if he were replaced. In order to extricate the Prime Minister from his dangerous isolation the American Services buy for him the support of the Cao Daists and the Hoa Hao who, by means of a big fat check payable in New York, have passed from the most active opposition to the most firm support (of the Government). Behind the honest Mr. Diem corruption is more ripe than ever, protected by the shadow of Bao Dai who succeeded in reviving it”.
[Enclosure 2]
Memorandum by Ambassador Donald R. Heath
Re
- Memorandum of Conversation between Mr. Gibson and Jean Daridan of November 303
I agree with Mr. Gibson that we have never had reason to question Daridan’s honesty, integrity and candor in his dealings with the American Embassy Saigon, but I do question very much Daridan’s judgment on Vietnamese affairs with which he has had only brief firsthand familiarity.
He has swallowed a lot of anti-American stories. There is no basis for his statement “our intelligence activities” in Vietnam are “madness”.
It is true that there was some low-level grafting in connection with the resettlement of refugees and that Minister Chuong, no longer in the Cabinet, decamped with some $25,000, apparently fearing that he was to be assassinated by the Binh Xuyen. However, it can be said that the grafting in refugee resettlement has been quite small when one considers the amount of money that has been expended and I believe it can be stamped out. Neither do I agree with Daridan that the Vietminh could easily succeed in a coup d’état in Saigon.
It is true that within both the STEM Mission and USIS organizations there are some individuals who are unrealistically anti-French and it has been a constant struggle to make them understand that the French are an inescapable and necessary element in the picture at present, and that we must get along with them.
Daridan’s statement that Bao Dai had promised to dismiss Hinh in exchange for money from Diem is not quite true. Bao Dai hoped to [Page 2335] keep Hinh quiet in France for a space and then let him return not as chief of staff but in some other military position. Hinh made such action impossible by his irresponsible attacks against the Vietnamese Government in public press statements in Paris. After these statements there was nothing left for Bao Dai to do but fire him.
All in all, I think Daridan is too pessimistic. His statements, however, do point up the necessity of constant friendly consultation with the French authorities in Vietnam and constant consideration of French susceptibilities with regard to Vietnam. After Dien Bien Phu and the Armistice the French in Indochina have had a very bitter inferiority complex.
The source text is accompanied by a handwritten note by Young of PSA to Assistant Secretary Robertson, date stamped the Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs, Dec. 13. The note read as follows:
↩“Mr. Robertson—
- “1. Appointment of Daridan to replace Ely would be a calamity. It would make a mockery of Collins’ mission. We had best consider whether Collins should stay if Daridan becomes No. 1 in Saigon. How would there be real cooperation?
- “2. Heath’s memo is borne out by the reports available here.
- “3. I feel Daridan has grossly exaggerated and distorted the situation in so far as the Americans are concerned. KT Young.”
- This memorandum was directed to Ambassador Dillon, Minister Achilles, and Counselor of Embassy Joyce.↩
- Above.↩