On the Front Lines of the Cold War by Seymour Topping

Author:Seymour Topping [Topping, Seymour]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc.
Published: 2010-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

24

PRESIDENT KENNEDY

When Kennedy assumed the presidency in 1961, in shaping his Vietnam policy, he had his experience in Saigon in 1951 very much in mind. He had remained persuaded that weaning popular support away from Ho Chi Minh’s nationalist banner was the key to victory. The only instrument available to Kennedy for winning “the hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese people was the Saigon government. Success in Vietnam would turn on making that government stronger, more effective, and attractive to the Vietnamese people. This was his intention when, upon return from his confrontation with Khrushchev in Vienna, he tripled the number of American military advisers working with the South Vietnamese army.

From the Eisenhower administration Kennedy had inherited a client Vietnamese government headed by Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem had ousted the French puppet, Bao Dai, and his administration was nominally independent. To shore up the government, Kennedy framed a counter-insurgency plan that provided Diem with financial support for an increase of 20,000 in the size of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), which then stood at 150,000, and additional aid for the local Civil Guard, the counterguerrilla auxiliary. Later in the year, he augmented the program to bring the ARVN up to a strength of 200,000. Kennedy also deployed American Special Forces units, known as Green Berets, for covert action against North Vietnam. In return for this broad support, Kennedy asked Diem to undertake reforms that would rejuvenate the South Vietnamese military forces as well as a political action designed to inspire popular support. But not many months later he was told by his military and political advisers that Diem was failing despite this large-scale American support to transform his government into an effective countervailing force against Ho Chi Minh. In frustration, Kennedy approved in 1963 a CIA-inspired coup by dissident Vietnamese generals to topple Diem. The president had been persuaded that a competent replacement had to be found immediately for Diem, who among other things had become increasingly unpopular because of his repression of the Buddhists. The coup by the generals was staged on November 1, but as it went forward, unexpectedly and apparently without direct CIA complicity, Diem was assassinated.

Three weeks after Diem’s assassination I was in New York, back from three years in Moscow and about to leave for Hong Kong to become the chief correspondent for Southeast Asia with oversight responsibility for our Saigon bureau. In preparation for the assignment I planned to go to Washington for background talks with officials. I thought of asking for an appointment with the president but then decided not to when I learned that four weeks earlier Kennedy had complained to the publisher of the Times about the reporting of David Halberstam, one of our correspondents in Saigon. At a meeting in Washington Kennedy had told Arthur Ochs “Punch” Sulzberger that Halberstam had become “too close to the story” and lost his objectivity. He urged Sulzberger to arrange his transfer. Sulzberger rejected the suggestion without hesitation. It

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