Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam

by Fredrik Logevall

  VI

  NOVEMBER 1954 WITNESSED A CHANGING OF THE GUARD IN SAIGON, one with unexpected results. U.S. ambassador Heath packed his bags, to be replaced by special presidential envoy General J. Lawton “Lightning Joe” Collins. The unflappable Heath had worked quite effectively with the French for three years, keeping them in the fight and reasonably content. That very success made him a figure of suspicion among some in the State Department and the Pentagon, who thought him too pro-Paris, too tolerant of French intrigues against Diem—and too ambivalent in his own assessment of the premier’s leadership. That Heath during his tenure had also been adept at reassuring nationalists in Saigon that Washington supported their desire for a free and independent Vietnam was small comfort to these critics. French foot-dragging “must be ruthlessly overcome,” Admiral Felix Stump, commander of the Pacific Fleet, declared in calling for Eisenhower to appoint a single individual with overall authority to oversee the entire U.S. effort in Vietnam.45 Dulles liked the suggestion, as did Eisenhower. They tapped Collins, a former chief of staff of the army during the Korean War; as one of Eisenhower’s corps commanders in Europe in World War II, he had earned a reputation for decisive leadership and toughness. In early November, Collins, who it will be recalled had visited Vietnam in 1951, found himself in Saigon as the president’s special representative with wide authority and the rank of ambassador.46

  His arrival initially heightened French nervousness. General Paul Ely, the French high commissioner, believed Washington was replacing Heath because “because his realism caused him to oppose the State Department in defending positions which were very close to ours.” Ely, who had worked with Collins when both men were assigned to the NATO Standing Group and who liked him personally, predicted that Collins’s mission would generate a very unfavorable reaction in Paris, where “it would be taken as meaning that the U.S. was going to take over in Indochina.” He did not come to the airport to greet the American. Sure enough, in his first press conference Collins proclaimed that he was in South Vietnam “to give every possible aid to the government of Ngo Dinh Diem and to his government only.”47

  Before long, however, Lightning Joe showed a different side of his personality: his capacity for independent thought. With Ely he hammered out a joint Franco-American command to train the Vietnamese National Army, and though the early operation of this Training Relations Instruction Mission (TRIM) was far from smooth, it did function, thanks in good part to the effective Collins-Ely partnership. Ely made no secret of his low opinion of Diem, informing Collins that the premier was “a losing game.” Collins, in short order, decided the Frenchman had a point. “Diem is a small, shy, diffident man with almost no personal magnetism,” he noted in a cable to Dulles a few days after arrival. “I am by no means certain he has [the] inherent capacity to manage [the] country during this critical period.” A few weeks after that, Collins went further. “Diem still represents our chief problem,” he reported to Washington, and his assessment of Diem’s shortcomings “has worsened rather than improved.” The “time may be approaching rapidly” when thought should be given to “possible alternatives.” How soon? Collins set January 1 as the deadline; if Diem had not shown an ability to govern effectively by then, a replacement should be sought.48

  It was hardly the message Washington expected or wanted. The day after this top-secret cable arrived, Dulles sent three subordinates, including the zealously anti-Communist assistant secretary for the Far East, Walter Robertson, to Mike Mansfield’s office, copy in hand, to solicit his reaction. The senator responded as expected: He backed Diem fully and warned against giving up on him “for some unknown and untried combination.” Collins’s proposal for a short deadline was foolish, Mansfield added, for no leader could be expected to show significant results in so brief a period of time. His statements were passed on to Dulles for use within the administration and with the press, and were also sent to Collins in Saigon. Later in December, when Collins once again complained about Diem and even gingerly suggested that the United States consider cutting her losses and withdrawing from Vietnam, Robertson again hustled to Mansfield’s office for a reply. Mansfield repeated his defense of Diem, and Robertson made sure Dulles got the word.49

  Collins also got pushback from Lansdale, who pressed his argument that Diem should be supported and that South Vietnam was too important to abandon. “I feel we have too much to lose to consider losing or withdrawing,” he told Collins on January 3. “We have no other choice but to win here or face an increasingly grim future, a heritage which none of us wants to pass along to our offspring.”50

  Collins wavered. In January, the tenor of his telegrams changed, as the Saigon government showed signs of life. Land reform legislation was drafted, and a provisional assembly was organized to write a constitution. Diem even gave signs—faint and tentative, but signs nonetheless—that he understood the need for social and political reform and would act accordingly. Collins told Washington he now saw hope for Diem, saw signs of progress in the government’s performance, and he affirmed in stark terms the importance of the U.S. commitment to South Vietnam. Mistrust of French intentions now crept into his analysis, as he warned Dulles that France sought a new government that would be submissive to her, most likely with Bao Dai as its leader. Keeping the French in line would thus be essential. “If Diem has firm support and guidance and active French cooperation, or at least acquiescence, his government has a reasonable prospect of success,” the ambassador concluded in late January. “I cannot guarantee that Vietnam will remain free, even with our aid. But I know that without our aid Vietnam will surely be lost to Communism.”51

  It further pleased Collins that Diem’s regime enjoyed economic independence from the French Union’s franc zone as of January 1, and that South Vietnam now became the direct beneficiary of U.S. economic aid. The United States channeled much of that money through her Commercial Import Program (CIP), which was modeled on the Marshall Plan. Washington gave dollars to the Saigon government, which then sold them to South Vietnamese importers. These businessmen purchased the dollars with piasters at one-half the official exchange rate; they then used these cut-rate dollars to buy American goods. South Vietnamese officials also collected tariffs on these U.S.-subsidized imports. It was a brilliant scheme, at least on paper. Not the least of its benefits was that the government could use the piasters it collected from the selling of the dollars to pay the cost of the army, police, and civil service.52

  It all put Secretary of State Dulles in a buoyant mood when he made his first visit to South Vietnam in February. Dulles assured Diem privately that the Eisenhower administration had “a great stake” in him, and he announced at a press conference, “Today I do not know of any responsible quarter which has any doubts about backing Diem as the head of this government.” Never mind the continuous French efforts to have Diem replaced, and never mind Collins’s previously articulated skepticism. The assembled journalists got the unambiguous message that the Diem experiment was a success, and Collins, standing by the secretary as he spoke, gave no indication that he disagreed.53

  VII

  DIEM SAVORED THE MOMENT, BUT NOT FOR LONG. HIS TROUBLES with the sects were about to worsen. The Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao had both raised armed forces several years before, when the French were anxiously seeking any local military assistance they could get against the Viet Minh. The French had supplied weapons and money in exchange for a commitment by both sects to defend their respective areas. In the vacuum of power following the Geneva Accords, however, Cao Dai and Hoa Hao leaders had seized the opportunity to expand their control, levying taxes and raising troops in their sectors.54 When the French in February 1955 stopped their payments, sect leaders demanded that their armies be integrated intact into the VNA and stationed in their home territories, and moreover that the government continue the French subsidies. Diem refused. With Lansdale’s help, he instead used American funds to cajole factions of the sect forces to his side—as much as $3 million in one case
. The total amounts distributed may have reached $12 million or more, but Lansdale denied that the payments constituted bribery. The money, he remarked, was merely “back pay.” Thus the Cao Dai’s Trinh Minh Thé, whom American analysts had viewed as a potential Third Force leader since he defected with his men from the French Union army in 1951, purportedly received payment after Lansdale convinced him to reintegrate his army with Diem’s military, the idea being that Thé would share the money with his men.55

  But the biggest obstacle to Diem’s consolidation of power in the south came from the Binh Xuyen gang—forty thousand strong, well armed, and swollen with profits from gambling, extortion, and prostitution. Diem’s attempts to control security forces and police in Saigon had met with blatant opposition from Binh Xuyen leader Bay Vien, a Bao Dai protégé, and the premier moved to step up the pressure. In mid-January, he refused to renew the gambling license of Bay Vien’s Grande Monde casino in Cholon, whereupon Bay Vien announced he would join with the religious sects in a “united front” against Diem’s “dictatorial” regime. Green-bereted Binh Xuyen troops set up arbitrary checkpoints and road barriers in the Saigon-Cholon area and installed sandbag and barbed-wire defenses around their headquarters on the rue Catinat, within rifle range of Diem’s palace. In late March, the sects issued an ultimatum demanding that Diem reconstitute his government to include a cabinet of “National Union,” and they gave him five days to comply.56

  A showdown loomed. Many informed observers thought the odds were against Diem, especially since the French were providing intelligence and other tacit support to the Binh Xuyen. U.S. officials were split, not only on the question of whether Diem’s tough approach was wise, but on how to deal with the French: One group saw the French as spoilers and wanted them out of Vietnam as soon as possible; the other thought they could still play a stabilizing role. Lansdale was in the former camp, while Collins, whose assessment of the Saigon leader had again turned gloomy, was in the latter.

  On March 28, Diem, having refused to respond to the sects’ ultimatum, issued one of his own. The Binh Xuyen forces were to vacate promptly the installations they had occupied in and around Saigon. The following night open warfare erupted briefly between government forces and Binh Xuyen police and commandos. French armored units appeared quickly and blocked the streets, and the gunfire ceased. Charges and countercharges flew regarding who fired the first shots, and a French officer on Ely’s staff mediated an uneasy truce. Diem’s view of the French role grew still dimmer, as he suspected them of having incited the Binh Xuyen to violence.

  Diem’s hold on power was weakening seemingly by the day. French banking and commercial interests still dominated much of the economy in the south and thus were a force to be reckoned with. Their leaders in Saigon urged the Paris government to act now to install a new leader who would be more malleable and more pro-French. General Ely noted in his diary that whereas previously he had been prepared to retain Diem as a part of a coalition government (for the sake of Franco-American cooperation), that day was gone; now it would be necessary to convince the Americans to abandon Diem in favor of Bao Dai.57 Bao Dai weighed in from his château on the Côte d’Azur, directing Diem to join him in France for “consultations.” Diem ignored the order. Collins, for his part, informed Washington on March 31 that the government’s days were numbered and that active consideration should be given to alternative leaders. He suggested Bao Dai or one of two senior Vietnamese political figures, Foreign Minister Tran Van Do or former defense minister Phan Huy Quat. Dulles phoned Eisenhower, read him part of Collins’s cable, and suggested they should once again seek Mansfield’s input. The president initially demurred, then changed his mind and agreed such consultation would be helpful. The next day Mansfield insisted that all available alternatives were worse than Diem, and that if Diem left, the likely result would be a civil war that would benefit no one but Ho Chi Minh.58

  This analysis accorded with Dulles’s own, and his instructions to Saigon counseled Collins to tread carefully. Congress would be unlikely to fund a successor regime perceived as bearing a “French imprint,” he noted, and the administration needed Democratic support on a range of legislative issues—notably the proposed interstate highway system—and on the crisis in the Taiwan Straits. Implicit in the secretary’s message was the worry that Diem’s replacement by someone championed by the French would represent an embarrassing diplomatic defeat for the United States and victory for France.59

  Collins did as instructed, but privately he continued to argue for a change in leadership. He noted Diem’s deepening political isolation and his stubborn unwillingness to broaden his advisory system to include people outside his immediate family. As April progressed, the chaos in Saigon became pronounced, a fact duly reported by journalists on the scene, some of whom also picked up on Collins’s pessimism. “The chances of saving South Vietnam from chaos and communism are slim,” C. L. Sulzberger wrote in The New York Times on April 18. “Brooding civil war threatens to tear the country apart. And the government of Ngo Dinh Diem has proven inept, inefficient, and unpopular. Almost from the start the French wished to get rid of the little Premier. Now they appear to have sold the idea to General Collins, our special ambassador.” The influential columnist Joseph Alsop, also reporting from Saigon, wrote Diem off as “virtually impotent.”60

  Subtly at first, and then dramatically, the White House modified its position. Dulles’s missives to Saigon became open-ended regarding what should occur, even as he reminded Collins that regime change would be problematic in U.S. domestic political terms. Then, in late April, with Collins back in Washington for consultations, Eisenhower and Dulles went further, in effect conceding the ambassador’s point, made during lunch with the president on April 22, that “the net of it is … this fellow is impossible.” They took the plunge. At 6:10 and 6:11 P.M. on April 27, 1955, top-secret cables went out from the State Department to the embassies in Saigon and Paris initiating a process designed to remove Diem and replace him with a leader selected by Generals Collins and Ely (while every effort was to be made to make the new government appear to be chosen by the Vietnamese). Diem was to be told that “as a result of his inability to create a broadly based coalition government, and because of Vietnamese resistance to him,” the United States and France “are no longer in a position to prevent his removal from office.”61

  Then, near midnight the same day, came word from Saigon: Fighting had erupted in the streets of the city between the Binh Xuyen and the VNA. Almost certainly Diem had been tipped off about the ouster orders, perhaps by Lansdale, who was by his side almost continuously throughout the crisis. With nothing to lose and much to gain, he then in all likelihood initiated the battle.62 Diem always denied being the instigator, and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the Binh Xuyen fired first; conclusive evidence remains elusive. Whatever the case, the violence worked immediately to Diem’s advantage: At 11:56 P.M., Dulles canceled the earlier directives calling for Diem’s removal, less than six hours after they had been issued. In the days thereafter, fierce gunfights continued, leaving five hundred dead and two thousand wounded, and government troops gradually got the upper hand. Leading sect figures surrendered. Trinh Minh Thé was killed by a shot to the back of the head while he watched his troops engaging Binh Xuyen forces, the identity and allegiance of his assassin forever a mystery. Soon the crime syndicate was routed, and Bay Vien, the vice kingpin of Saigon-Cholon, fled to a cushy retirement in Paris. The religious sects retreated slowly into the Mekong Delta background, never again to threaten Diem’s rule.

  No less portentous for the future, Diem’s actions in the “Battle of Saigon” made him a heroic figure to many in the U.S. Congress and press. In the Senate, California Republican William Knowland offered a lengthy paean to Diem’s fortitude and courage, and Minnesota Democrat Hubert Humphrey proclaimed that “Premier Diem is an honest, wholesome, and honorable man. He is the kind of man we ought to be supporting, rather than conspirators, gang
sters, and hoodlums … who are diabolical, sinister, and corrupt.” Mansfield chimed in too, extolling Diem as the leader of a “decent and honest government.” Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee registered their opposition to the administration’s withdrawing support from Diem. Democratic congressman Thomas Dodd of Connecticut demanded that Collins be fired in favor of “someone who measures up to the needs of the hour.”63

  Publisher Henry Luce, in his weekly editorial in Life, could barely restrain himself: “Every son, daughter or even distant admirer of the American Revolution should be overjoyed and learn to shout, if not pronounce, ‘Hurrah for Ngo Dinh Diem!’ ” Diem’s decision to confront the “Binh Xuyen gangsters,” Luce went on, “immensely simplifies the task of U.S. diplomacy in Saigon. That task is, or should be, simply to back Diem to the hilt.” U. S. News & World Report made the same argument in more restrained language, as did The New York Times. The latter added a prediction: “If Premier Ngo Dinh Diem should be overthrown by the combination of gangsters, cultists, and French colonials who have been gunning for him, the communists will have won a significant victory.”64