<--PREV Doc #1139  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1141 Document #1140; November 3, 1954 To Joseph Lawton Collins Series: EM, WHCF, Confidential File: State Department ; Category: Top secret The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XV - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part VI: Crises Abroad, Party Problems at Home; September 1954 to December 1954 Chapter 13: "A new phase of political experience"   Dear General Collins:1 The threat to the independence and security of Free Viet-Nam has reached such a critical stage that emergency measures are required to assist Free Viet-Nam to maintain itself, and to promote United States policies regarding Viet-Nam.2 Accordingly, I am designating you as Special United States Representative with personal rank of Ambassador to go to Saigon for a limited period to coordinate and direct United States activities in Viet-Nam in support of United States policy objectives.3 I am hereby instructing you to undertake this mission with broad authority to direct, utilize and control all the agencies and resources of the United States Government in Viet-Nam. Your mission is undertaken on behalf of the United States Government and all its agencies will assist you as required in this difficult and essential task. I have complete confidence that your wide experience will enable you decisively to assist in dealing with the urgent problems which confront not only the Vietnamese Government but the free world in Viet-Nam. In your conversations and dealings with local French and Vietnamese authorities, you are authorized to speak with complete frankness and full authority on behalf of myself and the Government of the United States. You should keep the United States Government fully and currently informed of the progress of your mission through the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense where appropriate regarding military matters. For your guidance, the basic policies of the United States with respect to Viet-Nam are as follows: 1. To maintain and support a friendly and independent non-Communist government in Viet-Nam and to assist it in diminishing and ultimately eradicating Communist subversion and influence. 2. To assist the Government of Viet-Nam to develop and maintain forces necessary for internal security and to foster economic conditions which will strengthen and promote the survival of a Free Viet-Nam. 3. To provide United States assistance directly to the Government of Viet-Nam and to coordinate information and exchange of views on such assistance with Vietnamese and French authorities. 4. To encourage expanding relationships between Free Viet-Nam and its non-Communist neighbors, and support for Free Viet-Nam by the free world. The immediate and urgent requirement in carrying out these policies and in meeting the deteriorating situation in Viet-Nam is to assist in stabilizing and strengthening the legal government of Viet-Nam under the premiership of Ngo Dinh Diem.4 Accordingly, the principal task of your mission is to coordinate and direct a program in support of that government to enable it to: (a) promote internal security and political and economic stability, (b) establish and maintain control throughout the territory, and (c) effectively counteract Viet Minh infiltration and paramilitary activities south of the military demarcation line. As an initial framework for a concrete program of action you should (a) use the joint instructions which the Departments of State and Defense transmitted to the American Embassy in Saigon on October 22 and (b) take into consideration the latter's reply of October 27, 1954.5 As this immediate program progresses, I will expect to receive your recommendations. You will in these matters seek, and I hope obtain, the cooperation of the French authorities. Their cooperation will greatly facilitate the discharge of your mission. You are of course advised of the United States position and policy with respect to the agreements of the Geneva Conference on Indochina and to the United States Declaration made there and in these matters you should conform to such position and policy.6 I appreciate your undertaking this difficult and delicate mission which is of such great importance to the United States. This assignment and these instructions are convincing evidence of the firm intention of the Government of the United States to help the Vietnamese people preserve and promote their liberty and welfare. With warm regard,7 Sincerely 1 Collins, former Chief of Staff of the Army, had been United States Representative to the Military Committee and to the Standing Group of NATO since August 1953. 2 The situation in South Vietnam had remained unsettled after the conclusion of the Geneva Conference; for background see no. 1074. Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem had been unable to control a number of powerful factions and personalities in the newly separate noncommunist zone, and there was evidence that the remaining French authorities, backed by a still-powerful French Expeditionary Corps, were trying to undercut his authority. In an October 30 meeting Secretary of State Dulles suggested to Eisenhower that an Army officer "with a very high degree of political judgment" should be sent to South Vietnam with "very broad authority to act so that there would not have to be constant reference back to Washington on detailed matters." Eisenhower chose Collins "not only because of his outstanding qualifications but also because he was on the spot [that is, in Washington], and presumably could be designated quickly" (Dulles, Memorandum of Conversation, Oct. 30, 1954, Dulles Papers, White House Memoranda Series). Meeting with Collins on the following day, Dulles told him that he would receive a letter from the President providing him with all the authority he might need, but one which would not "engage the prestige of the President unnecessarily" (State, Foreign Relations, 1952-1954, vol. XIII, Indochina, pt. 2, pp. 2198-99). Dulles drafted this letter for Eisenhower's signature (Dulles to Eisenhower, n.d., AWF/D-H; see also David L. Anderson, "J. Lawton Collins, John Foster Dulles, and the Eisenhower Administration's `Point of No Return' in Vietnam," Diplomatic History 12, no. 2 [1988], 127-47). 3 Collins's status would become a matter of some controversy within the executive branch. Assistant Attorney General J. Lee Rankin would point out that federal law prohibited Army officers from holding or exercising the functions of any civil or Foreign Service office. The State Department would counter that a purely military mission might be in violation of the Geneva Conference accords, which prohibited any change in the status of the existing military missions in Vietnam as of July 21, 1954. Eisenhower would solve the problem by sending Collins a supplementary Top Secret letter specifying that his duties were not civilian in nature but were, instead, "properly those which may be performed by an officer of the Army on the active list, without jeopardizing his position in the Army" (Eisenhower to Collins, Nov. 22, 1954, same file as document; see also Shanley to Minor, Nov. 17, 1954, and other papers in ibid.). 4 Diem's most pressing problems involved the assertion of control over the Vietnamese army, the police, and over three powerful sects. Army Chief of Staff Nguyen Van Hinh, whom many believed was influenced by the French, had threatened to overthrow Diem's government and was resisting Diem's efforts to gain control over the Vietnamese components of the French Expeditionary Corps. A gangster organization, the Binh Xuyen, controlled the Vietnamese national police. Two religiously-oriented sects, the Hoa Hao and Cao Dai, maintained their own paramilitary forces and potentially could have posed a threat to the central government. As a first step, the United States wanted to use its military training mission to reorient the Vietnamese army away from General Hinh and toward the Diem government (State, Foreign Relations, 1952-1954, vol. XIII, Indochina, pt. 2, pp. 2048-52, 2058-59, 2071-74, 2091-92, 2128-30, 2149-58; Anderson, "J. Lawton Collins," pp. 132, 139; Kahin, Intervention, pp. 81-83; Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History [New York, 1984], pp. 187, 219). 5 The October 22 joint State-Defense message to General John O'Daniel (Chief of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group [MAAG]) and Donald R. Heath (Ambassador and Minister to Vietnam since June 1952) is in State, Foreign Relations, 1952-1954, vol. XIII, Indochina, pt. 2, pp. 2161-62. The cable stated that before any systematic, long-range program to counter anticipated Vietminh subversive and paramilitary activities could get started, it was essential to gain for Diem the loyalty of the South Vietnamese military and, in particular, of General Hinh (see n. 4 above). Heath and O'Daniel were, accordingly, to devise a "crash program" to get Diem and his government through the immediate crisis. "The details of `how'" were to be left up to them, and no financial limitations were prescribed for whatever program they should devise. Heath and O'Daniel were authorized to threaten a cut-off of American aid unless Hinh cooperated, and, if they decided the South Vietnamese Army was hopeless, they were (upon approval from Washington) free to "commence immediately the organization of a national police or constabulary separated from the present Vietnamese armed forces" if Diem could choose a leader that they considered "competent to command such an organization." The State Department also promised to find ways to get around the Geneva Conference's prohibition against increasing the size of the MAAG. Heath's and O'Daniel's October 27 reply (ibid., pp. 2188-90) outlined the details of their crash program. Assuming that Diem, Hinh, and the French would go along, the Americans planned to have Hinh and Diem announce their reconciliation, confirm the Army's loyalty to the government, and admit U.S. advisers to various levels of the Vietnamese military establishment. Diem was to "house clean [the] presidential office," by replacing incompetent and corrupt officials with "capable individuals." Heath and O'Daniel were also going to try to persuade Diem to reduce the power of the sects by dismissing many of the sect members whom he had brought into the government; they noted that one useful tactic would be to offer to have the United States mollify those sects with subsidies. The American representatives would persuade Hinh and General Paul Ely to replace the French officers holding positions in the Vietnamese armed forces with Vietnamese. These reforms would help Diem initiate effective land reform, pacification, and public relations programs. 6 See no. 985 for details of the Geneva Conference accords. 7 Eisenhower read this letter aloud at a White House meeting with Collins and Dulles on November 3. The President told Collins that he would be responsible for telling the French that the United States would have to cut its subsidy to the French forces still in Vietnam. Collins said that he was going to try to set up a training program along the lines of the successful American efforts in Greece and South Korea. His aim would be to create "effective internal security forces, relying on the Manila Pact [SEATO] for protection against large-scale external attack." He added, however, that he was going to avoid attracting too much attention to American activities in Vietnam (Goodpaster, Memorandum of Conversation, Nov. 3, 1954, AWF/AWD; Dulles, Memorandum of Conversation, Nov. 3, 1954, Dulles Papers, White House Memoranda Series; J. Lawton Collins, Lightning Joe: An Autobiography [Baton Rouge, La., 1979], pp. 381-82). Arriving in Vietnam on November 8, Collins would soon engineer the departure of General Hinh and would negotiate an agreement with General Ely concerning the development and operations of the Vietnamese armed forces. The Collins-Ely agreement specified that the French would continue to be responsible for the effort to stop internal subversion and attacks from without, while the American MAAG would assume the burden of training the Vietnamese armed forces. Collins also sent Washington his recommendations concerning the military structures and force levels the United States should support. Acknowledging that the SEATO powers would not be able to act quickly enough to prevent the Vietminh or Chinese from overrunning South Vietnam, Collins said that a continuing French presence was necessary. He proposed that the United States continue to subsidize the French Expeditionary Corps throughout 1955, although at a reduced level. He also recommended that the Vietnamese National Army should be reduced in size from 170,000 to 77,000 men, organized into six divisions (Dulles to Eisenhower, Nov. 17, 1954, AWF/I: Viet Nam; State, Foreign Relations, 1952-1954, vol. XIII, Indochina, pt. 2, pp. 2366-68; Collins, Lightning Joe, pp. 382-87. See also State, Foreign Relations, 1955-1957, vol. I, Vietnam [1985], pp. 62-70). For developments see no. 1284. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Top secret To Joseph Lawton Collins, 3 November 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1140. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/1140.cfm <--PREV Doc #1139  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1141

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