Diplomacy by Television

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Seated in a cushioned wicker chair on his Hyannis Port lawn, the President of the U.S. submitted to a taped television interview by CBS's Walter Cronkite. Beforehand, presidential aides had suggested that Cronkite ask questions about the crisis in South Viet Nam. He did--and President Kennedy was ready with some remarkable replies.

The South Vietnamese government of President Ngo Dinh Diem, said Kennedy, has "gotten out of touch with the people. The repressions against the Buddhists, we felt, were very unwise. Now, all we can do is to make it very clear we don't think this is the way to win."

The Diem government, the President continued, probably could regain the support of the people, needed to win the war against the Communist Viet Cong, "with changes in policy, and perhaps in personnel. If it doesn't make those changes, I would think the chances of winning it would not be very good." Kennedy named no names, but the "personnel changes" he wanted were the removal from power of Diem's younger brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and Nhu's acerbic wife.

"In the final analysis," said Kennedy in the most surprising passage of the interview, "it's their war. They're the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it."

Ineptly Handled. But what if the Diem government did not start shaping up according to specifications? Would the U.S. start withdrawing aid that has so far amounted to almost $3 billion, cost more than 100 American lives, and presently requires the presence in South Viet Nam of some 15,000 U.S. military and civilian "advisers"? Not a bit of it, said Kennedy. "I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw. That'd be a great mistake."

The Kennedy interview, shown on CBS-TV on Labor Day evening, brought some startled reactions. Commented the New York Times's James Reston: The President "both threatened and reassured Diem. He said: Change, or we'll string along with you anyway. Now if Diem changes his policies and his government, it will be said that he did so under public pressure from the U.S.; and if he doesn't change, the President will be charged with backing what he himself has called a losing policy."

From Saigon, the Times' Robert Trumbull reported: "Experienced diplomats of various nations here are appalled at what they consider Washington's ineptitude in handling the current crisis. They say the Administration committed the fundamental tactical error of driving its adversary into a corner from which there was no dignified line of retreat. This blunder was even less explicable, they say, because Washington apparently had no workable plan of action ready for use when Ngo Dinh Diem defied the Administration."

Absolutely Misinformed. Defy the Administration Diem did, making it clear that he, his brother and his sister-in-law meant to retain their positions of power. As for Mme. Nhu, when she heard of Kennedy's statements, she commented: "If he really said that, it is very serious, because it shows the American Government is absolutely misinformed."

At Mme. Nhu's inspiration, the government-controlled Times of Viet Nam bannered the headline, CIA FINANCING PLANNED COUP D'ETAT, over a story accusing U.S. agents of spending up to $24 million in bribes to key military men, labor leaders and civil servants to overthrow the Diem government--or at least to depose Nhu and his lady. The U.S. State Department scornfully dismissed the charges as "something out of Ian Fleming."

In fact, only a few days before, Administration officials both in Washington and Saigon had been freely confiding to newsmen that the U.S., even if it did not actively support a coup d'etat, would certainly not mind seeing one. But the Administration apparently has changed its mind about the possible benefits of a coup, for reasons perhaps explained by Pundit Walter Lippmann: "A government of Vietnamese generals, installed by the U.S., would hardly be better or more popular than Diem, and might well be worse. And so, since we cannot reform the Diem government, since we cannot replace it, and since we cannot abandon it, we have to put up with it for the time being."

Lamentably Inadequate. President Kennedy's effort to force an international diplomatic issue over domestic, holiday television, was a lamentable failure. If it did anything, it increased tensions and animosities between two governments that must continue working together for their mutual security. Indeed, as of last week's end, about the only good thing that could be said about the Vietnamese crisis was that the Communist Viet Cong was itself so inept, and its Red Chinese backers were so tied down (see cover story) that they were as yet unable to take military advantage of the unseemly split between the Diem regime and the U.S.

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