410. Memorandum of Conversation0
PARTICIPANTS
- United States
- W. Averell Harriman
- William H. Sullivan
- North Vietnam
- Foreign Minister Ung van Kiem
- Mr. Hoang Nguyen, Secy. Gen. of Delegation
- Interpreter (name unknown)
- Burma
- Under Secy. for Foreign Affairs, James Barrington
- Mr. Maung Maung Gyi, Foreign Office
During the course of a reception given by the Burmese on Saturday, July 21, Mr. Barrington asked Governor Harriman whether the latter would appreciate an opportunity to talk privately with the North Vietnamese. When the Governor indicated his willingness to do so, Barrington arranged a meeting for the following day in his room at the Hotel Suisse.
Governor Harriman opened the conversation by recalling that the wartime policies of President Roosevelt had envisaged independence for Vietnam through the mechanism of some sort of international machinery. President Roosevelt had not anticipated that the French would return to Indochina. He asked the Foreign Minister what would have happened in his country if President Roosevelt’s policies had been carried out.
The Foreign Minister replied that he and his government were well aware of President Roosevelt’s policies, and had been very surprised when the Americans acquiesced in the attempt of the French to reestablish their colonial control in Indochina. He felt that the following years were a great tragedy and had caused much suffering to the people of Vietnam.
After a brief discussion on the health of Ho Chi-minh, which the Foreign Minister said was excellent, Governor Harriman then turned to the agreements on Laos, and said that it was the intention of the United States to carry out the agreements in the letter and in the spirit. To that end, we were planning to remove our military personnel from Laos in accordance with the provisions of the agreements. He asked whether the North Vietnamese intended to do the same thing. The Foreign Minister replied that the North Vietnamese had assured Prince Souvanna [Page 868] Phouma that they would abide carefully by the terms of the Laos agreements. They would do nothing which was contrary to the provisions of those agreements.
Governor Harriman then asked whether this meant that the North Vietnamese military personnel would be withdrawn from Laos. The Foreign Minister repeated his statement that the North Vietnamese would comply with all the provisions of the Agreement. The Governor asked whether the Foreign Minister was admitting that there were North Vietnamese military forces in Laos. The Foreign Minister said that the Government of Prince Souvanna Phouma had asked for military assistance and that North Vietnam had provided military trainers and military specialists to assist Souvanna’s armies. He said that this information had already been imparted to the Canadian ICC Commissioner.
The Governor said that this statement was an improvement in candor over statements which had been made earlier at the Conference, when Mr. Pushkin had refused to confirm that there were North Vietnamese military personnel in Laos. The Governor asked, however, whether the Foreign Minister was now prepared to go further and admit that there were North Vietnamese military units in Laos. The Foreign Minister evaded a direct answer to this question and again repeated his reference to military training personnel who were performing such tasks as “running the military academy.” The Governor pointed out that the North Vietnamese forces must be quite ferocious since every time they appeared in the field, the Lao forces facing them fled in terror. The Foreign Minister beamed but said that he thought that was an exaggeration of the situation.
The Foreign Minister then said that his Government believed that the successful implementation of the Geneva agreements depended primarily on the United States. Governor Harriman interceded to say that was a remarkable coincidence since our Government felt that the success of these agreements depended primarily on the actions of the North Vietnamese. The Foreign Minister continued by stating that the policy of the United States in attempting to build up Laos as a military bastion had been the primary cause of the problems in Laos. If the United States was willing to withdraw its armed forces, the Thai forces, the KMT forces, the Filipinos and the South Vietnamese, there would be a possibility for peace in Laos. This, however, would persist only if the US refrained from attempting to instigate anti-communist forces in Laos. In the event of such instigation, the US would discover that the NLHX was a very strong organization which could defend the interests of the Lao people.
There followed considerable discussion about the numbers and type of US military personnel present in Laos, the Filipino technicians, [Page 869] the few Thai, and the fact that there were no South Vietnamese forces in Laos. The Foreign Minister did not challenge this latter statement. Mr. Barrington participated in further discussion concerning the special case of the KMT forces which are in the Burma-Thailand-Laos border area of the Northwest.
Governor Harriman said that the US considered the NLHX to be an affiliate of the North Vietnamese Communist Party. He asked whether that was true. The Foreign Minister vigorously denied that this was the case, saying that the NLHX was a party of its own and that it was purely Laotian.
The Foreign Minister returned to his stipulation that the future peace of Laos depended upon the attitude of the US Government. Governor Harriman said that he wanted to make it clear, so that there would be no misunderstanding, that the President of the United States specifically wished an independent and neutral Laos, much along the pattern of Burma and Cambodia. He pointed out that Burma and Cambodia had been the two countries mentioned by President Kennedy and Prime Minister Khrushchev in Vienna, when they had agreed upon the need for a neutral Laos. He asked the Foreign Minister if North Vietnamese policy would accept neutrality for Laos along the pattern of Burma and Cambodia. The Foreign Minister nodded, said “yes” and then added that this would conform to the policy of North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese had no territorial ambitions in Laos, and the people of Laos had nothing to fear from them. All they wished for Laos was peace and neutrality.
The Foreign Minister said he wished to turn from Laos to the question of Vietnam. He said that the Vietnamese people strongly resented American intervention in Vietnam. He said that the 1954 Agreements on Indochina had provided for the reunification of Vietnam through elections. If it had not been for the intervention of the US in 1956, that reunification would have been achieved, either by federation or by elections, which would have placed all of Vietnam under a single regime. US intervention had in recent years grown worse until it was now a fact that American forces were mercilessly killing Vietnamese citizens. While Governor Harriman spoke of President Kennedy’s policy which respects neutrality, and the fact that it has produced an agreement on Laos, the Foreign Minister could not understand how President Kennedy could continue the policy of military intervention in Vietnam.
Governor Harriman said that he wished to reply very frankly to the statement which the Foreign Minister had just made. President Kennedy, before making a decision to send increased military assistance to South Vietnam in response to President Diem’s request, had directed that a very careful study be made of the situation. From that study he was convinced, as the recent ICC report has later borne out, that the [Page 870] guerrilla activity and the killing in South Vietnam were directed from the North, and that the guerrillas were led, trained and supplied by the North. When President Kennedy sent the additional forces into South Vietnam, he made clear that they were there for the purposes of helping the Vietnamese to defend themselves against this aggression from the North. He also made clear that if that aggression stopped, there would be no need for continued presence of those American forces. Therefore, the way that peace could be brought to Vietnam would be for the North Vietnamese to cease their aggression against South Vietnam, and to stop the guerrilla activity. Then the status envisaged by the 1954 Agreements could be reestablished and the possibilities of dealing with other difficulties could be explored.
The Foreign Minister replied that the Americans did not seem to understand the situation in Vietnam. The history of South Vietnam has always been one of struggle. The forces who are fighting against the Diem regime are people from the South who take their weapons from those supplied by the Americans. There are no North Vietnamese airplanes, ships or motor vehicles which can bring guerrilla forces or weapons into Vietnam. This is a popular revolt against the Diem regime and American intervention is trying to suppress it. Governor Harriman, noting an impending appointment he had with Secretary Rusk, said that he did not believe it would be useful to argue the issue. He was thoroughly convinced, as were other objective observers, that the cause of the trouble in South Vietnam came from the North. The US military assistance to South Vietnam would continue so long as that aggression persisted. He wanted the Foreign Minister to understand that and to understand that the way to bring peace to Vietnam was for the North to cease its aggression.
Before departing, however, he wished to return to the first part of the conversation which he and the Foreign Minister had had concerning Laos. He felt that clear undertakings on the part of the US Government and on the part of the North Vietnamese to carry out scrupulously all the provisions of the Geneva Agreements on Laos would result in peace in Laos. He trusted that that would be done and that this sort of cooperation between the US and North Vietnam could make a great contribution toward the peace of Southeast Asia.
The Foreign Minister agreed with this statement and said he would remember the first part of the conversation that he and Governor Harriman had had this afternoon. He hoped, however, that Governor Harriman would not forget the second part of the conversation, and particularly what the Foreign Minister had had to say about American military intervention in Vietnam.
On that note, the meeting broke up with mutual thanks to Mr. Barrington for providing an opportunity for these talks to have taken place.
- Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Harriman Papers, Chronology File, May to August, 1962. Secret. Drafted by Sullivan and authorized by Harriman. The meeting was held in Barrington’s suite at the Hotel Suisse.↩