Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Vietnam, Volume I

113. Revised Draft Telegram From the Secretary of State to the Embassy in Vietnam¹

Washington, April 11, 1955.

Eyes only for Collins from Secretary. Your 4452² received and carefully studied as well as your preceding messages. In the light of your reiterated conviction that Diem cannot gain adequate Vietnam support to establish an effective government and that other men are available whose designation as Premier would improve the existing status, you are authorized to acquiesce in plans for Diem’s replacement.³ However, it is vital that in your judgment the replacement should not be a person who is, or can plausibly be represented as, a tool of French colonialism. We also rely upon your judgment that replacement can be effected without this involving civil war such as you apprehend and seek to avoid under Diem’s program to assert by force his authority over the Binh Xuyen. We do believe strongly, however, that as part of any program for changing the premiership, there should be a clear understanding with the French with reference to the central government taking over control of the national police and that a time and means for doing this should be clearly stipulated, with commitment of French moral and logistic support. There is sufficient reason to suspect hidden motives for perpetuation of the independent police situation, so that we should not be satisfied with a mere French agreement that this transfer is acceptable “in principle”.⁴

With regard to the operational features of the program, we feel we must⁵ leave this to your judgment as it involves preponderantly local factors which we here cannot judge.⁶

We sincerely hope that this move will be for the best and you can be confident that we will wholeheartedly do everything in our power to bring it out that way.

1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers. Top Secret; Personal and Private. The source text is marked draft no. 2 and incorporates those revisions made by Eisenhower in the first draft, supra. Clearly related to the drafting of this cable is the following report of a telephone conversation, April 11, 3:57 p.m., between Robertson and Dulles:

   “The Sec. asked if he got a reaction from Mansfield, and R. [Robertson] said he has not seen him. Young is with R., and he has a cable. The Sec. said the Pres. made some changes and there will be a meeting at 5 to go over them. The Sec. has redrafted the cable. The Sec. said now is the time to get any commitments we want from the French. R. said he will try to get Mansfield. The Sec. mentioned speaking to Judd, and also George. R. said he thinks George will follow along. R. wants the Sec. to see the cable Young has. The Sec. said he will call George, and R. thought it a good idea.” (Ibid., General Telephone Conversations)

2. Document 110.
3. Written on the source text in Dulles’ handwriting is the following revision of the last clause of this sentence: “you are authorized in your discretion to acquiesce in the idea of Diem’s replacement.”
4. At this point and in the same hand the following sentence was added: “If any points need to be established with French it seems to us that it is time to tie this down before, not after, we acquiesce in Diem’s replacement.”
5. Similarly at this point the phrase, “in last analysis” is written in.
6. At this point in the same hand the following sentence is written in: “However there are what seems to us serious questions about some of the aspects of the procedures you suggest in your 4448 as to which we are cabling separately.” Telegram 4448 from Saigon is printed as Document 108.