Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with J. Lawton Collins, 1981

You why. Well actually we had an American presence in Vietnam when Ambassador there Ambassador he's Donald. He's But his tour was about up and he was due to really be relieved. And Ambassador Harrington who was our representative in Hong Kong had not yet reported into duty there. And President Eisenhower knew that I had visited the ship of Vietnam on a couple of occasions. As a matter of fact I'd gone down there first in 1933. I was stationed in the Philippines at that time and had an opportunity to go up purely sightseer. I went up very largely to see the great ruins at Ancol in Cambodia.

But I traveled up through the area where much of the fighting later on occurred particularly through the rubber plantation and then in 1910 about 1951 and as I recall rightly Marshall doctora who was the French commander in Vietnam invited me down to Vietnam stellate to take a look see I think very largely in order that that our government could have a better understanding of the problems that the French were running into. So I met marshaled a lot of try and Saigon flew up with him too. And incidentally young John Kennedy rode on that plane. He was a young congressman from that time with the history.

Oh I see. Yes. Yes they did. And Dulles particularly felt that our chances of success that as our chances of reinforcing the French and preventing the take over of Vietnam by the Communists wasn't better than about 50 50. As a matter of fact. Well because the French had just been defeated at being fool. They the Congo Communists had the French on the run from a military standpoint. They after the defeat at the end when fool the French had asked us for help and we had said no we couldn't do anything then. But later as the condition got worse. In Vietnam and it was quite

apparent that the French were not going to be able to hold off the Communists then they decided to ask for help from the United States those military help and military aid from a monetary standpoint. Well yes of course Mr. DULLES. Dulles was a strong anti-communist and he felt that we had to draw a line somewhere to stop the communists. And out in the Pacific it would be and it would involve Vietnam Vietnam and so he emphasized that point that we would have to do our best. And this is one of the reasons to stop communism and this is one of the reasons I imagine that they wanted to have a military man go down there to

try to reinforce and reorganize the local Vietnamese army and to strengthen the French temporarily but only temporarily. Well I was to develop a program then for aid to Vietnam not solely military aid because we already had a very competent man down there a military man and Michael Danyell old iron Mike. And no they wanted someone who had some experience in international affairs and who might draw up a program of military and economic aid that would reinforce the local government of ZM. Well I had been associated with

the commanding general of the French forces down on him as a member of the a standing group of NATO. After I retired as chief of staff of the Army didn't like how I'd had asked me to stay on active duty as a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization standing group and my opposite number and the French was General Paul a lead. So I had gotten to know Aly and had a good idea a good deal of admiration for him and we had a very friendly basis. When I arrived in Saigon my first intimation that the French were not too enthusiastic about my coming. Why is that Paul really was not there at the airport to help greet me which in French courtesy conditions would have been the thing to do. So I realized then that the French were not going to be too enthusiastic. Aly had gone up to a lot of the

elite teams a lot up in the mountains which was the summer capital of Vietnam at that time. But rather than take a front that that since I was going to have to get along with Lee and we had gotten along well as members of the standing group I decided to go up and visit the latera. So the first thing I did was to fire up a call on Paul. And he began to melt a little bit after I explained my mission. Thereafter while we got along handsomely together. With friends because they wanted to still retain a French prison as they called it in Vietnam. In other words they still wanted in the back of their minds and hearts. They still wanted to have French as a maid. France says a major lie. Am I saying and guide

to the CM government. No I don't think so. They were they were very much interested in preventing the takeover and it only takes on a persons that could only be a nation that could take over would be the the communists not nation but a group would be the communists. Oh make fun yeah yeah. Can. I reported to Mr. Dulles and was met by a number of men from the State Department and one or two from the Department of Defense also. Mr. DULLES

emphasized the fact that in his judgment the communists would take over unless the United States came to the aid of the French both economically and to a certain extent from a military point of view. He said that he thought the chances of success would be not greater than about 50 percent but that he thought it was worthwhile because Mr. Dulles was strongly anti-Communist and he was trying to build up a wall around the world actually to hold back the advance of communism and this was part of that program right for you. Situation. Well when I arrived I didn't say Saigon. It was chaotic there no question about that.

The very day that I arrived the chief of staff of the Vietnamese army Heen H I N H was inveighing against GM and his presence there over a radio that was supported as a matter of fact by U.S. aid. And I put a stop to that right off the bat. I can actually I got to know him later on. And I thought one of the first things that I ought to do was to make clear to General Hayden that I was going to support Mr. again which was part of them. One of the major points of my instructions from General Eisenhower and Mr. Dulles and he said that he was going to stay on. He hinted that he would start a rebellion. I assured him that if he did that then all military aid to Vietnam would cease. And so finally by putting

pressure on him and I got him to leave town in or in about a week. And as a matter of fact he never returned again. He came back once part way but he never got back into the into into Vietnam I guess you made quite an adventure. Get it. Well he was faced with a mountain of problems. First of all he was a he was a Roman Catholic and a very devout one in a Buddhist country which was a mark against him right off. He was really from the Norse or north central part of the country whereas Saigon and the political rulers of the country were down in the south. So they had that against him also. In addition he had he didn't have any great political skill.

Maybe we could touch on that perhaps a little later. But he was also faced with the opposition from three organized groups in South Vietnam. First the cow die. These names are fascinating to me. The Khalid I was was basically a sect that had charge of a had control rather over a large part of the farm farming country of the rice producing area of South Vietnam. They had their own little army which the French had supported on the side which was not prose. And in addition there was another group known as they. Could die. It. And I say I'll die for them. And let me remind you again there were three of these groupings all very powerful each with its

own private army. First the cow die. I think these names are fascinating to me. Because I were a Buddhist group who control a great deal of the best farmland and old Cochin-China they had their own private army which was supported privately on the side by the French strongly anti ZM. The next group was there. Wow. How another wonderful name. They were headed by a man by name Wilfong. And they had their own private army and control another section of the farmland down in south Cochin-China. The third group was another interesting one called a been Sunni and B I N H U Y E N headed by by a guy that would have made his way very nicely and in Chicago under world I've had

time my V.N. was his name. He controlled the secret police Mayanja. Of Vietnam and he also controlled all the houses of prostitution and the gambling joints in coacher in shole on the French the suburb of Saigon. And this was the source of his strength and the monetary of money and of it. These three groups were tolerated by the French and as I say were supported to a certain extent on the side. None of them was very enthusiastic about having this Catholic pure man as head of the government you see. So they all constantly threw up opposition against him. Well of course they had proven their strength by defeating the French army

the Communists or the proof. The comments of course had proven their strength by defeating the French at end again. Yeah well of course the Communists had had proven their strength by defeating the French army at the end and fool. A short time before the French finally asked for help as a matter of fact at that time I was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No I had just left the JCA. They had asked for a very strong help on the ground. General Ridgeway's sent who was my successor as chief of staff of the Army sent a party over to Vietnam to survey the situation and recommended against that. And had I been on active duty I also would have recommended against the idea of putting American troops on the ground in Vietnam. This was a different story from Korea.

See a lot of people have this confused. In Korea we went in under the aegis of the United Nations. Had we gone into Vietnam at that time we would have done it as we later did when our own and this made a vast difference. And the general attitude of the Congress and of the American people. Go back to the site. Well they were very strong. They controlled most of the roads for example that lead from the north down into Saigon. You had to be very careful and had to have protection and the French to travel around in the countryside. The French had put up a series of outposts along the main highways and there were constant sabotage against them and hijacking of people that were traveling north and

south. So it had to be done with a military escort of course I fool most of the time from Saigon when I when I went up to see the John lately and the lot I flew there. But I also traveled a good many of the roads at various times but the communist dominated the countryside particularly to the north of Saigon. They had practically full control not exactly him but defacto control of the countryside. Let me start by saying lot. Well the Communists had were on their way into control of the South not entirely against the wishes of the countryside people

because they had opposed the French. They were the French didn't always use the best judgment in handling the local people and the Communists felt that they could do better and had persuaded the farmers for example and the people on the countryside that they could get more from a government not controlled by the French even though it was controlled by the Communists. And so basically a goodly portion of the people in the countryside were there were not so much pro communist as they were anti-French and anti ZM after V.M. took control. Your first impression look like. Well of course as soon as I arrived in Saigon I called on President zem. He spells it indeed I am but it's

pronounced Zee I am. He met me as he often did later on at the head of some marble steps that lead up. From the entrance to the Norodom palace which he had taken over and as I looked up the stairway there here was this short pudgy little man. Not at all impressive in appearance but very polite and very solicitous of greeting me in a friendly fashion because he knew that I was coming over to help him to establish a government there. My impression of him was that even at this moment was that he was not a man of great strength. Quite a good deal of personal charm. But he didn't impress me even then as a man who would be strong as he later proved to be.

Of course I had no idea how confident he were that. I came to know him and to develop a personal affection for him in a mild way. He was in my judgment a completely honest and dedicated patriot given to trying to help his country as best he could. And so I always had a personal touch of affection for him. I got to know him very well. I saw him frequently. And I always found him quite direct and he had dealings with me. But there was always in the back that he didn't agree with what we were trying to do. But we got along very well on a personal basis. We had electrical and water here.

We. Had a great deal of difficulty getting him to take action. He would. He was an Oriental after all. And the Orientals are pretty devious in what they do in promising as compared to what they do in action. And for them was YEM

was a very shy man. Naturally he. And he was a mandarin really above the level of the average farmer. For example in the countryside it is difficult for him to get down to their level. I did persuade him to take one trip out of Saigon to go back up to his home province and it was a great success and he came back and floozie asked Dick about it. But I could never get him to go back again. He was just shy and he didn't have the natural political know how as to how to get out and meet people. Just wasn't any. His brother it was a different story. His brother. No. No. Rather I knew it brother a

brother I knew. And his news vission his wife who really was the powers behind the throne behind him. While I liked the man and had a great admiration for his personal honest man. I soon came to be convinced that he'd like administrative ability. He simply first of all he was a mandarin. He couldn't get out. And at the level of the people of the countryside that was but beneath his tradition as a mandarin of the old school. The second thing was that he was dependent too much on his family. He had five brothers all told. But the most important

one was Brother you and this man and his wife who was a vixen of the first order they came to dominate the ZM in almost every political sense. At any rate behind the scenes only you never saw his brothers in public till a month and I think at least I didn't base the Vietnam is dead because his his views his wife organized a women's support for ZM and she was very active political and very skillful also. V.M. himself didn't have that kind of skill. He was a fine man personally but he lacked the administrative ability and that was one of his basic faults. One of the major aspects of that was his inability to delegate authority to anybody.

That is to anybody that had ability because frankly what brother knew and the ZM family what we're endeavoring to do I became convinced was to set up a YEM dynasty or no dynasty as a replacement. That was about Di and Dynasty of the past. This was their real objective. I'm convinced that ZM objective was the improvement of his country improvement of the conditions of life of the people improving the financial and other conditions. But this was not the case in my judgment for the whole family. They were out primarily for the benefit of your family the traditional business of having a family dominate. The political aspects of the country. So I could never get him to broaden his government which was one of what Mr. Dallas's admonitions to me when I first went out there was to try to get the government to be more representative of

the people. I could never get them to take in any body of real ability to assist in the organization or the government or to organize a modern type of an assembly or two guy. Later on I did develop a seven point program for the improvement of a government which covered all aspects. Of my mission not solely the military aspects of it but for a minute. Now would you want me to go into this. That. Well of course it's important to understand that when the Geneva Accords were made an agreement was made with France to divide to Vietnam at the 17th parallel and anyone thought that the parallel was permitted to move south and

vice versa. Anyone south of the parallel could move north if they chose. About nine hundred 100000 Catholics under their village. Catholic priest moved from north to south. There was only a handful of people that moved from south to north to get away from the GM government. These refugees as I say came down under their parish priest they were settled at by parishes in areas that were prepared for them by the South Vietnamese government but they remained as Catholic on clubs in a Buddhist country and very much as the southern Southerners following our Civil War objected to the carpetbaggers that came from the north and took over that many political posts in the south. So also the South Vietnamese Buddhist strongly objected to this Catholic

groupings of VCM adherents who came so they were never really assimilated into the into the people of the South. They never had any part in the government. Later on they became foreigners. So far as the Southerners were concerned and this affected the general support of the countryside for the CM government it was referred to as a Catholic government for example. And this was reinforced by the visits of Cardinal Spellman who came over to visit Vietnam during my time there. And when he arrived banners were put up in the streets hailing this archbishop or this cardinal. Haling the Catholic Church with the colors of of the of the cardinal. And this didn't set set very well with the with the Buddhist either of course.

In addition after Spelman had been there there were two different high ranking Catholic prelates who came up at the invitation probably to see them although I don't know that this was the case. And each time we had the same hubbub about a Catholic government which the Buddhist in in Vietnam never agreed. I finally decided to ask. I don't recall whether I contacted Cardinal Spellman whom I knew personally or whether I. I persuaded him not to invite any more catholic prophets there because politically it was not an asset. It was a counter asset to the zem government. His government became known to the opponents as a Catholic government which didn't sit very well with a Buddhist you

know. Well after I had developed a program to assist the CM government in a very broad way not solely in a military way. Which V.M. never really tried to implement. I became convinced while that fact plus the fact that I was never able to persuade him to bring into the government any body of real ability. That he would never be able to relate to to to create a government that would be truly representative of his adherents in the south. And much to my regret. I finally had a report to Washington gradually that I was becoming convinced that ZM didn't have the political skills. Nor did he have the personality to really

manage a government in Vietnam and I so reported to Washington as a result of that. The adherents of GM in Washington particularly in the Congress said it Mansfield who at that time I think was head of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee of AS's Green who is a very powerful force in the house and one or two others mostly Catholics with that slant began to develop a back fire against any thought of removing them I didn't suggest that at that time that we give up on ZM but I did point out to Washington that I was becoming convinced that GM would not make the grade later on after I came back to Washington and discuss the situation here with members of the State Department and some of the congressmen also

and probably with Senator Mansfield although I don't recall for certain. I then went back to do so I. Got. My final conclusion after much thought and much I must say heartbreaking frankly because I like 3M but I became convinced that he did not have the political knack nor the strength of character politically. To manage this bizarre collection of people in Vietnam. I could never get him to broaden his government which was one of the

chief objectives that I had received from Mr. DULLES. He wouldn't take in anybody who had real ability. And the reason was not so much them himself as it was these two people behind the throne who really managed the country rather knew and his wife. Madam knew they that they wanted to build up they a new government frankly. And so I could never get ZMM to broaden the government as he should have if it was going to be a success. When I finally became convinced of that I I really then had to come to a decision. As to whether I was going to recommend continued support for Maestas again or not. This was brought to a head by the fact that Paul Lee had said that no longer could he support the V.M.. He had

only supported ZM half heartedly anyhow. So I finally had to report to to Washington and that rather than waste additional money. In supporting an army for them and giving condition a continued economic aid that we would finally have to decide whether we're going to do that or whether we were going to try some alternative. And I have finally recommended that unless the end could broaden the government could show some political acumen to manage the country. Then we ought to finally withdraw our support. This was vigorously opposed by. Senator Mansfield by Senator Kennedy and by Mrs. Kalai in the House who is another Catholic. There was this little Catholic group. I happened to be a Catholic. But nevertheless I became convinced that

there was too great of an influence in Vietnam of GM and his Catholicism that this was mitigating against his ability to keep contact with the people and to establish leadership for the people as a whole. And so finally I had to report to the Congress. As well and he had considerable influence with GM Lansdale dead. He was out there without really as far as I can recall without any official government position from the State Department at at least. But he did have considerable influence on them. He had stayed with them during a good deal of the time when he was out there.

He also had considerable influence with brother knew. Because he was convinced that GM didn't have the ability which I became convinced GM did not have. So as far as I know Lansdale was giving one set of advice to his representatives in the State Department who was Allen Dulles who probably was responsible for his going out there. Allen Dulles you may recall at that time was head of the CIA. And while Lansdale never officially admitted that de facto He was a CIA man as far as I know out at the time it the point came finally when I had to make clear of Lansdale that I was the ambassador there. And this is one of the things that I emphasized to me when he read my instructions he said Joe this is the best set of instructions that I've ever

read and it was given to an ambassador because you're in charge of all aspects of the embassy. And this is where Lansdale and I parted company according to Lansdale. He finally one day it up and left that that I don't recall that and I've never been able to confirm that. I assure you that had he left he would never have come back again. It might have put me in opposition to some of the people there in Washington. It never occurred. Now the other man that had a good deal of influence with them was from Michigan State University. Mr. Wesley Fishell Yeah. The other man who aside from the government representatives who had a good deal of influence on Mrs. Yemeni's brothers was Wesley Fishell from Michigan State University. They had a contract. I think maybe

before I got out there with the ZM government to develop a police force independent there would have been so Ian for example which was a good move because. But West of Fishell had ambitions also to take over. Not only that aspect of it but a good many other things. And with the support of the state department I finally had to make clear to Michigan State that while we appreciated what Wesley fish was doing it was my job to develop a broader program all aspects of the economic assistance that we might give to Vietnam. And so I accepted that. I think it was crucial. Certainly so far as the military aid was concerned we had to develop an army

that was would really fight. We had a very able man my general Michael Daniel Baer and I had no direct responsible for that. I delegated that to Mike and he supervised the training but this cost money. And so we did give them the Vietnamese government military aid in order that they could while they reduced the numbers of the standing army to three combat divisions. Much money was given to Michael Donald so that he could begin the training of non-commissioned officers and Vietnamese officers because an important point was that the French former French officers retained their command in many cases over the dizzying enforcers even though they were anti-icing em they had dual citizenship they were retained citizenship as French officers and as

Vietnamese and this was one of the good things that them put a stop to. He said You've got to either be a Vietnam is or you've got to be French. And he made that part of it effective. So the military aid was an important financial assistance. But in addition to that through MDA P I can't even remember what those initials mean but it was a military aid rather than economic aid which was administered by Leland Barrow's which is which supported the GM government particularly in aiding the farmers out in the field trying to get GM to parcel out the land which was owned by the absentee owners of the French. And turning that over to the vet I mean he never really accomplished that. And this was one of his big failures with respect to the people in the countryside the peasants they had little or no results from the economic problem. It was essential

from the Vietnam is point of view because they had to keep up some export. And the only way they could export was the rubber they had fine rubber and big rubber plantations which later became the scene of vicious fighting later on. So they depended on us for both economic aid and for military aid. And it was substantial. I dont remember the figures but it was substantial aid. Well I've already covered part of that. In addition to giving them economic aid which assisted in the parceling out of the land to the peasants and things of that ilk. The other aid that they needed was to settle all the refugees. These

900000 refugees from the north who came south they had to build on clouds which involved the construction of tents into which these people could live. Other facilities set up a little on KLOV separate from the existing towns for example of villages just cost money. And an important aspect or important access that we gave to them in the settlement of the refugees who feel we did they didn't need some financial help in order to be able to do that. And it was I think an essential part of the overall aid which we gave to the Vietnamese. Generally.

So I don't mind it. It's always fascinating to me looking at your book. All right. You've been very very kind and very very cooperative and very constructive. It's now. Too soon and you start again.

I. Didn't say too much about that. By 16