Edward Geary Lansdale had a shrewd and accurate assessment of what was required of the U.S. government to undo the disarray in which Ambassador Durbrow’s mission had left American-Vietnamese relations. He told his superiors that the new Kennedy administration must restore Ngo Dinh Diem’s faith in American foreign policy in Southeast Asia. The new ambassador, Frederick Nolting, would therefore need “to get on the same wave-length with Diem”.1
Who was Ambassador Nolting, and what was his background? Frederick “Fritz” Ernest Nolting Jr. was born on August 24, 1911, in Richmond, Virginia, where his ancestry was deeply rooted and his family well respected.2 He spent his childhood in Richmond, attending Saint Christopher’s School; later, as an undergraduate, he attended the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. In 1933, after only three years of study, he earned his bachelor of arts in history. At that time the Depression had devastated the family business, and his skills and education were required to help out. Thus, Nolting worked for five years in his father’s bank in Richmond.3
In 1939 Frederick Nolting returned to his studies at the University of Virginia, where he earned a master of arts in philosophy in 1940. That same year he married Olivia Lindsay Crumpler, who remained his lifelong spouse and friend.4 Owing to his extraordinary capabilities, he won a fellowship to attend graduate studies at Harvard. There he added religion to his study of philosophy, a background that would later help him to understand Diem and his brother.5 One of Nolting’s professors was Lord Bertrand Russell; and regardless of his disagreements with the celebrated atheist, Nolting was able to earn top marks.6 In 1941 Harvard awarded Nolting a master’s in philosophy, and in 1942 a doctorate. Having just completed his graduate education, he found his life interrupted by the Second World War.7
Nolting rose through the ranks of the U.S. Navy and was a lieutenant commander when the war ended. His naval service was not without peril: he served on a munitions ship in the Mediterranean theatre, where he was involved with military operations in North Africa and Italy.8 In 1946 Nolting entered the service of the U.S. Department of State, and during the next eighteen years served in a variety of postings in Washington and overseas.9 To this service he brought a mind developed by his academic accomplishments and a will disciplined by his military training. Because he eventually was a special assistant to the secretary of state for mutual security affairs, he was also heavily involved with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). He would later become the deputy chief of the U.S. delegation to NATO, and as such the alternate U.S. representative to the North Atlantic Council. While serving in this capacity, he was asked to be the U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam.10
In his memoirs, Nolting admits candidly that most of his experience in Washington and elsewhere had been concerned with European countries. Yet as a student he had spent several months in Japan and North China, and as an assistant to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, he had heard Premier Pierre Mendès-France’s last desperate plea for U.S. naval and air support in France’s war with the Viet Minh. From that point on, Nolting began to develop a special interest in Indochina. Still, when Secretary of State Christian Herter asked him to serve as ambassador to Laos, Nolting’s chief, Ambassador Warren Randolph Burgess, urged that he remain at NATO.11
Concurrent with Nolting’s growing interest in Southeast Asia, there was a growing realisation in Washington that a crisis was developing in South Vietnam.12 The new U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, and his administration were concerned by the pronounced deterioration in relations between Washington and Saigon that had occurred during the mission of Ambassador Elbridge Durbrow, and U.S. policy was under review at the time of Nolting’s appointment as U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam in April 1961. A task force headed by Roswell L. Gilpatric had been reshaping this policy during the late winter and the early spring of that year.13
Initially, there was continuity in policy between the previous administration (of Dwight D. Eisenhower) and the Kennedy administration. Fundamentally, policy remained the same in that it was designed to assist the GVN in strengthening itself and defending the country.14 In 1961, however, the new Kennedy program for South Vietnam diverged from Eisenhower’s by substantially increasing matériel aid for the ARVN, which was delivered to the various departments and military personnel through the GVN. “The Americans had decided to increase their aid to the Vietnamese, to pay the expenses of another 20,000 men in the army who would be trained in guerrilla warfare, and to add 100 American advisers to the 685 men in the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG).”15 According to Nolting, the Kennedy administration believed that this increase in aid was necessary in order to offset the increasing pressure by the Viet Cong, who were receiving substantial support from Hanoi.16 “By this time Ho Chi Minh was supplying the Viet Cong with training, equipment, strategic advice and even men—perhaps 2000 a year by 1960.”17
Also to restore Washington-Saigon relations, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, his wife, and members of the Kennedy family went to South Vietnam only two days after Nolting had arrived. The vice president was very “forthright” about America’s support of Diem, Nolting said. “He was extremely cordial to President Diem and the members of his family and his government, both publicly and privately. There was a strong joint communiqué issued at the end of that visit which, in effect, underlined the determination of both governments to maintain the independence of South Vietnam.”18
As previously mentioned, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gilpatric had been asked by the president to appraise the situation in South Vietnam and to recommend a series of actions.19 Nevertheless, the deputy secretary had other problems to contend with in proposing a new initiative for South Vietnam. Not least of these problems to be considered was the crisis in Laos, which was a strategic nightmare for the U.S. policy planners. As early as 1957, in meetings with American officials, Diem had pointed out that Laos was going to prove critical to the security of South Vietnam and that the Communist insurgency there had to be countered with firmness and resolve.20 As the soldierly instincts of Eisenhower had discerned, however, Laos was a linchpin: on the one hand, it would secure the Southeast Asian theatre; on the other, it would open it up to assault. The Laotian border not only ran the entire length of North Vietnam and much of the length of South Vietnam but also abutted China, Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia. Kennedy, though not the soldier Eisenhower was, was a formidable politician and recognised that attempting to defend Laos had the makings of political disaster—quite apart from the military concerns that would only be compounded after his Bay of Pigs fiasco.21
As a result of his reluctance to be further involved in a land war in Asia, Kennedy’s political estimation was that Laos would have to be declared neutral. But this presented substantial problems. Neutrality would be extremely embarrassing and perhaps costly for the United States in Southeast Asia, because it would involve abandoning a non-Communist leader, Phoumi Nosavan, who had come to power with the full support and assistance of the United States.22 To abandon Phoumi for a neutralist government would place the Kennedy administration in an excruciatingly awkward position. After neutrality was temporarily imposed upon Laos in 1962, American fickleness toward Phoumi was never fully compensated for by Washington’s attempts to assuage the fears of other Southeast Asian governments, including Diem’s, of being similarly abandoned.23
Kennedy’s government was well aware of its growing lack of credibility amongst its Southeast Asian allies and gave Deputy Secretary Gilpatric a near carte blanche in designing a policy that would restore trust, especially with President Diem.24 Nevertheless, Frederick Nolting did not go to South Vietnam with any preconceived notions that Diem must be supported by the United States. He had heard a number of negative reports about Diem, and these influenced him somewhat; however, he decided to withhold his judgement until he met the man himself.25 Just before taking up his assignment in Saigon, Nolting discussed Diem with various European officials and Vietnamese exiles in Paris, most of whom were stridently against him. The negative opinions abroad seemed to match those at home. Yet Nolting remained concerned that they were having a greater impact on the American policies taking shape than they merited. He was also concerned about the membership of President Kennedy’s special task force on South Vietnam, which was being headed up by a military man who, by his own admission, knew nothing about the country.26 Years later Nolting said, “It was a puzzle to me from the beginning why, in this situation which was more political and economic and social than it was military at that time—it was a puzzle to me why the Task Force was chaired by the Deputy Secretary of Defense rather than by, let’s say, the Undersecretary of State.”27 Puzzled and uncertain, the new ambassador developed a sense of foreboding about his mission before even having arrived in Saigon.28
During Nolting’s second meeting with the task force, as they were drafting recommendations for the ambassador’s mission, Lansdale made them reconsider what they were doing. Essentially, he wanted them to avoid the kind of condescension that had plagued Durbrow’s relations with Diem. He did not want Nolting to meet Diem with introductory letters that insisted the president “be a good boy”.29 Lansdale was the most knowledgeable member of the task force and had even been considered by President Kennedy as the possible ambassador to South Vietnam.30 He expressed a solid faith in Diem and his capabilities, and he had been persuasive in his arguments in favour of increased U.S. support for his government. According to Nolting, Lansdale “did acknowledge that ‘there are a lot of criticisms that can be leveled against this government in South Vietnam, but compared to others in Southeast Asia, it’s a beaut.’ ”31
Yet, despite Lansdale’s expertise,32 there were problems with the approach being taken by the task force, and these were duly noted by the new ambassador. Nolting was particularly concerned with the near-total focus on Vietnam to the exclusion of Laos and Cambodia. He knew that not taking into account the whole theatre was a mistake. Time would tell just how erroneous it was for the American planners to deal with Indochina on a piecemeal basis rather than as a strategic whole.33
William Colby, with his substantial firsthand experience in Vietnam, understood one of the reasons for the lack of broader vision: the ever-increasing DOS and DOD personnel in Saigon who were making decisions more in keeping with their own career advancement than with a clear understanding of Vietnam.34 Colby saw that during the early years of the Diem government, while the Communists were growing in power, another “battlefront” had been forged—between Washington and Saigon. Colby believed that Diem was fully aware of this conflict and deplored it, yet was unable to do anything about it because American attitudes were shaped by so many factors over which he had no control.35 For example, amongst the many Americans in Saigon, there were few who had any experience with the earlier French regime. Neither had they witnessed Diem’s struggle to build an orderly, legitimate government amidst the chaos and gang warfare that ensued as the French withdrew. The solid years that followed French rule were the direct result of Diem’s efforts to create the Republic of South Vietnam from 1954 to 1956, yet most Americans working in Saigon in their air-conditioned offices, listening to the political gossip and intrigue in the cafés, failed to see what Diem had accomplished.36 Their blindness was compounded by the fact that they spent so much time in meetings amongst themselves, which “encouraged the Americans to think of the Diem Government in confrontational terms, the shadowy Viet Cong hardly counting in the balance sheet”.37
In setting up the task force and choosing Nolting as ambassador, the Kennedy’s administration had hoped to ameliorate the conflict with Diem that had been caused by American ignorance and heavy-handedness. The final draft of Gilpatric’s proposals, which was delivered to President Kennedy, made it clear that Nolting’s role as ameliorator had strategic implications for U.S. policy in South Vietnam. Gilpatric warned that there were no alternatives to Diem, and he repeated Lansdale’s warning, almost verbatim, that American success or failure depended heavily on Nolting’s ability to “get on the same wave-length” with him.38
Nolting was given the official mission brief, which was focused on the special understanding that good relations had to be restored with Ngo Dinh Diem. As Nolting explained,
The new element in my instructions was to get this thing on a firm footing, to get a rapport between the two partners, to create confidence in each other’s motives, and to use that confidence to build real advances in social, political and economic matters, as well as in the more military part of the anti-subversion campaign, because it was completely recognized that this whole effort was of a piece, that you couldn’t put down the Viet Cong or pacify the country without a very broad and deep program of winning the people.39
To underscore that the new government in Washington wanted to secure and maintain good relations with President Ngo Dinh Diem, President Kennedy wrote the following words in a personal letter to President Diem: “I wish on the occasion of your second inauguration to offer to you and to the Vietnamese people my personal congratulations and those of the American people. We have watched with sympathy your courageous leadership during your country’s struggle to perfect its independence and its efforts to create a better life for its people. The United States stands firmly with you in this struggle and in these efforts.”40
According to Colby, the U.S. president could not have picked a better man than Nolting to forge a new beginning in America’s relations with South Vietnam. Though Nolting had no real experience with Asia, he readily grasped the complex nature of Washington’s relationship with Saigon. His quiet but steadfast approach had proved invaluable with allies in Europe just after the trauma of World War II, Colby said. Nolting knew the diplomat’s art of influencing a leader as a friend, he added, and he refrained from pressuring heads of allied nations as if they were foes.41 Thus, soon after his arrival in South Vietnam on May 9, 1961, Ambassador Nolting told President Diem that the United States would be a reliable ally. He said that Washington understood the special problems that both he, as president, and his country faced. He assured him that their two governments, working together, would be able to devise a way to defeat the Communist offensive.42
One of Nolting’s first tasks as ambassador was to prepare for the visit of Vice President Johnson and his wife on May 11. The purpose behind Johnson’s visit was many-layered. While on one level it was an excellent photo opportunity for the U.S. government to show its support for Diem’s struggle against Communism, it held a deeper purpose—and according to Nolting, this was not lost on Diem.43 President Kennedy had sent members of his own family, Jean Kennedy and Stephen Smith, to accompany Johnson. This presence was to assure Diem that “the Kennedy administration appreciated strong family ties, and, unlike its predecessor, did not want to divorce Diem from his family [i.e., Ngo Dinh Nhu].”44 By all accounts, Johnson’s visit was a significant diplomatic success that ended with a joint communiqué in which Diem was highly praised by the vice president and was promised an increase in American moral and matériel support. As Nolting recalled, the formal dinner and speeches, coupled with the strength of the communiqué the following day, could not be construed as anything less than the strongest American support for Diem.45
There were rumours, maintained primarily by American journalists who did not like Diem or what he represented, that Johnson waxed eloquent about Diem merely because he was the “only boy” America had in South Vietnam. But Johnson expressed admiration for Diem and consistently advised against any moves to remove him from office.46 In his written report of his visit to Southeast Asia, the vice president wrote that South Vietnam was a lot more stable than the American media were suggesting. He noted that there was an obsession with security amongst many of the American mission personnel in Vietnam, which was creating the impression that the country was about to disintegrate. American officials were relying too much on the opinions of disgruntled Vietnamese intellectuals, Johnson said, and panic on Washington’s part would only make matters worse. He said the destabilisation of the country would occur only if Diem were assassinated by the Communists or thrown out of power by a coup. Johnson concluded his report by stating that there was no other realistic alternative to Diem and that there was no question of Diem’s will and capability to resist the insurgents.
For his part, Diem was impressed by the vice president’s warm and friendly manner. After Johnson’s visit, however, the South Vietnamese leader warned Ambassador Nolting that “there are profound differences between the Vietnamese and American people, in customs, outlook, political training, and philosophy. I hope we can find a bridge between Eastern and Western cultures.”47
Throughout the early days of his mission, Nolting diligently investigated what had been going on between the Americans and the Vietnamese. He conducted interviews and meetings with diplomatic colleagues and representatives of the numerous U.S. government agencies in Saigon. As a consequence, Nolting determined that many Americans there, particularly DOS officials, were dissatisfied with Diem’s govern-ment.48 Joseph Mendenhall, the embassy’s counsellor for political affairs, expressed serious doubts about the abilities of Diem and his government to bring peace to South Vietnam or to help its people.49 Immediately upon returning to the United States, Mendenhall wrote a critique of Diem and the GVN. In a thesis at the National War College, he stated that a military regime would serve South Vietnam best. While Mendenhall did not recommend a coup, Nolting said, “the government he envisioned was like the one that succeeded the Diem government after the 1963 overthrow.” John Anspacher, counsellor for public affairs, and Arthur Gardiner, counsellor for economic affairs, also were critical of the GVN. Gardiner, Nolting noted, was more discouraged by than antagonistic toward Diem.50
In spite of the fellow diplomats who were negative about Diem, the ambassador noticed that those who were actively gathering intelligence in the field were positive about U.S. efforts in Vietnam. Not least to be considered amongst these individuals was the calm and competent CIA station chief William Colby. Cautious optimism also came from MAAG, headed by Lieutenant Lionel McGarr. The advisory effort was independent from the embassy yet was required to work closely with it. Nolting recalled that McGarr had a difficult and demanding soldier-diplomat role, and as such, he was obviously under instructions from Washington to keep Diem from interfering in military operations while at the same time not annoying the Vietnamese president.51 Regardless of the occasional clashes between McGarr and Diem, there was a mutual respect between them.
In addition to studying the American side of the equation, Ambassador Nolting also studied Diem and his government. He recognised, almost from the very beginning of his posting, that the way to improve relations with Diem was to allow him to be independent of American direction. Perhaps, more importantly—at least in the context of the contest between Diem’s nationalist credentials and those of Ho Chi Minh—it was crucial that Diem appear to be independent. Diem and his brother Nhu were highly sensitive to the accusation made by the Communists that they were the lackeys of the neocolonialist Americans. For example, early Communist propaganda linked Diem with Eisenhower’s secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. Indeed, Australian sympathiser with the Communist cause Wilfred G. Burchett endorsed this linkage in much of his written work on the subject.52 The Viet Cong assertion that the South Vietnamese government was “My-Diem” (American-Diemist) was particularly galling to the patriotic Ngo Dinh brothers. The unflattering characterization was more than a personal affront; it was at the very heart of the Communist misinformation campaign against the government of South Vietnam.53 Nolting was aware of the persuasive power of Communist propaganda, of its capacity to make Diem’s government appear far more inept or corrupt than it actually was while making Ho Chi Minh’s look righteous. Meanwhile, the Communists had a much easier task than Diem, for as author Weldon A. Brown noted: “We built; the Vietcong destroyed.”54
Seeing the important reasons to cut Diem more slack, Nolting overcame his previous foreboding and came to embrace the Kennedy directives for his mission, which had been endorsed by the presidential task force. He did so not for the sake of being “with the program”. Instead, his full-fledged support for Diem had come about through his own observations of the Vietnamese leader’s qualities and abilities, not least of which were integrity and dedication. Diem was inept when it came to public relations, especially with the American press, said Nolting, but his attempts to work with the Americans to the degree he was able were as genuine as his efforts to defeat the Communists.55 Nolting also believed that the U.S. effort in South Vietnam would add substantial credibility to other American assistance programs for beleaguered countries elsewhere. This credibility, however, would hinge on American restraint, wisdom, and consideration regarding Ngo Dinh Diem and his government.
After being in Saigon for approximately three months, Nolting sent a telegram to DOS expressing his understating of the situation in Vietnam. Diem was not a dictator who relished power for its own sake, Nolting said. In fact, Diem was almost monk-like in his dedication to high principles and as such not a typical politician who enjoyed the exercise of power and its privileges. His philosophy was sound and compatible with American interests, although a little over the heads of most Vietnamese, and his objectives were reasonable. Therefore, there was nothing to prevent the Kennedy administration from “backing Diem to the hilt”.56
Nolting’s telegram continued that Diem was confident that he could govern South Vietnam better and more equitably than any other possible candidate. Nolting concurred with Diem’s self-assessment but feared that because the leader was so exemplary and quite irreplaceable, he would prove to be a weakness for South Vietnam and U.S. involvement there. In short, he was vulnerable to both Communist and non-Communist enemies.57
The ambassador’s telegram also stated that in places where Washington thought Diem was wrong, the Americans could gradually bring about changes and improvements so long as they maintained Diem’s trust. In the classified section of his report, Nolting said that Diem’s confidence in the United States had improved in recent months despite the negative developments in Laos. Actions of substance were backing up American assurances, and these were starting to win over political fence-sitters to the GVN side. There was, however, a tricky and negative aspect to this improved relationship: it seemed to validate the “My-Diem” image. Diem worried that if the Communists convinced his people that his government stood or fell because of the Americans, his political legitimacy would be increasingly challenged. Thus, Nolting warned Washington that there had to be a subtlety of execution in its support of Diem.58
Diem’s popularity amongst the Vietnamese had not increased much in spite of what he had accomplished, Nolting wrote. There was a widespread misconception that the leader had little interest in the welfare of the common people and was indifferent to their problems. This view was completely at odds with the man, his interests, and his actions, added Nolting, who had accompanied Diem on his many trips into rural Vietnam, where the Vietnamese leader seemed to be most at ease. His interest and expertise in farming, fishing, and all manner of practical things proved that the picture of him as an aloof mandarin was utterly false. Yet this false picture, manufactured by his enemies, was spreading in the news media, and it was hurting Diem and his administration. Nolting warned that Diem could not afford to allow the slander to drag on indefinitely, or he would suffer from another coup attempt or worse. He said Diem had to make a public relations “breakthrough”.59
The ever-watchful William Colby kept a steady eye on how Nolting conducted his diplomatic mission. The CIA station chief noted that the new U.S. ambassador, unlike his predecessor, grew close to both the Vietnamese leadership and its opposition. Just as importantly, Nolting spent a considerable amount of time and effort attempting to understand the ordinary Vietnamese in both the city of Saigon and the countryside. He was not naïve about the cruel realities of Vietnam and certainly did not view Diem’s government as a model of democracy. Yet he recognised the political necessity of Diem’s mandarin-style leadership in the face of a violent Communist insurgency.60
According to Colby, Nolting was one of the few Americans who understood that the war for Vietnam was not like that fought in Korea—a conventional soldier’s war. The ambassador discerned from his earliest days in Saigon that the main battles were political and needed to be won in the villages. The key to winning over the Vietnamese villagers was not Western-style democracy, which was an alien concept in Southeast Asia. Thus, Nolting understood, the leaders of South Vietnam could not be expected to “do our will, as Americans are wont to expect foreigners to do in every possible circumstance; they had to assert their nationalism if they were to contest the nationalist appeal that the enemy was offering to the population.”61