The Latecomer

INDOCHINA

The new Vietnamese Prime Minister emerged from his drab Paris hotel one day last week, and took the subway across town. At the Palais d'Orsay he went up to his new government offices (a second-floor hotel room), where he started dictating memoranda to his executive' secretary (a part-time animated-cartoon artist). All day the Prime Minister greeted diplomats, newspapermen and Vietnamese well-wishers in courtly turmoil, now and then lapsing into deep meditation and silence.

Long past midnight, he returned to his own hotel room, with its single bed and footlocker, its view of an outside wall not five feet away.

"He's very austere," one of the Prime Minister's aides explained, "and he'd be impossible to work for if you didn't like him. If you believe in him--you'll do anything." This was the new leader the Vietnamese had waited for. Had he come too late?

"Equilibrium of Force." Vietnamese governments had long been mismanaged by playboys or led around by the French.

Patriots had longed for one strong, honest man to come home and save them--and last week in Paris it was that man, Ngo Dinh Diem, who was setting the new, frugal tone and the pace.

His remedies were sharp and uncompromising: he demanded complete independence; he would not tolerate partition --the avowed objective of the French and the British at Geneva; he would not agree to free elections until a much stronger Vietnamese army could establish "an equilibrium of force." After that, he said, "the people can decide."

The hour for Viet Nam was late. "His mission is a pathetic one," Diem's chief of staff admitted. "Everyone thinks the cause is lost." But if there could be a rallying, Diem had unusual assets: the Asian fame of an ascetic, the ardor of an incorruptible nationalist, a record of stubborn noncollaboration with the Communists and the French.

Doctrinal Opposition. Ngo Dinh Diem (pronounced no-din-zim), a young-looking 53, was the son of a grand chamberlain of the Annamite court. Earnest, dedicated, a devout Roman Catholic, Diem graduated top of his class in Viet Nam's School of Administration, worked his way through the French-run Vietnamese civil service, and was appointed Interior Minister at 32, in one of France's early "Vietnamese nationalist governments." But Diem resigned two months later, decrying French hypocrisy and bumble, vowing to lead an ascetic life in doctrinal opposition to the colonial power.

During World War II Diem had dealings with Frenchmen. Japanese and other Vietnamese nationalists, but he joined none of them. In January 1946 he refused to join the puppet regime of Communist Ho Chi Minh. stoutly averring that he would no more cooperate with Communists than with the French. (A few months later, the Communists murdered one of Diem's five brothers, reportedly by burying him alive.) In August 1949 Diem also refused to join the Vietnamese government of Bao Dai, insisting upon complete independence for Viet Nam and a free hand for himself. "He must have his own way always," said one of his associates. And a second Vietnamese added: "He is a narrow man."

Undisclosed Terms. In October 1950 Diem went into exile. He visited Japan, Europe and the U.S., where he called on Cardinal Spellman, lived for a while at the Maryknoll seminary in Lakewood, N.J., and turned down four offers of the prime ministry from Viet Nam. In May 1953 Diem entered a Benedictine monastery in Belgium, where he was considered an oblate, or lay member. He left four months ago. Last week, sensing that the French were in eclipse, Diem decided at last to accept the prime ministry.

What were Latecomer Diem's chances of saving his country? Said a French official in Paris: "He'll soon be crying to us to save him." Said a Vietnamese priest in the U.S.: "He's the most likely man to bring our nation together." There were many who remembered the warning of Red General Giap: "There are only two real leaders in Viet Nam. One is Ho Chi Minh. The second is Ngo Dinh Diem. There is no room in the country for both."

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