Behind the Denials

The first public reaction of the U.S. Government to news of the coup in South Viet Nam (see cover story) was to throw up its hands and disclaim any sort of responsibility.

The whole bloody affair, insisted Washington officials, had been planned and carried out by the outraged Vietnamese subjects of President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu. Declared State Department Press Officer Richard Phillips: "I can categorically state that the U.S. Government was not involved in any way." Said an other Administration official about the Vietnamese: "It's their country, their war, and this is their uprising."

The Pressures. These denials were misleading. At week's end, amid the confusions of the Saigon coup, it was still unclear as to the extent to which the U.S., through its military or intelligence forces in South Viet Nam, had actively assisted in the uprising. But there could be no question that the U.S., in the policies and in the pressures it brought to bear, had effectively encouraged the overthrow of the Diem regime. Only a few weeks ago President Kennedy, appearing on a television interview with C.B.S.'s Walter Cronkite, argued that the winning of the war against the Communist Viet Cong would probably require "changes in policy, and perhaps in personnel" in the Diem government. Along about that time there was much talk in Saigon and Washington about a U.S.-backed takeover by Vietnamese military leaders. Then the coup chatter seemed to quiet down--which may have been a sign that a coup was in the making.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Maxwell Taylor flew to Viet Nam, reported back (at least for public consumption) that despite the shortcomings of the Diem regime, the war against the Communists was still being won. As it happens, Taylor is an old tennis-playing acquaintance of Vietnamese Lieut. General Duong Van Minh--who last week headed the junta that took power.

During that same period, the U.S. stepped up its economic pressure against the Diem regime, suspending a $10-million-a-month commercial import program, reducing sales of U.S. surplus commodities that ran to $2,000,000 a month, cutting off part of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's $350,000 in monthly payments to the Vietnamese Special Forces, and stopping funds used to finance Ngo Dinh Nhu's secret police.

All this could, of course, be only an invitation to overthrow. And despite the earlier denials, Administration officials seemed satisfied about the fact that U.S. policies had helped bring an end to the Diem regime. As for the aura of total surprise that Washington sought to set up, its validity was best expressed by a U.S. official: "Hell, there's been so much advance knowledge we can't possibly imagine why the Diem government didn't know, too." Perhaps it did--but was unable to do much about it.

The Investment. The U.S. has a longstanding investment, both in money and blood, in the fate of Viet Nam. It would, therefore, be preposterous to propose that the U.S. should have no interest in the makeup and effectiveness of the Vietnamese government.

But even with that fact taken into consideration, there remained considerable doubt that the U.S.-encouraged coup would actually achieve what it was intended to. One major charge against the Diem regime was that it was not democratic enough to win and hold the support of the Vietnamese populace. There is certainly no assurance that a military junta will be any more democratic. Indeed, in some broader areas of policy, the U.S. appears to have painted itself into a corner. Recently the U.S., in protesting coups in such Latin American countries as Peru, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, has said that it flatly opposes military takeovers of legally chosen governments. That policy is pretty hard to square with the accession to power of General Minh--and the U.S.'s apparent great haste to extend recognition to his government.

In the last analysis, though, the success or failure of U.S. policy toward South Viet Nam will have to be judged on pragmatic grounds. The aim of that policy is to speed a successful end to the war against the Communists. To achieve that, the U.S. is now clearly committed to back General Minh with even more American money and, if necessary, even more American lives. If it works, if Minh does manage better than Diem, if the war's pace is indeed stepped up, and if the U.S. is thereby enabled to pull out of Viet Nam sooner, then the policy will be a triumph. But these are a lot of ifs. And if they turn sour, the outcome could affect the cold war balance and U.S. political life for a long while to come.

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