Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
Whatever Bao Dai's response — probably polite and obscure — he did not act on the U.S. advice. He subsequently told Dr. Phan Quang Dan, aboard his imperial yacht, that his successive governments had been of little use, and added that it would be dangerous to expand the Vietnamese Army because it might defect en masse and go to the Viet Minh.
- "I could not inspire the troops with the necessary enthusiasm and fighting spirit, nor could Prime Minister Huu... Even if we had an able man, the present political conditions would make it impossible for him to convince the people and the troops that they have something worth while to fight for..."36
Dr. Dan agreed that the effectiveness of the National Army was a central issue; he pointed out that there were but three Viet generals, none of whom had ever held operational command, and neither they nor the 20 colonels or lieutenant colonels could exercise initiative of any sort. Dr. Dan held that: "The Vietnamese Army is without responsible Vietnamese leaders, without ideology, without objective, without enthusiasm, without fighting spirit, and without popular backing."37 But it was very clear that Bao Dai did not propose to alter the conditions of his army except by the long, slow process of "nibbling" at French military prerogative. On other vital issues Bao Dai was no more aggressive. For all practical purposes, the Emperor, in his own fashion, like Dr. Dan and Ngo Dinh Diem, assumed the posture of the attentiste — a spectator as the French and Americans tested their strength against each other, and against the Viet Minh.
- f. The American Predicament
Among the American leaders who understood the vacuity of the Bao Dai solution, and recognized the pitfalls in French intransigence on genuine independence was the then Senator John F. Kennedy. Kennedy visited Vietnam in 1951 and evidently weighed Gullion's views heavily. In November, 1951, Kennedy declared that:
- "In Indochina we have allied ourselves to the desperate effort of the French regime to hang on to the remnants of an empire. There is no broad general support of the native Vietnam Government among the people of that area."38
In a speech to the U.S. Senate in June, 1953, he pointed out that:
- "Genuine independence as we understand it is lacking in Indochina ... local government is circumscribed in its functions ... the government of Vietnam, the state which is of the greatest importance in this area, lacks popular support, that the degree of military, civil, political, and economic control maintained by the French goes well beyond what is necessary to fight a war... It is because we want the war to be brought to a successful conclusion that we should insist
