NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
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which his judgment indicated was necessary. On April 28 he was forced take matters into his own hands despite third successive request delivered in Cannes on April 28 after shooting had already started. In his opinion if he had acted last week hundreds of lives would have deen saved. If U.S. was really neutral in matter it must take steps to avoid giving opposite impression he added. Moreover, if U.S. did not wish to stand by and watch state of civil war established in Vietnam, which would last until Vietminh won complete control, we must help in bringing an end to that civil war. Way to do this is to influence Diem to lay down arms and come to France to consult with other Vietnamese anti-Communist nationalists. Moment he does, opposite side will lay down their arms, he claimed.
8. Bao Dai alleged that resistance to Diem is so universal in Vietnam that support of Diem was serving discredit U.S. in eyes of Vietnamese people. Diem will undoubtedly succeed i̇n driving sects out of Saigon or at least in suppressing military forces there but they will simply go to provinces where Diem has no control.
9. In Bao Dai's opinion Diem has now become a psychopath who wishes to martyrize himself even at price of thousands of lives and national treasury. He enjoys thought that his life is danger and would welcome martyrdom which is indeed what he will get, said Bao Dai, for feeling is so intense against him that someone is bound to assassinate him in near future persists in trying to establish is rule by force "with the support of no one but his own family and the U.S.", Bao Dai said.
10. Bao Dai spoke of Diem's role as a catholic, stating that latter regarded his task as leading a holy war. Instead of doing that, he had, turned Vietnamese against catholicism. Bao Dai said his wife's own family had been catholic for generations and now reported it was unsafe to go outside Saigon
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