SAIGON
AMBASSADOR HENRY CABOT LODGE PRESENTED a profile in perfidy between August 26 and November 2, 1963, a perfect example of treachery in pursuit of diplomatic goals. With President Kennedy’s approval, Lodge on August 25 gave the green light to a band of generals willing to overthrow Ngo Dinh Diem. Lodge had been in the country only four days. “They were asking me to overthrow a government I hadn’t even presented my credentials to,” Lodge said.
The very next day, Lodge and Diem would come face-to-face. Lodge was rattled. As he prepared to present his credentials to the president of South Vietnam, he ordered General Paul Harkins, the U.S. military commander in Saigon, to stay away from the Gia Long Palace ceremony August 26. “In case they try something funny,” Lodge told Harkins. American treachery might result in Vietnamese treachery. Since his arrival in Saigon, Lodge was the target of a stream of death threats intercepted by the Central Intelligence Agency station. His worry increased the closer he got to the coup d’etat that Kennedy approved on August 24. Lodge kept a pistol on his desk and carried a hidden .357 Magnum when traveling outside the embassy.
Impeccable as usual, Lodge had decorated his blazing white sharkskin with his army medals. This man with the bluest of American blood—a soldier and a statesman from the top rank of U.S. politics—bowed to Diem as etiquette demanded. Even bent at the waist, the six-foot-two Lodge seemed taller than the five-foot-four Diem. To Diem, Lodge was the sixth emissary from the president of the United States. This one, he was pretty sure, carried a knife. Agents for Diem—and for Hanoi—were sprinkled throughout the U.S. mission in Saigon. What Diem had learned of Lodge’s secret schemes became clearer when the two men met in the afternoon following the presentation ceremony.
Their meeting was similar to a World Wrestling Entertainment match, with both men grappling for the advantage. Lodge struck first, keeping Diem from launching into one of his celebrated monologues. Once Lodge gained the floor, he tried to put Diem on the defensive. The opening gambit was aimed at Diem’s sister-in-law Madam Ngo Dinh Nhu. “It was interesting to me,” Lodge told Diem, “that people whom I had known all my life in politics thought that Madame Nhu was chief of state of Vietnam. I had met several people in Massachusetts who had seen her picture on the covers of magazines and read some of her statements about barbecuing the priests and the total destruction of the Buddhists and that this had shocked public opinion.” Diem replied that he had done his best to get Madame Nhu to keep quiet, including displacing her as First Lady at the palace. “He said jokingly that he had even threatened to take a wife,” Lodge said. Diem noted that Madame Nhu was also a member of the National Assembly and had the right to make public speeches. Lodge would never meet her. She would soon be in exile, a noisy foray abroad that meant her lacquered nails would sink deeper beneath the skin of the American president.
Their tête-tà-tête was in French. Lodge had studied in Paris and became fluent while a U.S. Army liaison with the French during World War II. Diem got his French from serving in the French colonial government. As he spoke, Diem pulled one cigarette after another from a tin of Phillip Morris, lit it, took one puff, and then stubbed it out. Servants quietly replaced full ashtrays with empty ones. Each man had a teapot next to his armchair. The servants would refill Lodge’s cup. “That tea in front of me contained a diuretic which created an irresistible urge to do that thing which nobody else can do for you,” Lodge said. Any doctor would explain that tea contains a natural diuretic. As Lodge squirmed, Diem held forth.
Diem had been through these sessions with Lodge’s predecessors, who all pressed him to install some version of American democracy. To him, these diplomats failed to comprehend the Saigon government’s struggle with the outside enemy—Hanoi and the Viet Cong—and its internal opponents. They ignored the popular approval outside of Saigon for Diem’s honesty, dedication, and celibacy, and the economic vitality that Diem had fostered for nine years. “They think this is New York City,” he complained to John Osborne of Life magazine. For Marguerite Higgins of the New York Herald Tribune, he imitated the emissaries wagging a finger in his face. Inevitably, the dialogue of American demands was turned aside with Diem’s recurring proclamation of independence.
“Je ne suis pas une marionnette,” Diem said. “Je pas serveur.” I am not a puppet. I will not serve. Diem would reserve these words for one of his last meetings with Lodge. In this first meeting, he indicated his disapproval with facial expressions. The increasingly uncomfortable Lodge finally inserted Kennedy’s chief request: Was it possible for brother Nhu to leave Saigon, at least until the end of the year? Diem’s face clouded over. He looked at the ceiling. He rambled on about a different subject. Diem had been hearing this demand about Nhu from U.S. ambassadors for years. “He wouldn’t talk about it,” Lodge said. “It gave me a little jolt. I thought it was deplorable that he wouldn’t answer questions I was bringing from the president of the United States.”
With his bladder near bursting after two hours, Lodge apologized and announced he must leave, but not before Diem delivered a parting shot. According to Lodge, Diem “hoped there would be discipline, particularly as regards the U.S. activities in Saigon, and there would be an end to reports of diverse activities interfering in Vietnamese affairs by various U.S. agencies.” In diplomatic terms, Diem was delivering a punch in the nose. He had Lodge’s number. Diem knew Lodge was already plotting a coup with army insurgents through CIA agents. Still, Lodge remained composed as he withdrew from the hot and stuffy palace.
Lodge might have wondered if the leaks to the palace came from John Richardson’s CIA station in Saigon. He was unhappy with Richardson’s refusal to submit to the ambassador’s role as proconsul in Saigon. In his unpublished memoir, he grumbled that the CIA station “has more money, bigger houses … bigger salaries, more weapons, more modern equipment.” Lodge’s first confrontation with Richardson came when agent Conein carried to Richardson a top secret document from the Pentagon to General Harkins. Lodge walked in on the meeting and demanded Richardson hand over the document. In a menacing tone, Lodge said he would not tolerate private communications between the embassy and Washington. When Washington Daily News columnist Richard Starnes visited Lodge while on a Saigon trip, he picked up an important scoop. “Spooks Make Life Miserable for Ambassador Lodge,” read the headline on Starnes’s report concerning CIA arrogance, obstinate disregard of orders, and “an unrestrained thirst for power.” Soon Richardson was on his way home. Lodge eventually seized Richardson’s house and car, which was newer and larger than the one provided to the ambassador. The flap required the president to clarify the issue at a press conference where he praised Richardson’s service.
Shortly after his arrival in Saigon, Lodge lectured John Mecklin, his chief of public affairs. He, not Mecklin, would control the flow of news to the top journalists. Leaking to newsmen was the ambassador’s prerogative, Lodge said. Lodge’s treatment of Richardson left an indelible impression in the minds of the remaining CIA operatives. “When Ambassador Lodge came to Saigon, he let everybody know who was in charge,” Conein said. “He was the boss and you better execute his orders without hesitation or murmuring or you were out.”
At the White House, Kennedy began to wonder if Lodge’s leash was too long. “A very economic investment,” McGeorge Bundy told Kennedy. In addition to being ambassador, Lodge took charge of intelligence functions and press relations.
Dunn, Lodge’s deputy, sensed unhappiness at the embassy that got worse under Lodge. Lodge rarely called the U.S. missions together for “country team” meetings, a standard procedure at most American embassies. “There was an aura of distrust that absolutely dominated the entire effort from top to bottom,” Dunn said. He was growing suspect of agent Conein’s reports on the progress of the generals’ coup. An August 27 report by Conein quoted the generals as executing the coup within seven days. “Conein had given so many false starts,” Dunn said. Conein would say, “They are ready to move.” “Move where, with what?” Dunn demanded. “Give me something hard. What specifically was said?”
Lodge found himself “pushing a plate of spaghetti.” To Lodge it was all a disappointment. “Too much inertia and timidity among the generals,” he wrote in his Vietnam memoir. “Days pass and nothing happens,” he cabled Washington.