INDO-CHINA: Every Possible Aid

INDOCHINA

Silver-haired General J. Lawton Collins, 58, knew that Indo-China was the graveyard of military reputations. In Saigon, at President Eisenhower’s behest, to determine whether the demoralized free half of Viet Nam could be saved from the Communists, Collins resisted a newsman’s commiserations. “I’ve already had one military career,” he said unworriedly.

“Lightning Joe” Collins got off to a remarkably confident start. “I have come out to Indo-China,” he told a press conference, “to take measures to save this region from Communism. I have come to bring every possible aid to the government of Ngo Dinh Diem and to his government only . . .” Collins was politely telling French and Vietnamese intriguers that Diem, for all his weaknesses, was America’s man, and that they had better get behind Diem if they wanted U.S. sympathy or assistance. The Vietnamese national army, he indicated, must give up any thought of a coup d’état against Diem. At week’s end Diem’s mutinous chief of staff, Nguyen Van Hinh, packed his bags and moved off to Paris for “consultations.”

General Collins next proclaimed that the U.S. intended to “assume basic responsibility” for training the 250,000-man Vietnamese army, in the style of Greece and Korea, where “American training methods proved to be efficient.” The program would be supervised by French Commissioner General Paul Ely, an old Collins friend, but “90% of the equipment will be American, [and] French instructors will have to work as closely as possible with American personnel.”

Collins’ forthright declaration at once set off characteristic trepidations in Saigon, Paris and Washington. Saigon’s Journal d’Extrème Orient tartly reminded Collins that “the French government will not accept the least disposition to contradict the Geneva agreements.” But Collins was not intending to violate Geneva: the U.S. had only 340 men in Indo-China, and these would operate the new training program with officers and noncoms from the 150,000-man French Expeditionary Corps; there would be no military buildup from outside.

On their side of the 17th parallel, the Viet Minh Communists were violating Geneva at will. French and U.S. military intelligence confirmed last week that the Viet Minh has equipped two new armored divisions, despite the pledge by both sides that they would not reinforce their armies in Indo-China.