PERSONS/ENTITIES: LODGE, AMBASSADOR
DATES: Aug. 7, 1963
CATEGORIES: DIEM
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OCCURRENCE: During an interview by Higgins with DIEM on August 7, 1963 "...Diem sent an aide for document, which I later deduced to be a memorandum of a recent conversation with an American official."

"Your ambassador," Diem resumed, "comes and tells me that it enhances my posture of the liberal image to permit demonstrations in the street by the Buddhists and the political opposition...I cannot seem to convince the embassy that this is Viet Nam--not the United States of America. We have had good reason to ban street demonstrations in the middle of a war, and the reason is that the Viet Cong are everywhere...what would happen if the Viet Cong should infiltrate the demonstration here in Saigon, toss a bomb, kills dozens of persons, including some American press? What would 'liberal opinion' say of me then? Would they believe my government when it said that the Viet Cong were responsible for the killings because only the Communists could profit from such an event? Consider what happened at Hue. These plastic bombs were throw by the Viet Cong...but whom did the Americans blame? They blamed me--the President of Viet Nam--and the Vietnamese Army. Would they be any more charitable next time? This is not child's play; I am not inventing Viet Cong terror. Yet when I try to protect the people of this country--including the Americans--by good police work keeping control in the streets, I am accused of persecuting the Buddhists!"

SOURCE: Our Viet Nam Nightmare, Higgins, Harper and Row, 1965
STAFF: Dawson, R.
DATE: July 2, 1975
FILE:

PERSONS/ENTITIES: DIEM
DATES:
CATEGORIES:
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OCCURRENCE: (continuation)

SOURCE: Our Viet Nam Nightmare, Higgins, Harper and Row, 1965
STAFF: Dawson, R.
DATE: July 2, 1975
FILE: