New Delhi, India
November 28, 1961

Dear Mr. President:

You will already have had sundry more official communications from me on South Vietnam. This is by way of giving you something of the informal flavor and color of the local scene.

It is certainly a can of snakes. I am reasonably accustomed to oriental government and politics, but I was not quite prepared for Diem. As you will doubtless be warned, whenever anyone reaches an inconvenient conclusion on this country, he has been duped. My view is derived neither from the Indians nor the Saigon intellectuals but my personal capacity for error. One of the proposals which I am told was made to Max Taylor provides an interesting clue to our man. (Diem) It was that a helicopter be provided to pluck him out of his palace and take him directly to the airport. This is because his surface travel through Saigon requires the taking in of all laundry along the route, the closing of all windows, an order to the populace to keep their heads in, the clearing of all streets, and a vast bevy of motorcycle outriders to protect him on his dash. Every trip to the airport requires such arrangements and it is felt that a chopper would make him seem more democratic. Incidentally, if Diem leaves town for a day, all members of his cabinet are required to see him off and welcome him back although this involves less damage to efficiency than might be supposed.

The political reality is the total stasis which arises from his greater need to protect himself from a coup than to protect the country from the Vietcong. I am quite clear that the absence of intelligence, the centralization of Army control, the incredible dual role of the provincial governors as Army generals and political administrators, the subservient incompetence of the latter, are all related to his fear of being given the heave.

The desire to prolong one's days in office has a certain consistency the world around and someday somebody should explain this to the State Department with pictures. I would love to have come up with the conclusion that our man would be reformed and made into an effective military and political force. It would have given me similar hopes for ... [some people nearer home].

Saigon has a curious aspect. It is a rather shabby version of a French provincial city -- say, Toulouse, as I remember it. Life proceeds normally and it has the most stylish women in all Asia. They are all tall with long legs, high breasts and wear white silk pajamas and a white silk robe, split at the sides to the armpits to give the effect of a flat panel fore and aft. On a bicycle or scooter they look very compelling and one is reminded once again that an ambassadorship is the greatest inducement to celibacy since the chastity belt. Restaurants, nightclubs and hotels flourish as they seem always to do in cities in extremis. Yet one moves around with an armed guard and a group of gunmen following in a car behind. The morale of the Americans seems to be rather good although I wonder a little bit about our technical assistance program. The people assigned to the country are confined almost exclusively to Saigon since travel has become too dangerous. I can't imagine that the agriculturists, for example, are of much value under these circumstances. The Ambassador there, a decent man who is trying to obey orders, has been treated abominably by the State Department. He first heard of Max's (General Taylor) mission on the radio. He had no chance to comment on the orders resulting therefrom. I would reluctantly tell you who is responsible for this management were steps taken to overcome my natural grace and charity.

I liked both your Seattle and Los Angeles speeches. People were rather waiting for a word against wild men and even here I heard quite a number of relieved comments. It is necessary, as I think I argued once before, to nail these people as dangerous and warlike and once this has been done they wither rapidly. In the past they have had it both ways. They could appeal to the heroic stance so beloved by our countrymen and at the same time say that theirs was the path to peace.

Incidentally, I would urge that the radical right be kept in perspective. I have a feeling that at any given time about three million Americans can be had for any militant reaction against law, decency, the Constitution, the Supreme Court, compassion and the rule of reason. They will follow Huey Long, Bill Lemke, Gerald L. K. Smith, Father Coughlin, Fritz Kuhn, Joe McCarthy... depending entirely on who is leading at the moment. A particularly able demagogue or an especially serious mood of national frustration, such as that of the Korean War with its help to Joe McC., will increase the ceiling on this Christian army. Tranquillity or the availability only of some road company demagogue like Gerald Smith will reduce the numbers. But this fringe is an inescapable aspect of our polity. The singular feature of liberals is their ability to become aroused over each new threat as though it were the first. Perhaps this is good for it becomes the countervailing force. In my view, however, the Birchers, being rather more improbable than most reactionary rally points of recent times, should perhaps be kept and encouraged....

Yours faithfully,
John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: Galbraith, John Kenneth. Ambassador's Journal.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969. pp. 266 - 268.