Senator MORSE. And we have to be prepared for and expect an increasing number of casualties, don't we?

Mr. NOLTING. I think that is true.

PUBLIC SUPPORT OF AMERICAN SACRIFICES IN VIETNAM

Senator MORSE. Now you have testified, as I understood youand if not, correct the record or my understanding-that the other countries are not supplying military personnel. They are supplying technical assistance and economic assistance and materiel, but not blood.

You know the reaction in France. It got to the point where the French people would no longer support a policy that cost that much French blood. Do you think, as a matter of American policy, with an increasing number of flag-draped coffins coming back to our shores, that the American people are going to continue to be willing to make that sacrifice of American blood with no corresponding sacrifice on the part of the British and the French and the other countries that claim to be our allies?

Mr. NOLTING. I am sure you are a better judge of American public opinion than I am. My own judgment would be that the number of American casualties to be expected would be sustained by public opinion at home under the circumstances that you describe.

Senator MORSE. I just want to be one voice of dissent in this discussion. I just want to go on record as saying that, in my judgment, if you make this a unilateral American military action, you will be surprised how quickly American public opinion will leave you in regard to the sacrifice of American boys in Southeast Asia, because you will find a very strong feeling developing that we don't intend to take on the French burden or make the same mistake that the French made.

THE FORCE AND EFFECT OF PROPAGANDA

I have never seen it until 10 minutes ago, but what the staff has handed me, and I thought you ought to have an opportunity to reply to it—not now, but later to this committee-is what obviously is a propaganda document called "White Paper on Diem's Regime,' published by the Free Democratic Party in Vietnam.

I have just scanned it, and I think I can recognize propaganda when I see it, but I also recognize the force and effect of propaganda, too. This is a pretty devastating attack on the administration that we are supporting in South Vietnam.

Senator SPARKMAN. Will the Senator yield a second?

Senator MORSE. I want to know whether or not the State Department is preparing, for the use of the committee and the country, an answer to this.

Senator SPARKMAN. I really meant to ask him if he knew anything about that organization. I believe they are headquartered in Paris.

Senator MORSE. I don't know where they are. I have just scanned it. I don't know whether this is Communist propaganda or not, but it certainly has a good many of the colorings.

My point is that this stuff is abroad, and just taking the headings-"Opposition Silence," "Concentration Camps," "Election Invalid," "Cynical Hypocrisy," "Control of the Press," "Terrorism”this is a devastating propaganda sheet against the very government that we claim to be supporting. You have to have an answer to it.

It will do us some good to say we think this is vital to Southeast Asia. But my answer is, "sell it to the American people when the coffins start coming home."

VIETNAMESE DISSENTERS

Mr. NOLTING. If I may comment on that, I am very familiar with those publications. They come out frequently. I was devastated by them before leaving my last post, Paris, before going to Vietnam. I know or have met some of the dissidents, both in Vietnam and abroad. The majority of them are, for one reason or another, expatriate. They are abroad.

You asked whether they were Communists or not. I think the majority of them are not. They are very bitter. They pour out a great deal of that. It is very damaging to our joint enterprise in Vietnam.

I wish something could be done about it. I would certainly like to see prepared a counter to that, and would be willing to participate in the preparation.

Senator MORSE. I think it is important.

Mr. NOLTING. This is one of the major things which makes our operation so difficult, the fact that the South Vietnamese people are not unified behind the government. Every opportunity I have to talk to one of them, I ask him what he is doing for his country in a critical situation, and I find that the majority are so embittered that they are doing nothing except tearing down; tearing down, what is more important, the support that other nations might give South Vietnam. This is a grave problem and makes it very difficult.

Senator MORSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator LAUSCHE. Senator Hickenlooper.

RUMORS OF CORRUPTION

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Mr. Ambassador, you are familiar, of course, with the continued rumors of massive corruption in South Vietnam in connection with the family of the President; at least, that is, some of his relatives and others close to the government. You can answer this on the record or off the record; I don't care which.

Have you gone into that subject? If you have, what have you found about the verification of these so-called rumors of mass corruptions? I am not talking about taking a box of cigars or $3 for getting somebody an office. I think maybe that is Southeast Asian procedure, but I am talking about villas in France and big deposits in foreign countries and things of that kind.

Mr. NOLTING. Yes, Senator Hickenlooper, I have heard many of them, a great many. I have tried to investigate each one.

I have found no concrete evidence of great corruption, great personal profit on the part of any Vietnamese official. And I will say that I mean by great, something that would be tangible, like a bank deposit abroad or a villa in France, to name the few you have named, which was gotten from a hand in the public till.

I wouldn't like to say, though, that there is no favoritism. By that I mean that people are appointed to jobs in some cases because of their connections with people in high places in the govern

ment.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. That would not necessarily be unique to people in Vietnam. There might be that practice many places. Senator LAUSCHE. There is great wisdom in that statement.

PRESIDENT DIEM'S FAMILY

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Do you find evidence that, locally, people in high government places, in the President's immediate family or his relatives, have insinuated themselves into the ownership of substantial corporations or substantial operations of a similar nature, using funds or influences which they might get by virtue of their position, that is to enrich themselves personally?

Mr. NOLTING. No, sir, I have not found evidence, and I have looked for it on that score. I have found some counter evidence. Recently a cousin of President Diem was ordered by him not to take part in the development of a textile plant which we were trying to get developed, because of, what do you call it, conflict of interest. Senator HICKENLOOPER. Had you found any evidence of profiteering on the part of any of these high officials in the disposal of the rice crop or other similar crops in Vietnam?

Mr. NOLTING. I haven't, no.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. I'll go a step further then and say that a couple of years or so ago I was over there for a while, a few days, and we were especially interested in that. We asked about it repeatedly and talked to officials, because of these rumors that had stirred up a great many people here, that the President's sister-inlaw, who is very rich, had acquired a lot of things, and his brother had been engaged in corrupt activities of various kinds, as various others had.

5

As much as we could find out then, our people had been unable to discover any real substance to those rumors. Petty graft, yes. I suppose it is common throughout Asia and other countries, but not of substance.

Mr. NOLTING. This is the picture that still holds.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. I was just wondering what your experience had been since you have been there.

Mr. NOLTING. This is the picture that still holds, and I have done everything I can to run down each one of these charges. They are very numerous indeed, coming from Vietnamese, as you know.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. I came to the conclusion that the sources of information from some of our people—and we had some American nationals who were scattering these rumors-came from people who themselves had a little something in their background to be

5Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu.

criticized, and were mad about the fact that they had been called to account about certain of their own activities, and that they were the chief sources of these rumors which we were totally unable to tag as having any substance.

RESETTLEMENT OF THE MONTAGNARDS

What is the situation now in regard to the attempt by the government to resettle the hill tribes, the migratory tribes?

Mr. NOLTING. The so-called Montagnards?

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Yes.

Mr. NOLTING. That is moving better now. These people who live in the mountain areas, mostly on the Laotian border, were subject to very considerable Viet Cong pressure.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. What I mean is, as I understand it, they were a little different from the mill run of the Vietnamese people. They were migratory people up in that area who would go in and slash and burn the hillsides and farm them for a year or so and then move on, and so on. They were trying to resettle them and make sort of pastoral people with permanent settlement on the area by setting up areas on which they would settle them.

Mr. NOLTING. Yes. I have been to a number of those resettlement villages where they were moved to and they seemed to be quite happy.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. I received later reports that it had not been completely successful because a substantial percentage of them, I wouldn't say whether it is 20, 40 or 60 percent, but a substantial percentage would stay for a while and then they would go back. They would just pick up and leave and go back to their old habits, rather than to stay on this land that had been assigned to them for permanent villages. I wonder whether they are becoming more fixed now or whether they are still having trouble that way. Mr. NOLTING. Some of them did move back in less than a year. They went on back to the mountains. Those that stayed, it is my general impression now, were glad that they did. Those I visited were stable communities. The children were in school there.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Of course, the ones I visited were stable communities at the time they were there. That is the only reason they took us there. It was a show window place. I did not get to see the places where they were unhappy.

Mr. NOLTING. Yes.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. This new crop, that sort of-what do you call it up there?

Mr. NOLTING. Kanab.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. How is that coming? They had some hopes that it would be a money crop for these people.

Mr. NOLTING. It is. It is tiding them over until their rice fields, if they are in a rice location, or their rubber plantations-in many cases they have some rubber trees planted-will come into production. They are also raising peanuts and some other cash crops.

OLD CONFLICTS IN VIETNAM

Senator HICKENLOOPER. With respect to the question which Senator Morse raised a minute ago about the difference, rightly or

wrongly, of raising these criticisms, writing these papers and so on, is it still the case in Vietnam that there is a difficult situation arising from the historic background of the revolt against the French there; that is, one side was against the French, and another side was for the French, and it is hard even yet to get the two sides together because of their enmity of the past?

Mr. NOLTING. Yes, this causes considerable division.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Even though those people may not be Communists, or Communist sympathizers, they have an enmity existing as a result of those old conflicts.

Mr. NOLTING. It is hard to find the homogeneity, because among others this is a considerable factor, yes; one of the decisive influences in Vietnamese society.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Is there any evidence at the moment that Diem is turning over more authority in the administrative end of government to other people, more people, rather than keeping his fingers on all of the reins himself?

Mr. NOLTING. This we have been working on hard. I have been working on it, and others, and there is evidence that he is doing this gradually, and somewhat reluctantly, but he is doing it.

[Discussion off the record.]

Senator LAUSCHE. Senator Fulbright.

PRESS CRITICISM OF DIEM

Senator FULBRIGHT. Mr. Ambassador, I was just looking at this paper that the Senator from Oregon mentioned. It rather surprises me that the origin of several of these stories is our own magazines and newspapers, the New York Herald Tribune, Time Magazine, who carry these stories which are reprinted here, and I assume that is true, that are extremely critical of this government.

How do you explain that? Did you see these people? Do you know any of these reporters of Time, Life, and so on? Why would they have such a critical attitude toward the Diem government?

Mr. NOLTING. I know most of them and I have talked to, I think, all of them in Saigon.

Senator FULBRIGHT. They differ with your view about the govern

ment.

Mr. NOLTING. They do.

Senator FULBRIGHT. How do you explain that? Why should they? What motive would they have in distorting the news, if they have distorted it?

Mr. NOLTING. I think that they have a tendency to look at the hole in the doughnut, Senator Fulbright, and I think quite a few— well, I will stop there. I, too, can see some holes in the doughnut, but I also see a doughnut and part of it is pretty good.

SAIGON RUMOR FACTORY

Another factor is that they stay around Saigon an awful lot, which is the darndest rumor factory that I have even been in, and I talked to a great many people in Saigon who are critical of the regime.

It seems to be an unfortunate tendency of the Vietnamese people to analyze things brilliantly, and to generally come out with a neg