Ike's Spies (42 page)

IN
1956,
ON THE EVE
of the Eisenhower vs. Stevenson presidential election, France and Britain joined with Israel to attack Egypt. White House Press Secretary James Hagerty told reporters that the President got his first information on the invasion “through press reports.” The attack “came as a complete surprise to us.” Simultaneously, the Russians sent their tanks into the streets of Budapest; Administration spokesmen told the press that the Russian attack on Hungary was also a complete surprise.

Such reports made Allen Dulles furious. A month later he leaked stories to the Washington press corps that the
CIA
had predicted Hungary in detail. He also complained to reporter Andrew Tully, “My brother said the State Department was taken by surprise. That was only technically correct. What he meant was that the British, French and Israeli governments had not informed our ambassadors. But we had the Suez operation perfectly taped. We reported that there would be a three-nation attack on Suez. And on the day before the invasion
CIA
reported it was
imminent
.”
⁵

Dulles' leaks made Ike, in his turn, furious. The President had a legendary temper, which he struggled—usually successfully—all his life to control. When angry, he could not keep the bright red color out of his face, and the back of his neck would become red as a beet, but he did manage to sit perfectly still. Under his desk, however, he would tear his handkerchief into tiny bits, down to the individual strands of cotton. When he finished, there would be a loose ball of cotton strands at his feet, and no handkerchief.

What upset Ike was, first, the fact of the leak itself—all Presidents dislike leaks. Second, Dulles' claims to have predicted Suez and Hungary simply were not true. But the ultimate insult to Ike was Dulles' hint that the President was too lazy to do his homework. Throughout his presidency, Ike smarted under the criticism that he took too many vacations, that he did not work hard enough, that he neglected his duties for a golf game or a fishing expedition, and most of all that he refused to read any report that was more than one page long.

In an April 1958 article on Hungary,
Harper's Magazine
repeated Dulles' charges that Ike would have known what was
going to happen if he had only read the
CIA
reports. Eisenhower, according to
Harper's
, “showed great annoyance at this, announcing that the reports were too ponderous to read and asking that henceforth the
CIA
append maps, with red arrows pointing to strategic points, and headline summaries to its daily intelligence digest.”
⁶

Nightclub comedians, late-night TV comics, and the Democratic Party all had great fun with Ike's red arrows and headline summaries. The truth was, however, that the
CIA
reports
were
too ponderous for anyone to read. It can be argued that the President is the busiest man in the world, operating on the tightest schedule, carrying the most responsibilities, and having the least amount of time for serious reading, or indeed reading of any kind. He wants his intelligence summaries to be brief, straightforward, accurate.

But the world is much too complex and the
CIA'S
task much too difficult to meet those requirements. The honest intelligence officer knows that he can never be completely sure. He is trying to predict the actions of men and organizations that are resourceful, have every reason to hide their intentions, and have vast experience in doing so. And, obviously, many of the world's great events are unpredictable, taking everyone by surprise. Inevitably, the
CIA
wants to cover itself, to qualify its predictions, to introduce nuances into its reports, to say that “such and so might happen if this takes place, but then on the other hand …” etc.

A long, ponderous report, filled with qualifications, is an honest report. It is also of little use to the President. In predicting Communist reactions to possible American initiatives, however, the
CIA
was often quite exact, and most helpful, especially in giving Ike a reason not to do something he did not want to do anyway.

Vietnam makes a good case study of this development. From 1953 to 1961 the
CIA
filed voluminous reports on the prospects in Vietnam. Called “National Intelligence Estimates,” they were issued at regular intervals. The estimates were submitted to the President and the
NSC
by Allen Dulles, who was careful to note on the cover page that “the following intelligence organizations participated in the preparation of this estimate: The
CIA
and the intelligence organizations of the Departments of State, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Joint Staff.” Some of the estimates were over thirty pages long, none less than ten.

The first estimate Ike saw on Vietnam was published on June 4,
1953. It was interesting but, for the President, of little use. The report said that the military situation might or might not get better. Who could tell if new French generals would help or not? The Chinese might or might not invade. There was one good, solid, straightforward prediction: “If present trends in the Indochinese situation continue through mid-1954, the French political and military position may subsequently deteriorate very rapidly.”
⁷
But then, that was hardly a secret.

On June 15, 1954, the agency dealt with one of the most explosive problems the
NSC
ever handed it—to estimate Communist reactions to the use of nuclear weapons by the United States in Vietnam. The request came about because various members of the Eisenhower administration, led by Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Nathan Twining, and including all the
JCS
(except for Army Chief of Staff Matthew Ridgway), as well as the Secretary of Defense, and the Vice President, had urged the President to use atomic bombs. Twining said that the use of two or three “nukes” on the Vietminh around Dien Bien Phu would “clean those Commies out of there and the band could play the Marseillaise and the French would come marching out in fine shape.”
⁸

Ike said that he would not use atomic weapons for the second time in less than a decade against Asians, partly because it would put the United States in the worst possible light in Asia and throughout the Third World, mainly because he hated what he called “those terrible things.”
⁹

Nothing could have budged Ike from that position, but he was thankful for
CIA
support. The
CIA
warned flatly that “the Chinese would take whatever military action they thought required to prevent destruction of the Viet Minh, including when and if necessary open use of Chinese Communist forces in Indochina.” The agency pointed out that “U.S. use of nuclear weapons in Indochina would hasten the ultimate Chinese decision whether or not to intervene.”
¹⁰

Dien Bien Phu fell to the Vietminh. In Geneva, in July of 1954, France, Ho Chi Minh, and the great powers (except for the United States) signed the Geneva Accords. The parties agreed to a truce and to a temporary partition of Vietnam at the 17th parallel. Neither the French in the south (who soon handed over the government to Diem) nor Ho Chi Minh's Communists in the north could join a military alliance or allow foreign military forces or
equipment onto their territory. There would be elections within two years to unify the country.

The United States did not sign the accords, nor did any representative of a South Vietnamese government. Bedell Smith was in Geneva as an observer, not a participant in the conference. He issued a letter stating that his government “took note of” the accords and promising that the United States would support free elections and would not use force to upset the agreements.

This was a major embarrassment to the Republicans, who had come to power pledged to a policy of “liberation,” and who now had to watch as yet another Asian country, North Vietnam, fell to the Communists. Desperate to save something from the debacle, in late July, General Twining, Admiral Radford, Secretary Dulles, and others worked out an invasion scheme that would have landed American troops at Haiphong, followed by a march to Hanoi.

Again General Ridgway opposed. On the basis of Army intelligence estimates, he argued that the adventure would require at least six divisions, even if the Chinese did not intervene. Eisenhower's defense policy was to reduce the Army, not expand it. The President refused to act.
¹¹

Secretary Dulles then moved on the diplomatic front. Ike was a great believer in alliances, and in September of 1954 he encouraged Dulles to sign up allies in Asia. Dulles persuaded Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France, Thailand, Pakistan, and the Philippines to join the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (
SEATO
). It was a defensive alliance in which the parties agreed to act together to meet an aggressor. Protection for Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam, the independent nations that had come into being when the French withdrew from Indochina, was covered in a separate protocol.

Bringing South Vietnam into
SEATO
was a
de facto
violation of the Geneva Accords. The United States had already decided, in any event, that those accords would have to be ignored, especially the section that called for free nationwide elections. The
CIA
had reported in August that “if the scheduled national elections are held in July, 1956, and if the Viet Minh does not prejudice its political prospects, the Viet Minh will almost certainly win.”
¹²

Ike was more precise in his memoirs. He stated, “I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held
 … possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai.”
¹³

Ike's statement, so frequently quoted by doves in the second half of the 1960s, had a major qualifier to it. Bao Dai was then living in France. He had no interest in his native land, and all the
CIA
reports indicated that his popularity was nonexistent among his subjects. In addition, Ike often pointed out, when confronted with this statement, that North Vietnam had nearly twice the population of South Vietnam, and he assumed that Ho Chi Minh would get 100 percent of the vote in his half of the country.
¹⁴

Nevertheless, the stark fact remained that Ho Chi Minh had more popularity than any non-Communist leader. Under the circumstances, no one in the U. S. Government could have been expected to support free elections. So the decision was made to find an alternative to Ho, meanwhile avoiding elections. Ngo Dinh Diem became the favored alternative, and with the help of Colonel Lansdale and the
CIA
, he managed to win the power struggle, eliminating his opponents in the Vietnamese military and Bao Dai.

The
CIA
, on September 15, 1954, judged Diem a good prospect for American support, indeed “the only figure on the political scene behind whom genuine nationalist support can be mobilized.” Although he was “confronted with the usual problems of inefficiency, disunity, and corruption in Vietnamese politics,” he was honest and energetic. Diem, the
CIA
felt, had “considerable unorganized popular support, particularly among Catholic elements of South Vietnam.” It predicted he would survive the present crisis but said that his ability to create a government that could last depended on “early and convincing” outside support.
¹⁵

Eisenhower then made his decision to back Diem. On October 1, 1954, he wrote a letter of support to him, a letter often cited later by Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon as proof that it was Ike who got us into Vietnam.

“We have been exploring ways and means … to make a greater contribution to the welfare and stability of the Government of Viet-Nam,” Ike began. He was therefore instructing the American ambassador in Saigon to confer with Diem to see “how an intelligent program of American aid given directly to your Government can serve to assist Viet-Nam in its present hour of trial, provided that your Government is prepared to give assurances as to
the standards of performance it would be able to maintain in the event such aid were supplied.”

The purpose of the offer, the President said, was to assist Diem “in developing and maintaining a strong, viable state, capable of resisting attempted subversion or aggression through military means.” There was a condition to the aid. “The Government of the United States expects that this aid will be met by performance on the part of the Government of Viet-Nam in undertaking needed reforms.” Such a government would be, the President hoped, “so responsive to the nationalist aspirations of its people, so enlightened in purpose and effective in performance, that it will be respected both at home and abroad and discourage any who might wish to impose a foreign ideology on your free people.”
¹⁶

The reforms never took place. The
CIA
reported that Diem's regime was increasingly repressive. American aid nevertheless continued to support Diem's government. One of the reasons was the lack of an alternative; another was the optimistic picture the
CIA
painted of South Vietnam. In Saigon, there was a high standard of living, political stability, economic progress—according to the
CIA
.

In May 1957, Diem came to the United States for a triumphant welcome. He spent three days in Washington, where he conferred with Ike, Dulles, and other high officials. He addressed a joint session of Congress and met with such supporters as Cardinal Spellman, Senator John Kennedy, Justice William O. Douglas, and Mayor Robert Wagner of New York. Wagner hailed Diem as a man “to whom freedom is the very breath of life itself.” Ike loaned Diem his personal plane to fly to the West Coast. In the press, on television, at banquets, everywhere Diem was hailed as the miracle worker who provided living proof of what could be accomplished in the Third World without Communist regimentation.
¹⁷