Rigged Elections in Vietnam, Nixon-Lodge Style
author: zorro
the following is an EXCERPT from Daniel Ellsberg's recent book SECRETS: A MEMOIR OF VIETNAM AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS (which everyone should read if you haven't already ... get it from your local public library or bookstore).
This EXCERPT is from Chapter 7, where Ellsberg is discussing his mid-1965 tour of Vietnam with CIA operative General Ed Lansdale, and their encounters with U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. The passage is valuable for a long quote from Lodge at meeting of the Saigon Mission Council where the topic was "free elections" for the Vietnamese, and transitioning from a military to civilian regime with popular support. Then, Richard Nixon himself pays a visit ...
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... [Deputy Ambassador William] Porter said that [ARVN General and Lansdale advisor] Thang had made some very interesting remarks to Lansdale the other day. Thang "is concerned with making the elections as well run and honest as possible. I recommend that Lansdale be requested to ask Thang just how we can be most helpful to him ... We are going to come in for a good deal of criticism on these elections--the newspapermen are watching very closely and they are quite critical already--and we want to come out as well as we can."
Lodge, who had been Nixon's vice presidential running mate in 1960, responded to this opening with a good deal of reserve, launching into a long commentary that put him on distinctly different ground from Thang, Porter, and Lansdale. He began: "When you talk about honest elections, you can mean two things: (1) lack of intimidation—this we must have; (2) the fear in some quarters—not, I think, in the highest quarters [i.e., LBJ]—that we won't be nice enough to the people who would like to tear the whole thing down." This last referred to concerns expressed in a cable that morning from State about the prospect that Buddhists, who had been the major force demanding the elections and were suspected of wanting peace even if it meant negotiations with the NLF, would be excluded from the candidate lists. Lodge said this reminded him of a British song during World War II, "Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans."
Lodge continued with arresting statements: " You've got a gentleman in the White House right now [LBJ] who has spent most of his life rigging elections. I've spent most of my life rigging elections. I spent nine whole months rigging a Republican Convention to choose Ike as a candidate rather than Bob Taft. If that was bad ...
"Nixon and I would have taken Chicago in 1960 if there had been an honest count. The Republican machine there was simply lazy; they didn't get out the vote, and they didn't have anyone watching the polls. But I don't blame Democrats for that, I blame the Republicans. There is just a limit to how naive or hypocritical we can afford to be out here." Lodge turned to Porter and said, "Is that responsive to your question?"
Porter, looking slightly taken aback, said, "I just thought General Lansdale should stay close to General Thang on the issue of elections."
Lodge replied, "Well, I want General Lansdale to stay close to Thang on the subject of elections; and I want General Lansdale to stay close to Thang on the subject of pacification, which I think is a great deal more important." Later he declared, "Get it across to the press that they shouldn't apply higher standards here in Vietnam than they do in the U.S." But in a cable responding to State's concerns that same morning, the ambassador had put it slightly differently: "The first steps for us in Saigon and in Washington are to make it clear to the press and to Congress that Vietnam should not be judged by American standards."
My report did not bode well for the support we could expect from Lodge for our current aspirations. But Lansdale saw a way he might yet change the ambassador's attitude. Soon after this Nixon himself passed through Saigon on a visit to the Far East. He stayed with Lodge, and he was scheduled to spend an afternoon with our team. Nixon thought highly of Lansdale, whom he knew from his vice presidential days in the fifties. If we could persuade Nixon of the importance of free elections in this context, Lansdale hoped that would carry weight with the man who had shared the ticket with him in 1960.
The opening moments of that visit often came back to me over the next decade, during three elections in South Vietnam and two in the United States. Nixon came up to the large room on the second floor of Lansdale's villa where the team members were gathered in a semicircle to greet him. I had never seen him before in person, and never did again. He was jet-lagged and rumpled, with the jowls and heavy five o'clock shadow of the Herblock cartoons. But in the long discussion that followed, he was alert and articulate. He went around the circle and shook hands with each of us. Then he joined Lansdale, standing in front of two armchairs side by side, and said, "Well, Ed, what are you up to?"
Getting right to business, Lansdale said, "Mr. Vice President, we want to help General Thang make this the most honest election that's ever been held in Vietnam."
"Oh, sure, honest, yes, honest, that's right"—Nixon was seating himself in an armchair next to Lansdale—"so long as you win!" With the last words he did three things in quick succession: winked, drove his elbow hard into Lansdale's arm, and, in a return motion, slapped his own knee. My colleagues turned to stone.
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Source—
SECRETS: A MEMOIR OF VIETNAM AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS
by Daniel Ellsberg
Viking Penguin 2002
Chapter 7, pp. 106-108
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Of course, we all know what happened next (well, probably few people know, but the matter is one of objective historical record)... Diem's militia terrorized the Buddhists in S. Viet Nam, murdering many.
Anybody see any similarities with Chalabi in Iraq?