Message Claims Diem In Control

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30219, 26 August 1963, Page 11

Message Claims Diem In Control

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

NEW YORK, Aug. 25. The New York “Herald Tribune” said today that it had received a cable from the South Vietnam President (Mr Ngo Dinh Diem) saying: “I maintain control of the situation.”

There have been reports that the military, or the President’s younger brother, Mr Ngo Dinh Nhu, had taken over the reins of government.

The President’s cable to a ‘‘Herald Tribune” correspondent. Marguerite Higgins, “cut through the confusion and doubt as to who is running South Vietnam,” the newspaper said. The message was in reply to a cable sent to Mr Diem asking: “In the light of rumours abounding in the United States can you state whether you have confidence in the Army’s loyalty and whether you are in fact in control of the situation?”

In reply Mr Diem said: ‘‘l trust in the Army and in fact I maintain control of the situation. But as far as I am concerned the problem is not there. What interests me is the use of that loyalty and that control to fight the Viet Cong and eliminate the obstacles to democratic progress, and not to satisfy personal or family ambitions.” The "New York Times”

reported today that Mr Nhu, the secret police chief, claims Americans and others abroad have been “intoxicated” by the ritual suicides and other “diabolically clever tactics” of the Buddhist monks and their followers:

A dispatch from Saigon quoted Mr Nhu as saying in an interview that he took sharp issue with the United States State Department and other American critics of his brother. “Mr Nhu, who controls the secret police, and bis wife, a member of the National Assembly and head of the women’s organisations, exercise more power than the quiet bachelor President,” the “New York Times” said. It quoted Mr Nhu as saying in the interview that “according to American opinion, what is happening here is comparable to a situation in which President Kennedy, because he is a Catholic, would decree a blockade of Protestant churches in the United States.” He was referring to the order by the President for the Army’s seizure of principal Buddhist pagodas throughout South Vietnam this week. “He asserted that innocent Buddhists had been held inside the pagodas through ‘terror’ by monks opposed to the Government before the buildings were raided early on Wednesday,” the report said.

“Nearly 1000 Buddhists are under arrest throughout the country,” Mr Nhu said. He asserted the authorities intended to free “all but five or six” after indoctrination by monks not associated with the anti-Government movement.

“He charged that the Buddhist organisation had been infiltrated by Communist agents. He implied that they had used dupes in saffron - coloured priestlyrobes to organise the present agitation over the last two years,” said the newspaper. The report said that Mr Nhu, a political adviser to the ; President, said the Government has “intended to discuss any grievances the Buddhists might have after their religious affairs had been put in the hands of nonpoliticians.”