Kennedy Vietnam Policy ‘Flexible’

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30234, 12 September 1963, Page 13

Kennedy Vietnam Policy ‘Flexible’

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, September 11. President Kennedy’s policy on strife-torn South Vietnam, ruling out a reduction in American aid “at this time,” is intentionally flexible, according to United States officials ((noted by the “New York Times.”

Officials said the door was still open to cuts if the Government of President Ngo Dinh Diem resisted Washington’s pressure to reform itself and seek popular support. The “New York Times” said it was widely reported that the United States Administration's policy on the South Vietnamese crisis remained fluid. President Kennedy had divided advice. One group ot influential advisers favoured “selective" cuts in American aid in order to force President Diem to abandon his repressive policies. However, a group of equally influential advisers was reported to have recommended that aid continue indefinitely. The President had decided on a compromise. He was said to feel a final showdown with the governing Ngo family in Vietnam would be premature and that more time should be given to applying diplomatic and other pressure.

The "Chicago Tribune” said in an editorial today that if the United States Central Intelligence Agency did not know "what was going on under its nose in Saigon,” President Kennedy “ought to find some spooks with tougher ectoplasm. "In the spy racket, to be uninformed is a worse indictment than to have mucked up a secret operation." it said.

Tlie newspaper was commenting on reports that the CI. A. was financing the Vietnamese special forces troops whose raids on Buddhist pagodas last month angered the United States Government. The “New York Times" commentator. James Reston. said today that unless Western correspondents were given greater freedom to report developments in South Vietnam, impatience about the Vietnamese situation was likely to grow both in the United States and in Congress.

“. . . Unless the lines of communication are opened and the American people can learn what they are getting there for their million dollars a day, even President Kennedy may not be able to prevent the Congress from making cuts that could cripple the whole war effort,” he said.

The United States Ambassador to Saigon (Mr Lodge) had apparently made this plain, but without any success. "He has asked for the suppression of the Nhus and has merely got suppression of the news . . .” Reston said.