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Flott, Frederick W

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Flott, Frederick W Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Service Lyndon Baines Johnson Library The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training oreign Affairs Oral History Pro$ect FREDERICK W. FLOTT Interviewed by: Ted Gittinger, LBJ Library Initial interview date: July 22, 1984 TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Chosen by Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge as his Special Assistant Acquainted with the (ennedys Lodge)s distrust of State Department Ambassador rederick Nolting and Lodge relations Diem government Concept of duties in Saigon Anti-Diem emigrant community Talking to the opposition Briefing the White House periodically ,In house. counselor Relations with embassy political section Access to /ietnam officials Rotary Club 0mbassy operations and organi1ation Internal disagreements by Agency Jocko Richardson 2CIA3 transfer Press relations and guidance Lodge Tokyo visit 4eeting with Buddhists Joe 4endenhall 4ilitary vs. civilian war progress assessments 6eneral (rulak Rufus Phillips Lodge presents letters of credence 6eneral Harkins and Ambassador Lodge relations 0mbassy security 2lack of3 7.S. 4arine guards 1 Coup of 1963 Lou Conein Coup rumors Diem and Nhu killed Larry Connel Diem asks Lodge about 7.S. attitude toward coup Lodge)s advice to Diem Diem rescue plan Conein reporting from coup headquarters /isit to palace 4adam Nhu and family escort Cordial Cushing briefing Archbishop Thuc)s hostility 4adam Nhu)s hostility (ennedy assassination Revolutionary 4ilitary Council regime rench embassy relations 0mbassy bombed 7.S. support Duong /an 4ingh 4cNamara visit (han January coup Secrecy Lack of 7.S. advisors Allegations against rench rench suspicion of 7.S. rench assessment of /ietnamese Dalat generals Christmas at Dalat /iet Cong and the rench rench charge Perruche (han)s policies Le /an (im Personalities Ambassador Lodge returns Tran /an Don David Nes Lodge-Nes relations Lodge departure from /ietnam Ambassador 7. Alexis Johnson 6eneral 4axwell Taylor ,Cut-out-losses-and-get-out. speculation 2 ,Third Country Aid. program Israel and Soviet Jewry International aid to /ietnam President Johnson)s pressure Pleiku incident - ebruary 1965 4c6eorge Bundy 7.S. and foreign speaking tour 1966-1969 0xplaining /ietnam War in the 7.S. Berkeley engagement Napalm issue /ice President Humphrey 0uropean audiences INTERVIEW Q: Mr. Flott, could we begin with the first question: what were the circumstances of your assignment to Saigon in 1963? LOTT: Well, it was a position as a special assistant to Ambassador [Henry CabotA Lodge. I was brought out there by him at his choice and his decision. 4ind you, if I had wanted to decline the assignment, I probably could have, but I was very interested in goingB I was honored that he asked me, in part at the suggestion of his son 6eorge, who had been the assistant secretary of labor and with whom ICd worked. Ambassador Lodge knew that ICd traveled in the Soviet 7nion with Bob (ennedy, who of course had defeated his son in their Senate race in about 1962, I guess. He thought--partly because of the duties he had in mind for me, which weCll get to later--it would be very useful to have somebody who had good personal access to Bob (ennedy and was a known quantity to him and President (ennedy, and also whom he knew to be loyal to him, Lodge, both on Republican Party grounds and family friendship grounds. Q: How were you contacted? Did he call you, or..? LOTT: His son called me and said, ELook, the old man is worried about staff, and I think you ought to go out there with him.E And they invited me up to the family home in Beverly, north of Boston--I was in Washington--to go sailing with them on his yacht. Some of this is a little comical, but Lodge had me take the wheel of his yacht, which I guess is how New 0nglanders analy1e character. I didnCt drive the boat into any rocks or anything. But, more seriously, we talked about the mission and his plans, and I think it was largely just a question of being personally acceptable to 4rs. Lodge and to him. But it was that kind of appointment. It was based on all of those things. 3 Lodge said he had had very bad experience with the State Department and with the oreign Service--he thought it was bad experience any-way--when he was up at the 7nited Nations. And so his first inclination was to choose his own staff, when he had the clout to do it. President (ennedy did tell him he could take anyone to Saigon who was willing to go, and he could send anyone home whether he was willing to leave or not. And so he thought, EWell, anyone the State Department assigns to me may be hopeless, so therefore I will pick my own people among the State Department crowd,E and he was making his own decisions. Later he learned and ad$usted to the fact that the State Department assigns some very able people, and that, all things considered, he would do $ust as well by their assignments as by his own selections. He told me when he was interviewing me for this position that he was very disturbed by what he saw in Paul (attenburg, who was the country director for /ietnamese affairs, whoCs presently a professor at the 7niversity of South Carolina, after early retirement from the department. Q: /hat was he disturbed about? LOTT: It was sort of ad persona observationsB the guy seemed to him a little bit flighty, a little bit fu11y on the mission--you know, not hard-line mission oriented, and he just wasnCt comfortable with it. He didnCt think he was especially wise or especially committed to the goals of the administration, which he, Lodge, as a Republican appointed by a Democratic president, was about to serve loyally and well, and more gung ho than anyone else. It was that sort of reaction, I think. I know Paul (attenburg personally and have high regard for his knowledge and judgment, but I can see how Lodge might quite honestly have had some concern--and of course, this was in July of 1963. I suppose it would be fair to say the State Department had not quite yet put in its first team on /ietnam. It did later, but at the time, there were there some people who were available for assignment to what at that time was something of a backwater, or at least a place that traditionally had been something of a backwater. Q: Did you 0now Ambassador 2 rederic03 Nolting? LOTT: Fes. Q: /as there any 0ind of feedbac0 on how the job he had done was being received bac0 in /ashington? /as he in bad odor or good odor or..? LOTT: Like many of these things--because Americans high in public life are usually very decent peopleB they donCt want to hurt anyone, but also they tend to think that anyone that disagrees with them just doesnCt understand the problem--there were a lot of reservations about whether he understood the problem, whether he was too committed to [Ngo DinhA Diem and [Ngo DinhA Nhu, whether it was time for a change, whether he was hard-charger enoughB there was all that. And on the part of people like Averell Harriman 4 and [DeanA Rusk and all, ICm sure it was handled with total gentility. With Lodge there were some rather abrupt incidents in dealing with Nolting. Q: Really? LOTT: Fes, at CINCPAC [Commander in Chief, PacificA, when we were on our way out to Saigon, we stopped in Honolulu and Nolting was there and offered to brief us. He was on his way back to Washington, and it was very much understood that he would be out of Saigon before Lodge got there. But itCs common practice to do thatB that was certainly not an ad persona phenomenon. But at Honolulu, Ambassador Nolting very graciously offered to be debriefed and to talk at any length that Lodge might want, and Lodge simply remarked that he had nothing to learn from him and was not seeking the interview, and ICm not even sure there was a polite handshake for the photographers. If there was, that was all there was. That was the Ambassador coming back from Saigon on his way back to the department. Q: That7s a little abrupt, isn7t it? LOTT: Fes, abrupt, and to my mind, unwise, because even if you thought Nolting was a failure and totally wrong in everything he ever did or said, youCd still want to get a feeling for the guy for damage assessment, if for nothing else. But it was Lodge)s manner, in cases of that sort--but again, there was some purpose in his method. He thought he was on a game plan, too. which was to convey very dramatically that it was a new team taking over and new emphasis, A lot of things he did where people thought he was insensitive to other peopleCs feelings and all, there was perhaps that more than an extenuating set of circumstances, a very real game plan and purpose that he thought he had a charter to do. Q: /hat sort of charter did he thin0 he had? Now this is before the famous August 24 telegram from /ashington. LOTT: Fes, this was when he was on his way out to Saigon. Q: 9es. /as he supposed to convey to Diem that we were getting tougher or that policy was changing, or what? LOTT: That the American ambassador was no longer so committed to Diem, and that Diem had to fly straight and level and meet our policy requirements, and that he could not presume that just because somebody was the American ambassador, that Diem already had him persuaded and in the bag.
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