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Encouraging as they are, Diem's accomplishments are minor compared to what remains to be done in attaining law and order and building public confidence. Stubborn and negative-minded, Diem disquiets some of his countrymen by his continued withdrawal, and by his tendency to lean for advice more on three of his brothers, Bishop Ngo Dinh Thuc, Ngo Dinh Luyen and Ngo Dinh Nhu, than on his Cabinet. His reluctance to delegate authority has led him to fantastic time-consuming pettiness. Samples: recently he took over himself the granting of all entry and exit visas and the scrutiny of all currency exchange applications. But the U.S. military, diplomatic and technical experts, while noting the shortcomings, have not let them dull the conviction that Diem is Viet Nam's soundest hope. "After some doubts about Premier Diem," said one high U.S. official, "I think that they have been resolved in his favor and that he is entitled to full and unqualified support."
"They Don't Lie." An Asian tradition has it that if one saves a man's life, one is thenceforth responsible for his destiny. The U.S. in a sense is lumping those two missions into one simultaneous undertaking in South Viet Nam. In addition to its millions and its prestige, Washington invested the talents of 1,000 Americans in the country, with the ex-Army chief of staff, General J. Lawton Collins, as the top U.S. emissary. Among them: for land reform, Wolf Ladejinsky, the celebrated Agriculture Department expert who did the land reform job in postwar Japan; for maneuvering against the Communists, Colonel Edward Lansdale, the officer who played such a helpful role in the rise of Philippines President Ramon Magsaysay that Filipinos gave him a post-election title of "General Landslide."
The Americans are finding Premier Diem increasingly receptive to advice and ideas, and by no means a puppet. He refuses to be pushed or rushed. When Joe Collins proposed recently that General Vy be named army commander, Diem insisted on his own candidate. General Ty. "Sometimes," Diem confided, "Mr. Collins uses some very rough language." On other times it has been Collins who complained. "Get your experts out, get them working," he once prodded the Premier, to which Diem later referred: "It is easy for Mr. Collins to say it. He has experts. We have none." But out of the occasional buckings and tight moments has come a partnership that shows progress and promises more. Premier Diem admires Americans because "they don't lie."
One of the most crucial tests of the partnership will come next July 20, when the Northern and Southern Vietnamese must, under Geneva, set the terms for the 1956 elections. Communist Ho, though he has doubled his army—in violation of Geneva—and is acquiring the beginnings of an air force, is openly confident that he will not need to use them to capture South Viet Nam.