bout de papier, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1997) — Spring 1997 // Printemps 1997, pp. 39–40
Throughout his career, John Holmes advocated informal and informative dialogue
within the Department of External Affairs and between the department and interested Canadians. Before the expression “corporate outreach” was coined, Holmes practised it. One manifestation of this attitude was his encouragement of junior officers to share their experiences and impressions at posting with those in headquarters. The letter reprinted below was prompted by Holmes, then Assistant Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs.
Though Canada reluctantly accepted its nomination to the international control commissions for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, Holmes has written that Canada’s “role in Indochina was the classic case of middlepowermanship… The Indochina experience of the fifties confirmed the view of many Canadians and of our friends that this was our special destiny and our best contribution to international order.” It was also, for those who served there, a unique opportunity when Canada was under-represented in Asia. For recent recruits to the foreign service, the assignment provided as well exceptional training in the craft and the frustrations of international diplomacy in the cold war.
When he wrote this letter, Si Taylor had been with the Department of External Affairs for barely more than two years and in Hanoi for about six months. Readers of bout de papier will know that this missive did not blight his career, which culminated in successive stints as Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs and Ambassador to Japan. Mr. Taylor is the Chancellor of McMaster University and a member of the Senior Editorial Board of bout de papier.
The original of this letter may be found in the John Holmes Papers at the Canadian Institute of International Affairs in Toronto. John Hilliker, Head of the Historical Section of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, provided bout de papier with a copy.
Hector Mackenzie
Senior Departmental Historian
Hanoi. December 22 [1955]
Dear Mr. [John W.] Holmes,
Your card, which is certainly one of the most welcome I have received, arrived in yesterday’s bag. I had not forgotten that I had promised you a report on Hanoi, and thought that a sort of report-cum-Christmas card would interest you.
For all its well-known limitations, of which you are aware because of your visit here [in June 1955], I am by no means disappointed with my first posting. Compared with Latin America, I suppose we could say we were not represented sufficiently in this part of the world before we were asked to serve on the Commissions in Indochina. As a young (and presumably irresponsible) bachelor, I could not have gone to an Iron Curtain post, and at my level, there are still really only three jobs available in Asia — in Delhi, Karachi and Djakarta. But in Hanoi, we manage to combine a number of advantages, by living in a Communist state, by living in Southeast Asia, and by doing business with the Communists and the Indians every day. The work has in itself been interesting, and since I have been handling Article 14(c)[which enjoined the parties to “guarantee” the “democratic liberties” of former “partisans” or “resistance workers”], it has been quite heavy ever since I arrived here.
Personally, I have found it difficult to know just what balance we should strike in the present situation. So long as the regrouping of forces was still going on, and freedom of movement was a major problem, it was easy to square an entirely impartial attitude with a defence of the interests of the South Vietnamese. Since July 20 [when riots took place in Saigon and elsewhere, with mobs likely organized by associates of Premier Ngo Dinh Diem attacking the Polish and Indian quarters and personnel], of course this has been much more difficult, because of the conflict between behaving as impartial international civil servants and at the same time behaving in a sense as lawyers for a client who refuses to have anything to do with the Geneva Agreement [for Vietnam] in its present form. I have never known which attitude should be given priority. Sometimes I wonder what the Poles must think of us. For them, of course, there is no problem; they defend the North in all situations and are never embarrassed no matter how blatantly cynical their manoeuvres become. I was interested to read recently your reports from the Geneva Conference [on Indochina, 8 May to 21 July 1954] which I had never seen before. It seemed evident from [USSR Foreign Minister] Mr. [Vyacheslav Mikhailovich] Molotov’s attitude then that his idea of a neutral commission was one with representatives of the east, the west, and the uncommitted nations. The eastern and western representatives would not be expected as individuals to be impartial, but because of the balance between them, the total effect for the whole commission would be one of impartiality.
Of course, we have never behaved according to this theory. Mr. [David] Johnson [Canadian Commissioner, International Commission for Supervision and Control for Vietnam] told me once that his instructions were that he himself was to be impartial. While at the top, the Poles make efforts to appear unbiased, in the committees where the hatchet work is done, it is quite plain that they are not impartial themselves and furthermore, that they do not expect us to be. They appear to assume that, as they defend the North with every trick they can think of, so we defend the South. The idea that we ever make any attempt whatsoever to appear impartial never seems to occur to them.
In this situation, and considering that we really don’t get much help from the French or the South, there is a very real temptation to “play Pole” ourselves, although to go too far in this direction means losing whatever credit we may have built up with the Indians. At this point, I have sometimes become a bit discouraged. Personally, we manage very well indeed with the political officers on the Indian Delegation, and of course we all had the greatest respect for Mr. [M.J.] Desai [Ambassador of India to the ICS for Vietnam]. But it is disheartening from time to time, when we have tried to play the game honestly in the hope of persuading the Indians of our good faith, and the bad faith of the D[emocratic] R[epublic of Vietnam], to hear them talk as if there is absolutely nothing to choose between North and South. One of the Indians, for example, has mentioned in conversation his “great sympathy” for the DR’s cause. I heard another one compare the crowds of young people who attended a recent meeting of the World Federation of Democratic Youth here to the crowds at the World Series games in New York, when one of our officers commented mildly on the manufactured enthusiasm of all political manifestations here. A third told one of our people that he saw nothing particularly significant in the fact that large posters showing [Marshal Nikolai Alexandrovich] Bulganin [Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers] and Mao [Tse-tung, Chairman of the People’s Republic of China] appear everywhere along with posters of Ho Chi Minh [President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam]. He maintained this point of view even when the Canadian pointed out that there were no posters of [US President Dwight D.] Eisenhower and [US Secretary of State John Foster] Dulles displayed in Saigon. Of course, not all the Indians are forever seeking to point to a flaw in Diem’s rule [on 26 October 1955, Diem deposed Emperor Bao Dai and proclaimed himself President of the Republic of Vietnam] whenever a flaw in the Communist system is pointed out. Privately, I imagine that some of them have been scared by what they have seen of Communist power here, and disturbed at the way in which this brand of Communism anyway kills all freedom. One of the Indians was pointing out to me yesterday the obvious fact that their interest in Indochina is much more direct than ours, and that Laos and Cambodia, and perhaps Malaya and Thailand, would be dangerously exposed if all Vietnam became Communist. He sounded almost like a S[outh]E[ast]A[sia]T[reaty]O[rganization] strategist talking. Another once said privately that a great number of Indians here had been disillusioned by what they had seen. On the whole, however, I have had the impression that at the working level at least, Canadians have had an uphill battle against what seems to us to be unwarranted complacency on the part of the Indians.
Happily, this has not prevented personal friendships from being built up.
Of course, you have probably not detected — at least I hope you have not been able to detect — any signs of these unresolved conflicts in our reports. Among the junior officers, of course, the debate goes on endlessly: how can we implement the Geneva Agreement, save South Vietnam, and still have the Indians love us, all at the same time? These things are sorted by the higherups, and in them, I think we have been very lucky. My second stint working for Mr. [Saul F.] Rae [Alternate Delegate, ICSC for Vietnam; Adviser to the Canadian Commissioners, ICSC for Indochina] has been as pleasant as the first, and of course few bosses are as generous as Mr. Johnson. In a different way, I have found the military officers for whom I have worked equally easy to get on with. I know this has not been everyone’s experience, but if you talk with Harry Jay [Adviser to the Canadian Commissioners, ICSC for Indochina, from February to December 1955] on his return to Ottawa, I think you will find that he would agree that difficulties between Army and External here is a subject more talked about than worth talking about.
I regret to say that the rather pleasant social life you saw here is fast disappearing. The Cercle Sportif is still open to tennis players, but I doubt if there will be any swimming next summer. The Delaverne’s, who managed the hotel, left Hanoi several months ago. Mickey Dicquemare and her father also have gone. The American Consul, Tom Corcoran, and Vice-Consul, Bob Wenzel finally left about ten days ago. The Sainteny Mission [an attempt by the Government of France to reach an accommodation with the DRVN] remains, of course, and its staff still includes a number of charming people. However [Jean] Sainteny [Delegate General of France to the DRVN] himself never came back to Indochina, and it does not seem probable that he will. His staff have found bargaining with the regime a pretty unrewarding business, I believe, and their morale is always a little shaky because of their rather anomalous position.
However, we are still trying to strive for a brighter Hanoi, and the Canadian Mess remains unchallenged as the social heart of North Vietnam. The French, the British unfailingly, the Indians usually, and even the Poles occasionally attend our parties. We still have the incomparable talents of S.F. Rae to entertain us, and the golden trumpet of Vern “Lukewarm Lips” Turner [Adviser to the Canadian Commissioners, ICSC for Indochina] to brighten our evenings. Christmas is upon us, and we have all the preparations well in hand. I’m afraid that most of us disposed of our four-bottle ration of Labatt’s ale instead of saving it, and the Canadian cigarettes (“compliments of [Premier] Leslie Frost and the people of the Province of Ontario”) have been smoked up pretty quickly. We have saved the records the Recreational Association sent us, and they are not to be played until our New Year’s Dance, because otherwise they would be worn out. The hotel has been carefully instructed in how to cook canned turkey, the carol singers are in good voice, the PAVN [People’s Army of Vietnam] Liaison Mission is sending us three Christmas trees. I think we are going to have a very good Christmas, and — who knows? — we may even mellow to the point of thinking kindly thoughts about Uncle Ho.
With best wishes for the New Year,
[J.H.] Si Taylor 3
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1997) — Spring 1997 // Printemps 1997, pp. 39–40. Read the rest of this issue →
