Ngo Dinh Diem
November 16, 1962. The Presidential Palace of South Vietnam.
Dressed with impeccable care, Lee Ki-jo went with Kim Tai-sung to meet Ngo Dinh Diem. Shown into the reception room, the two of them waited for the president of South Vietnam to appear. While they waited, Ki-jo slowly turned over what he knew of the man. He did not, however, put blind faith in the knowledge he had carried back from the future. What one learned from books and what one found in a historical figure met face to face were often different things. Men written of harshly proved better in the flesh, and men painted in glowing terms proved worse. On the whole, the record of Ngo Dinh Diem ran to the negative. The prevailing view cast him as a corrupt leader sunk in religious fanaticism. That, Ki-jo suspected, was only one face of him, insisted upon at the expense of the rest.
When he had dug deeper into Diem, an entirely different set of records had come pouring out. From 1955, when Diem took power, through 1963, the Vietnamese economy had grown swiftly, and prices had been held within reasonable bounds. It was an achievement that Korea's own leaders—Syngman Rhee, Chang Myon, even Park Chung-hee—had yet to match. Korea had always suffered under chronic inflation, and its economy had always spun in place. Objectively speaking, Ngo Dinh Diem was no economic incompetent. From 1957 he had pursued policies to draw in foreign investment, and he had put American aid and the war reparations received from Japan to work in economic development. From 1962, like Korea, he had launched a five-year economic development plan and set about strategically fostering import-substitution industries. A paper industry built on abundant timber, together with glass and cement, had become South Vietnam's new engines of growth. Unlike Korea, chronically in deficit, South Vietnam was a country that posted trade surpluses year after year. Taken together, it was clear that Ngo Dinh Diem possessed a genuine feel for economics.
At last the president's door opened, and Ngo Dinh Diem came in. Past sixty, he carried himself with the grave, distinguished air of a gentleman. Ki-jo and Tai-sung rose and bowed to him from the waist. President Diem offered each of them his hand, exchanged a few words of greeting, and invited them to sit.
Seated, Diem spoke of his ties to Korea.
"I visited Korea in September of '57. President Rhee received me most generously then. I remember the Korean weather as very fine."
He recalled inspecting the Military Academy and receiving an honorary doctorate in law from Seoul National University.
"How is the former president's health?"
Tai-sung was still flustered by the question about Syngman Rhee when Ki-jo answered for him.
"He is staying in Hawaii, in good health."
"Someday the former president will return to Korea, won't he?"
"He may well be able to."
Ki-jo could not bring himself to say that Syngman Rhee would be laid in Korean soil only after he was dead. The old man had tried more than once to come home, only to be turned back each time by the weight of public opposition. Ngo Dinh Diem seemed to pity Rhee's circumstances, for the two men resembled each other in many ways. Both were Christians. As founding presidents, both had pursued similar policies. And both had been alike in their refusal to be pliant toward the United States.
Diem spoke briefly of South Vietnam's economy.
"Our principal exports are still agricultural products. But we will foster light industry and achieve industrialization. This year is the first year of the five-year economic development plan."
Ki-jo told him that Korea, too, was pursuing a similar economic policy beginning this year. Diem nodded and came to the point.
"I was glad to hear that a Korean firm wishes to invest in South Vietnam. It will be the first foreign corporate investment since the development plan got underway. It means a great deal."
"Thank you for receiving us."
"From what I hear, there will also be a guarantee from the Korean government. Is that certain?"
Ki-jo expected that the powerful lobbying of Diem's younger brother and his wife would secure approval for the venture. The obstacle, as ever, would be the Korean government's guarantee.
"If you would have a memorandum of understanding drawn up, I will return to Korea and obtain the government's approval. We have already received President Park's approval for the basic plan to enter South Vietnam."
"Very well. If there is a guarantee from the Korean government, I welcome the investment. Korea is a precious partner of South Vietnam, and a nation with much in common with us, is it not? We stand together against the communist forces, and South Vietnam and Korea share the lot of divided nations. We ought to join our strength and develop our economies together."
President Diem also showed an interest in Chairman Park, who now ruled Korea.
"Korea's president visited the United States last year, did he not? The visit cannot have been easy, but he seems to have brought back good results."
"President Lee accompanied President Park on the ground. He even served as interpreter at the meeting with President Kennedy."
When Kim Tai-sung told him this about Ki-jo, Diem brightened.
"Did he? And what was President Kennedy like, seen in person?"
"He left a strong impression of a pacifist."
At Ki-jo's answer, Diem laughed, a soft, open laugh.
"That's right. He is a pacifist. And so am I. That is why the war in South Vietnam is being held in check."
Ki-jo nodded. Dictatorship and corruption aside, Ngo Dinh Diem was a pacifist. The official record confirmed it. Diem did not want the United States to send troops to Vietnam, and he had conveyed to Kennedy his intention to negotiate with North Vietnam in order to ease tensions. Kennedy, for his part, had no wish to dispatch American forces to Vietnam, and so the two men had found common cause and been able to hold the war at bay. By a bitter coincidence, in November of the following year Ngo Dinh Diem would be executed by the men of a coup, and Kennedy would be assassinated, and the peace of Vietnam would shatter. That the two heads of state who had not wanted the Vietnam War should die one after the other, a mere twenty days apart, would bring a great tragedy upon both nations.
"President Kennedy is having a hard time of it now over Cuba, but I trust him. He will resolve it peacefully."
Ngo Dinh Diem was convinced that the Cuban Missile Crisis would never flare into a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union.
"And India and China, who are fighting now, will stop and go back to the way things were. Both countries are vast in territory and huge in population, and they know all too well that neither can bring the other down completely."
On the Sino-Indian War, too, Ngo Dinh Diem saw clearly.
"When everyone else is pessimistic about the world, Mr. Lee, who has decided on a large-scale investment in South Vietnam, is a truly wise man."
Diem praised him.
"Thank you. I share Your Excellency's view, and I do not doubt South Vietnam's prosperity."
Looking at Ngo Dinh Diem, who would end his life under the stigma of dictator, Ki-jo felt his heart grow complicated. If the man had only practiced politics a little better—if he had not tolerated religious persecution, oppressive dictatorship, and the corruption of his relatives and the ruling class—the Vietnam War might never have come. Some 1.8 million people of North and South Vietnam, sixty thousand American troops, and more than five thousand Korean soldiers might have been spared. And those were only the official figures. There were claims that the uncounted dead, together with the Vietnamese who suffered harm from which they could never recover, reached three million. Once again Ki-jo felt, in his bones, the two faces of dictators.
"Ah, and please do not worry about South Vietnam's security. At present we hold forces that overwhelm North Vietnam, and we are receiving the supplies we need from the United States."
In troops and weapons, in the raw numbers, it was true that South Vietnam overwhelmed the North. But they were only numbers. Ngo Dinh Diem, like Syngman Rhee before the Korean War, was full of confidence that he could overpower the enemy to the north. His assurance that he would keep the peace with North Vietnam through negotiation must have sprung from that same confidence.
Tai-sung, who had been listening, ventured a question about something that troubled him.
"How do you regard Communist China, Mr. President? When Korea fought North Korea, China's entry into the war cost us our chance at unification."
At Tai-sung's question, Diem laughed aloud.
"This one thing I will guarantee you. If Chinese troops set foot on North Vietnamese soil on the pretext of helping North Vietnam, the North Vietnamese army will attack the Chinese, not us. Historically, Vietnam has suffered far too much at China's hands. North and South Vietnam alike harbor a deep-rooted grudge against China."
Once again, Diem's forecast was correct. Throughout the Vietnam War, the leadership of North Vietnam was extremely wary of Chinese intervention and would refuse, more than once, China's offers to dispatch troops officially. Chinese forces would play only a supporting role in the North Vietnamese rear, and after the Vietnam War ended in 1975, North Vietnam and China would go to war. A nationalist, Diem saw the relations between China and Vietnam with equal clarity.
In a meeting of about fifteen minutes, Ki-jo received Ngo Dinh Diem's promise of support.
"For the business ahead, consult my younger brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. He will be of great help to Mr. Lee."
When the audience was over, Ki-jo and Tai-sung left the Presidential Palace and stopped at the Korean embassy to report what had passed. Ambassador Seo Sang-cheol wore a pleased expression at the thought of sending good news home, and Lee Dae-yong, grown familiar with them by now, congratulated Ki-jo with genuine warmth. Ki-jo decided they would go to Kim Tai-sung's house and drink a modest toast.
Over the drinks, Kim Tai-sung said to him, "You've climbed as far as the eighth ridge now. Once you go home and get Chairman Park's approval, the South Vietnam investment is settled."
"I feel as if I've only reached the fourth. You'll need a government guarantee for your Sarawak forestry development as well, sir."
Tai-sung was grateful that Ki-jo had not forgotten his own venture.
"I've got a firm hold on the Malaysian jungle. You needn't worry."
As he said it, Tai-sung remembered how wholeheartedly Ki-jo looked after the men he went into business with. When Chung Ju-yung of Hyundai Construction had come to South Vietnam, he had put it this way.
"President Lee Ki-jo is a man you can truly trust. I'd been trying since the fifties to get a loan so I could build a cement plant in Danyang, and I failed every single time. The one who settled it in a stroke was President Lee. President Lee Ki-jo is an expert on foreign loans. An expert. Ha-ha-ha!"
What Ki-jo had done for Chung Ju-yung was to demolish the basis of the survey of Korea's cement demand conducted by the United States Agency for International Development, the AID. Early on, the AID had commissioned an American firm to investigate how much cement Korea would need, and the Americans, inclined to take a dark view of the Korean economy, had produced gloomy findings. The American company had put Korea's cement demand through 1963 at 750,000 tons. It was an absurdly small figure. Ki-jo had advised Chung to survey the reconstruction demand of Seoul and the provincial cities, and the shortage of housing, and submit the results to the government; he had also calculated the demand for cement himself and submitted his own figures. By the reckoning of Ki-jo and Chung Ju-yung, cement demand in 1963 would exceed 1.2 million tons.
It was Ki-jo who persuaded a government caught between believing the American data and believing the Korean builders. Every time he visited the Supreme Council, he sought out Oh Jeong-geun of the Commerce and Industry Committee and talked of the need for a loan to build a cement plant until the man's ears grew calluses from the hearing of it. Under the steady pressure of Ki-jo's efforts, Oh Jeong-geun surrendered at last.
"All right. Cheongsan already has a cement plant, and if Hyundai, which would be a competitor, and the other firms as well are all insisting that cement plants have to be built, then that must be the truth of it. I'll push it forward."
In the end, with the guarantee of the government of the Republic of Korea and the approval of the United States Department of State, a loan of 4.25 million dollars was concluded. Recalling Chung Ju-yung, who had told him the whole story, Kim Tai-sung said, "President Lee, you seem a little different from other businessmen."
"In what way?" Ki-jo asked, putting a piece of the side dish into his mouth.
"Businessmen are usually so hungry for a deal that they try to eat the whole thing themselves. Why do you try to share it with so many people? This South Vietnam venture is the same."
Ki-jo had his reasons, but he left them all unsaid. "A meal eaten together always tastes better than a meal eaten alone."
At that, Tai-sung burst out laughing. "You share a meal you could eat by yourself because you want it to taste better?"
"Of course."
Ki-jo was a good deal younger than he was, and yet the generosity of his spirit, his willingness to divide a profit, and the warmth of his feeling for others made him seem, somehow, like an elder. Once again Tai-sung felt that a man must never be judged by his years.
"Open your mouth. Say 'ah.'"
"What?" Ki-jo stared at him, taken aback by the sudden request. "Why?"
"I thought there might be an old man inside you who's weathered every battle and every storm, and I wanted to check. Ha ha ha."
Tai-sung laughed, and Ki-jo laughed with him. From then on, whenever Ki-jo lifted a bite to his mouth, he covered it playfully as he ate.