The Foreign Service Journal, November 2003

sadors recognize, carefully crafted messages supported by convincing evidence play a powerful role in establishing the policy environment in which decisions are made. By significantly shaping the way top Washington policy-makers assessed Vietnam, Bunker’s cables and other sanguine reports sent from Embassy Saigon during his tenure probably had a greater impact in shaping policy than any specific recommen- dations on strategy or tactics that he made. The excessive optimism of this reporting eventually damaged Bunker’s credibility, especially among those who had misgivings about U.S. policy. Bunker always remained a hawk on Vietnam and never regretted having taken that position. But he quickly recognized that the American people would not indefi- nitely support a conflict of the scale the war had reached in the year he came to Saigon. This helped make him a strong supporter of Vietnamization, which he believed could successfully transfer the defense of South Vietnam from American to local forces. He enthu- siastically welcomed President Nixon’s making the concept central to his administration’s withdrawal strategy. As the massive U.S. stake in Vietnam required, Bunker and his mission involved themselves in all facets of South Vietnamese political and economic life in ways that went far beyond the more limited approach he had adopted in his previous ambassadorial assignments. In his dealings with President Nguyen Van Thieu and other Vietnamese leaders, his guiding principle was to persuade the Vietnamese to recognize the advantages to themselves of policies the United States recommended, not to impose those policies on them. He repeatedly tried, with lim- ited success, to convince Washington to be more forthcoming with Saigon in disclosing what it was trying to accomplish in the negotiations with the North. Thieu and others in his government seemed to recognize and welcome Bunker’s approach, and gave him much respect. But even Bunker’s careful ministrations were insufficient to bring Thieu around at crucial points. Some Americans and Vietnamese argue that had Bunker taken a tougher, less accommodating line with the evasive and indecisive Vietnamese presi- dent, things might have been differ- ent. But this must remain tantaliz- ingly speculative. A Diplomatic Craftsman To the end of his foreign affairs career, Bunker remained a diplomat- ic craftsman, not a “big thinker” or N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 41