May 15, 1962 - South Vietnam will not request American combat troops at this stage of the Southeast Asian crisis, a high American source revealed today. Despite the impending landing of American reinforcements in Thailand and despite reported Communist encirclement of the southern Laotian city of Saravane, only 50 miles from South Vietnam, President Ngo Dinh Diem (pictured right) is reported to see no need for U.S. fighting men in South Vietnam now. President Diem is reported to be convinced that the struggle against the Viet Cong must be fought and won by the Vietnamese themselves. The landing of American troops, he is said to believe, would only support the Viet Cong propaganda charges that the Saigon Government is a “stooge of the American imperialists.”
