“i cannot seem to convince the embassy that this is vietnam – not the United States of America,” said Diem at the beginning of August 1963. His conversation partner was a reporter from the New York Herald Tribune named Marguerite Higgins. The first female war correspondent to win the Pulitzer Prize, Higgins had become a celebrity through her daring reporting during the Inchon landing. Many of the other reporters covering Vietnam did not care for Higgins, as they resented her reluctance to collaborate with them, her willingness to criticize them, and her continued admiration for Diem. Higgins was to talk with South Vietnam's leader for five hours in the oppressive afternoon heat. Diem, clad in his white sharkskin suit, sat baking in a deep chair the entire time. Occasionally he toyed with a tiny cup of green tea. Otherwise, the President remained remarkably still and calm, like a mountain unmoved by the fury of tempests and floods. The strains of recent months had taken their toll on Diem nonetheless, as evidenced by a plump and pinkish appearance. Higgins later remarked, “It was hard to imagine him as the revolutionary who had exhorted his people upon assuming power in 1954: ‘If I advance, follow me! If I retreat, kill me! If I die, avenge me!’” Diem's superb intellect, however, had not been dulled.