Article about Phú Yên province

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derivative filename/jpeg

363-07914 to 363-07919.pdf

Digital Object Identifier

363-07914 to 363-07919

Title

Article about Phú Yên province

Description

Keever's title: "The Three Little Pigs Saga", Article draft about the pacification of Phú Yên province, for Newsweek Magazine

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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.

Transcript

Beverly Deepe 101 Cong Ly Saigon Dec. 19 Not until this year did the coastal province of Phu Yen, situated midway between Saigon and the 17th parallel, begin living up to its name of “Peace and Prosperity.” Like many other sections of Viet Nam, the province had seen two decades of war. During World War II, the pro-Communist, anti-colonist Viet Minh, who controlled all but the provincial capital of Tuy Hoa, fought the Japanese. A long railroad and vehicular bridge was blown up by allied bombers and its cement skeletons still rise from the murky river. Later, when the French moved back into the country, the Viet Minh continued to hold the countryside and stepped up their harassment of the colonial administration in the provincial capital. [XXXX indicating deletion] The French held Tuy Hoa city only by making an amphibious landing from the South China Sea, but the city was later leveled. When the war ended, the Viet Minh moved to North Viet Nam, but their sisters, the Viet Cong retained control of the rural sections of the province and Diem’s government shakily occupied only the capital [XXXX indicating deletion] city. Hence, rural sections of Phu Yen province had been under Communist control for twenty years. Phu Yen province is, furthermore, a [insertion: topographical and ethnic] microcosm of South Viet Nam. A skinny rice-rich band of land heavily populated by Vietnamese snuggles into the mountains, which form the Annamite chain throughout the northern one-third of the republic. Here live the 20-odd tribes of the primitive Montagnards. A year ago, the rural countryside and provincial capital were about to be captured by the Viet Cong [deletion: in] to be used as their headquarters, American military strategists believe. Civilian traffic was at a standstill. New persons walked the mainstreets of Tuy Hoa during the daytime and none during the night. Business activity dropped. Primary school education decreased by more than ten percent. (More) Deepe--2 Then on May 8 of this year, the government initiated Operation Sea Swallow (Hai Yen), an integrated civilian-military "clear and hold operation"--the reverse concept of a "big sweep" by government forces and then withdrawal. The first phase of Operation Sea Swallow was to secure the provincial capital and the narrow coastal rice valley along the seacoast. The second phase, which ends this month, was to move into the heavily populated fertile valleys surrounded by the mountains containing stronger Viet Cong influence. The third phase, which begins January 1, is to relocate the Montagnards scattered haphazardly in the hills into sizable, new villages, called "combat hamlets." [XXXX indicating deletion] The first and second phases are both ambitious and impressive. At year's end, 222 strategic hamlets (Ap Chien Luoc) will be completed. This process includes the erection of a defensive bamboo or barbed wire fences, the training of village defenders and other paramilitary groups, the training of [XXXX indicating deletion] civilian hamlet cadre such as first aid men and personnel associated with civic action, information, security and social welfare; the securing of the hamlet internally by the issuing of identity cards, family photos and inter-family photos for checking the whereabouts of all villagers at all times, and finally the election of the hamlet council. More than 4000 of these strategic hamlets dotting the entire Vietnamese countryside began in late summer to give the government the means to begin “winning a losing war.” Yet, in Phu Yen, the government, with substantial subsidies of United States funds, did even more. The province became the experimental lab for those "impact" programs for fast rural development, which, if successful, would be tried in the 40 other provinces throughout the republic. Rat poison was distributed as a means to increase crop production and to preserve stored grains. As of December, 300,000 rat tails have been [XXXX indicating deletion] chopped off by farmers who used the poison. Medical kits, [XXXX indicating deletion] two-way radios to improve defense, tools, seeds, fertilizer, fishing equipment and funds for paying a bounty for captured Viet Cong weapons were supplied by the U.S. Agency for International Development. (MOre) Deepe--3 Ten thousand match books with covers eulogizing Diem’s government were printed at the cost of US$80, and their value [XXXX indicating deletion] is being tested. (The only match factory in Viet Nam capable of doing the work refused the job for fear the Viet Cong would sabotage the plant.) The assumption of the [XXXX indicating deletion] projects is that the Viet Cong must not only be eliminated militarily, but also that their principal economic arguments must be countered by improving the standard of living for the local population. Hence, textbooks maybe more as influential in defeating the Viet Cong as a bullet; a pig may be more important than an airplane pilot; a water well maybe more significant than a howitzer. “If you have the people with you, you can defeat the Communist guerrilla,” one official involved in USAID counterinsurgency program noted. “If not, it doesn’t matter how much military action you have, you can never win a guerrilla war.” Perhaps the most dazzling of the experimental impact programs adopted in Phu Yen was the Pig Project. This week (Dec. 23), the last of 500 white Yorkshire hybrid hogs “which grow twice as big twice as fast” as the hundred-year-old Vietnamese inbreds will be distributed to 200 families in the province. Two feeder pigs and one breeder were distributed on credit to each family. Within 8 months, the farmer is able to sell the two feeder pigs, earning enough money to repay his initial debt, cost of feed and building of pigsty and compost pit where manure is stored until it can be used as fertilizer. The latter step is designed to increase crop production. When the breeder bears pigs, the farmer is ready to start earning profits. The pigs hit Phu Yen province like a Sahara sandstorm. They were discussed in hamlet council meetings and in street corner gatherings. One man tore down half of his house [deletion: and built] to provide land to build a pigsty. In most cases, the pigsties were more elaborate than the owners’ houses. [XXXX indicating deletion] Their cement floors, intricately designed concrete walls and tile roofs were in distinct contrast to the owners’ houses of hard-packed dirt floors, thatch roofs and bamboo [XXXX indicating deletion] siding. The pigs had clearly become the “status symbol” of Phu Yen. Some farmers washed their pigs daily, a feat which many Vietnamese children can not boast of. The weight gain and their (More) Deepe--4 their feeding schedules were the talk of the hamlets as other farmers eagerly watched to determine whether they should seek pigs next year. Never has the health of a pig so greatly affected United States prestige abroad. [insertion: total] results through the province were encouraging. The civilian population again began to stalk into the towns for marketing and socializing. Stores remain open until 10 pm. The number of civilian vehicles on province roads increased from zero to 50. "The government expanded its real estate holdings in the province by 20 percent since May and now it holds 65 percent of the population instead of 20 percent," one American advisor working closely with the Phu Yen project said. "In the past three months, our intelligence information from the people has almost quadrupled -- and it comes from people who wouldn't tell us anything before," he continued. "It’s now almost infallible where before the information was a hit-and-miss sort of thing. It now takes twice as many Vietnamese military people to evaluate the information." "One good example of the people's support was some villagers who stopped a convoy and told us the Viet Cong had set up an ambush along the roadside. If we can continue to win the people, the Viet Cong can't operate." "Another good indicator is in the past four months we had [deletion: five times] a fivefold increase in the number of Viet Cong defectors," he said. "Before were were getting only four or five a month." Yet there are enormous problems that must be overcome if the program is not to become disasterously bogged down. "The biggest problem is the apathy of the Vietnamese working from the province chief down to the hamlets," one American advisor explained. “To me, this is a war. But the Vietnamese work from 8:30 to 5 with a two and half hour siesta." There is also the limited administrative and technical ability of the hamlet personnel, many of them working with less than a high school education. And there are the traditional Vietnamese habits of favoritism and “Backbitting hordeism," as one American official explained. For example, those receiving USAID pigs were the hamlet elite, primarily Catholic like the Diem regime, [insertion: they] were [deletion: largely] selected by the Vietnamese agricultural union which had a predominant Catholic membership. Yet, it is primarily the non-Catholics who must be (More) Deepe--5 swayed from Communism. The replacement [insertion: supplies] for the USAID medical kits have difficulty in reaching the strategic hamlets because provincial medical authorities are reluctant to release them. (One U.S. Army Special Forces medic had to threaten to see Ambassador Frederick E. Holting before provincial hospital [insertion: personnel] would give him his allocated medicines.) Paper supplies for district newspapers are stockpiled in Saigon warehouses and circulation into the rural areas has been curtailed to 150 issues per district. Circulation had formerly been 500 to 5000 per district, depending on population concentrations. Another publication, Kien Quoc (Good Info), is written by USIS, approved by the Vietnamese Psychological Warfare Directorate, printed by USIS and then distributed by the Peywer personnel. Yet five of the nine issues were stockpiled in the Peywer warehouse. USIS threatened to cut off funds until they were released for distribution in the strategic hamlets. The meager, thatch-roofed information huts in each strategic hamlet are humorously called [XXXX indicating deletion] “visitors bureaus” at the local level because lower class citizens are discouraged from using them. One hamlet medical cadre (whom I talked with) complained he had not been paid for six months, though funds had been supplied to the province by USAID. One story told by American authorities in Phu Yen perhaps best illustrate the problem. One day, when the hamlet chiefs gathered for a council meeting, one of the [deletion: far-away] outlying hamlets near Viet Cong territory was attacked. An American advisor tried to call the hamlet without success. “That’s wrong -- are the lines out?,” he asked. “No,” he was told. “The hamlet chiefs carried their telephones with them to the meeting.” The village of Dong Hy (Beautiful East) (pop. 1924), [XXXX indicating deletion] a “showpiece” strategic hamlet complete with elaborate bamboo fence, pigs, and a USAID supplied radio loudspeaker, was visited by a delegation of Vietnamese VIP’s. The governor-delegate suddenly asked for a practice alert. A huge drum sounded the warning; instructions [XXXX indicating deletion] issued from the loudspeaker could be heard only a block away; children playfully pounded hollow bamboo sticks as part of the alert system. Yet adults, instead of (More) Deepe--6 assemblying in the pre-designated areas of the church and school, went on about their work. The Vietnamese VIP raged and demanded to know why the people had not moved to the central defensive posts. "Well, we thought it was a practice alert anyway," he was told. The incident seemed to verify the conclusion of one American major working closely with strategic hamlets throughout Viet Nam, when he said, "Without honest local leadership at the rice-roots level, you're really hurting." (Saigon newspapers for the past month have been urging an end to abuses of authority in the provinces and the constant checking of the activities of lower level officials.) When the Phu Yen experiment is projected throughout the country at a cost that could well reach nearly US$40 million dollars when approved next year, these situations, unless corrected, could prolong the war unnecessarily or, worse yet, could be a key factor in preventing a clear-cut victory. -30-

Date

1962, Dec. 19

Subject

Vietnam War, 1961-1975; United States. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support; Civilians in war; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Campaigns; Mặt trận dân tộc giải phóng miền nam Việt Nam

Location

Saigon, South Vietnam

Coordinates

10.8231; 106.6311

Size

20 x 26 cm

Container

B2, F4

Format

dispatches

Collection Number

MS 363

Collection Title

Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers

Creator

Keever, Beverly Deepe

Collector

Keever, Beverly Deepe

Copyright Information

These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.

Publisher

Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries

Language

English