We Just Don't Understand

Item

derivative filename/jpeg

363-04847.pdf

Digital Object Identifier

363-04847

Title

We Just Don't Understand

Description

Fifth of a series of seven articles published in the New York Herald Tribune about the state of the Vietnam War in 1964, page unknown

Transcript

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- Page 1
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Viet Nam a Year Later, No. 5
We Just Don't Understand
By Beverly Deepe
Of the Herald Tribune Staf
SAIGON.
Twenty-five years ago, a Saigon business man and Ho
Chi Minh worked together to rescue American flyers shot
down by the Japanese. Ho Chi Minh, now president of
Communist North Viet Nam, was then leading a small
guerrilla band fighting both the French colonialists and the
Japanese invaders.
The Vietnamese leader and the business man walked
through the jungles; slept on straw mats in peasants'
houses; scrounged rice when they could.
"I remember one night, Ho Chi Minh told me, 'Every-
one has a weakness and I have one, too. I like American
cigarettes," the Saigonese recalled recently.
"Ho Chi Minh was very pro-American then," he con-
tinued. "After all, Roosevelt was talking about the Four
Freedoms. America had just conquered its own economic
depression and seemed ready to help the poor people else-
where."
Today, America claims Ho Chi Minh as its No. 1 enemy
in Viet Nam.
Last year, an American technical expert was captured
by the Communist guerrillas and for five months was held
prisoner in the mountains.
During that time, the American became acquainted with
a Communist, who served as his English-language inter-
preter. During their acquaintance the young Vietnamese
explained that he was from the provincial capital of Qui
Nhon, 250 miles northwest of Saigon.
"When I was a high school student in Qui Nhon, we
always went to American movies," he told his American
captive. "The nicest compliment you could say about a
young man was: 'He's as handsome as Robert Taylor.' And
we had another expression: 'He's as rich as an American.'"
20 YEARS LATER
But last month-20 years later-there were bloody
anti-American demonstrations in Qui Nhon.
Today America is in Viet Nam with nearly 20,000 men,
and aid running close to $2 million a day. But despite this
commitment it is commonly accepted here that U. S. policy
is static or reactionary.
One Vietnamese business man has characterized that
policy as that of "the status quo seekers.".
Other observers believe that American policy is too
revolutionary. Still others say that it preaches an irrevelant
revolution.
"Communism in Viet Nam is a 19th century philosophy
preached to people with a 13th century mentality," one
long-time American observer explained. "We're simply too
far advanced for them."
Few observers can explain why America cannot export
freedom and democracy to underdeveloped lands. The
following is one theory:
To Americans, freedom and democracy give to the
individual citizen certain rights and protections against the
oppressor which is the state.
In Viet Nam, the state is closely identified with a small
ruling minority; the individual is insignificant. Because of
his Confucianistic heritage, an individual is viewed only as
a member of a family or a village. He's accustomed to
authoritarian group life.
What is important to the Vietnamese is equality. Not
equality of individuals-but equality between classes, to
bring into balance the "silver" (the haves) and the "black"
(the-never-will-haves) classes.
In Viet Nam all branches of government and the press
are concentrated in the hands of a small ruling minority.
Opposition is bought off or suppressed.
Free elections have been a myth. Votes are readily
bought. The uneducated voter is subject to pressures from
the government and to a greater extent from the Com-
munists at the village level.
FREE ELECTIONS
In an initial attempt to install democracy in Viet Nam,
the United States made the free election of hamlet councils
a prerequisite for American aid to strategic hamlets. But in
Quang Tri, a very secure province, although bordering North
Viet Nam, a local police official complained:
"Yes, we had free elections-but in 416 strategic
hamlets, 100 hamlet chiefs turned out to be Communist. We
had to arrest them."
Nor is the American economic principle of private
enterprise applicable in Viet Nam at this time. For it is
the individual with 15,000 piastres ($200) who receives
licenses to open a bar on main street, to cut precious lumber
on government land, to receive the contract for government
construction.
In the provinces, a war widow complained bitterly and
refused to pay her landlord more than the legal one-quarter
share of her crops. The landlord drove a herd of water
buffalo across her rice paddies, destroying the crop. As the
landlord was also a village notable, the police and other
village administrators ignored the legal appeals of the
widow.
Like the Americans, the Communists also promise
freedom and democracy-but the Vietnamese view their
promises differently. The Communist approach is to lift an
individual from one collective order based on Confucian
parental authoritarianism and to place him into another
collective society. But in the new order of the Communists,
the power is shifted from the "silver" class to the "black"
class. The individual remains insignificant.
Control of American aid is fairly strict, but the fact
that it is channeled through existing central, regional and
district levels of government gives the impression the United
States is reinforcing the status quo-and the corruption.
While a tide of anti-American feeling surges in the
urban centers, some Vietnamese officials criticize the Amer-
icans for not interfering more in Vietnamese affairs.
AMERICANS CALLED AFRAID
"The Americans-simply by being here-are interfering
in our affairs," one Vietnamese general explained. "They
should go further and make the government be honest.
But they do not have the courage-they are afraid of being
called colonialists. They'll be called colonialists anyway."
For 20 years Viet Nam has been an insoluble problem
for the Westerners-first the French, now the Americans.
It has a well-earned reputation as the "graveyard of
generals and diplomats."
In the nine years the French were fighting here, Paris
sent five generals, one admiral and three civilians to act
as military commanders and/or civilian executives. The
administrations averaged one a year.
Shortly after Maxwell Davenport Taylor arrived in
Saigon last summer he launched a series of talks to the
American community.
In some he mentioned that he had read newspaper
reports that Robert Kennedy, Defense Secretary Robert
McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk had volun-
teered for the tough assignment as ambassador to replace
Henry Cabot Lodge.
"But I was chosen," he would tell his audiences. "I had
that one quality none of the others possessed.
"I was expendable."
Many in his audiences noted a slight tinge of regret
for being sent to Viet Nam from his post as chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Bits of the "graveyard" reputation have already begun
rubbing off on Gen. Taylor. On his 63d birthday-Aug. 26
-Viet Nam was in the midst of a government crisis-
student demonstrators forced Premier-General Nguyen
Khanh to step down; religious war broke out in the northern
provinces and mob anarchy prevailed in the streets of
Saigon.
RED PROPAGANDA
Gen. Taylor's name is infamous in the Vietnamese
villages-because of powerful devastating propaganda blasts
by the clandestine Viet Cong radio, who sharply criticize
the "Staley-Taylor" plan of fortified villages. Because of
mismanagement under the former government a year ago,
the program of fortifying hamlets proved nearly disastrous.
It was Maxwell Taylor who was "chosen" exactly three
years ago to be the godfather of the American commitment
to South Viet Nam. In May, 1961, then Vice-President
Lyndon B. Johnson, on an Asian tour, promised aid for rural
development and local militia to the South Vietnamese gov-
ernment. Five months later, Gen. Taylor arrived to mold the
future American "advisory" effort. Two months later, by
Christmastime, the first American helicopter units arrived.
In Viet Nam, Gen. Taylor has retained his Pentagon
reputation as a "problem solver" and ardent worker. He's
generally up at 7:15 a. m., eats a leisurely breakfast and is
in his office by 8:30. His lunch at 1 p. m. generally includes
only a can of Metrecal.
Like the Vietnamese, he takes a brief siesta-15 minutes
-and returns at 2:30 to the office, working until 6:30 or
7 p. m. During the evenings, cables for Washington are
regularly brought to his home for rereading and signing.
As the senior American in Viet Nam-superseding the
American military commander (Lt. Gen. William C. West-
moreland) Gen. Taylor has painstakingly visited the "little
American." He has visited the American Embassy warehouse
where furniture is stocked; talked with the repairmen of
fans and air-conditioners, visited American GIs in the U. S.
Navy hospital, the USO, the Vietnamese-American Associa-
tion and the American Community school.
During trips to American military installations in the
provinces, Gen. Taylor reportedly told American sergeants
and majors the importance of their reports and how he
needs to hear dissenting views.
LONGHAND REPORTS
He writes his reports in longhand in a big yellow pad.
His aids are amazed at the clarity of his reports, delineating
carefully the facts, alternative solutions, the consequences
of each alternative and the varying factors. One Foreign
Service secretary remarked that in 14 years he had never
read drafts as clear as Gen. Taylor's.
One of Gen. Taylor's first changes was to make
Saturday morning an official working day; simultaneously
Gen. Westmoreland put the American military staffs on
"a minimum of 60 hours a week."
"The U. S. government is really getting its money's
worth over here," one weary aid explained.
Another article in the series will appear tomorrow.

Date

1964, Oct. 29

Subject

Vietnam (Republic)--Politics and government; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Public opinion--Vietnam (Republic); United States--Relations--Vietnam (Republic)

Location

Saigon, South Vietnam

Coordinates

10.8231; 106.6311

Container

B4, F6

Format

newspaper clippings

Collection Number

MS 363

Collection Title

Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers

Creator

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