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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04743.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04743
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Title
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Inside Saigon- U.S. Is Losing A Political War
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Description
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Article published in the New York Herald Tribune about instability inside South Vietnam, page unknown
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AI Usage Disclosure
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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.
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Transcript
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- Page 1
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[Apr. 25, 1965]
Inside Saigon-
U.S. Is Losing
A Political War
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent
SAIGON.
Communist Viet Cong guerrillas killed two U. S.
Marines and wounded eight others in two weekend
clashes near the strategic Da Nang air base. These were
the first U. S. Marine deaths in four days of skirmish-
ing between the guerrillas and the Marines, who are
protecting the base.
The American fatalities came as the political situ-
ation in Saigon was drifting toward the lowest point
in a decade.
For the 12th straight day, U. S. Air Force jet
bombers pounded military points in North Viet Nam
yesterday, but a Saigon business man observed that
"as the military war against the Communists grows
bigger, the Communists' political war grows hotter."
And a high-ranking American officer said: "The
war cannot be won in Saigon-but it can and is
being lost in Saigon. The question is whether the
political situation can or will be reversed."
The two Marine deaths came early today when
guerrillas overwhelmed two Marine outposts. Four
Marines were wounded, Yesterday four other Marines
were slightly wounded 13 miles southwest of Da Nang-
two hit by Red snipers' bullets and two caught in a
Red-built mantrap.
In the air operations, 35 F-105s supported by 25
jet fighters destroyed a Route 1 bridge and damaged
a ferry crossing, both near Vinh, 135 miles south
of Hanoi. Six Canberra jets knocked out a road con-
voy in strafing attacks on Routes 7, 8 and 12. No
planes were reported lost.
The Instability
Anti-Communist political observers in Saigon
compared the present political situation to the dismal
days of 1955, when the gambling pirates called Binh
Xuyen shelled the Presidential Palace of Ngo Dinh
Diem.
"We are now in one of the worst states of in-
stability I've yet seen," the Saigon business man said.
This is accompanied by a growing anti-Ameri-
canism. "The American Marines, the American jets,
the American advisers everything but your economic
aid is likely to be chucked out of here in a bloody,
ungracious manner," one Western diplomat predicted.
These political observers believe that the internal
political situation should be an inducement for the
Communist-led National Liberation Front-and Hanoi
-to negotiate for peace. They argue that the Com-
munists control most of the rice-rich Mekong delta,
the pro-neutralists now have a toe-hold in the present
government, while the most anti-Communist ele-
ments the Catholics and the armed forces-are either
leaderless or disunited. More significant, this pro-
neutralist trend is expected to grow in the coming
weeks as its supporters prepare the means, to obtain
more power within the government and more control
of the future legal mechanisms of the government.
For example, Prime Minister Phan Huy Quat re-
cently signed a decree outlining procedures for the
election of city and provincial councils on May 30-
in which, according to the 40-page statute, Viet Cong
secret agents and their covert sympathizers would
not be denied the right to vote. The acting Chief of
State, Phan Khac Suu, last week appealed for the
election of a National Congress, which political ob-
servers predict would easily be penetrated by pro-
Communist and pro-neutralist elements.
The Military
Political observers here have long considered the
Vietnamese armed forces more unified, more dis-
ciplined and more anti-Communist than the civilian
elements of the population-but the trend in the last
six weeks has been for the armed forces to play a
decreasing role in political affairs.
This growing pro-neutralist trend within official
government circles-and the future legal institutions
-has been accompanied by a sub-surface state of
bubbling discontentment with the American-backed
government of Prime Minister Quat and with the
Americans.
The Right-wing Catholics accuse the dapper Prime
Minister of being too soft on the Buddhists, whom
they consider Communist subversives; the pro-neu-
tralist Buddhist politico-priests, who jubilantly sup-
ported Mr. Quat when he took office nine weeks ago,
"are now stopping their support of him," as one pro-
Buddhist layman explained, and they have initiated
an avalanche of rumors that Mr. Quat is "the puppet
of the Americans."
Likewise, the Vietnamese-of all political colors-
believe the American military leaders are moving
closer and closer to the French colonial position mili-
tarily thus incurring all the disadvantages psy-
chologically of being tabbed as colonialists, but with
none of the colonialists' advantages of political control.
Neither is the American bombing of North Viet
Nam shoring up the anti-Communist government po-
sition; the Southern-born anti-Communists are more
depressed at the Saigon political situation than they
are encouraged at the bombing of North Viet Nam;
some of the Northern-born anti-Communists openly
resent their homeland being bombed.
In short, the invisible, unarmed subversive war is
now considered far more significant than the violent,
bloody guerrilla war in the countryside, which has
been going spectacularly, but not consistently, well
for the government side.
THE ATROCITIES
Another report by Beverly Deepe-on
atrocities by Communist and government
forces in Viet Nam.
is on Page 18.
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Date
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1965, Apr. 25
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Subject
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Vietnam (Republic)--Politics and government; Saigon (Vietnam); Vietnam, 1961-1975
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6311
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Container
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B4, F6
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Format
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newspaper clippings
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
