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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-08511 to 363-08516.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-08511 to 363-08516.pdf
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Title
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Article about the South Vietnamese economy
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Description
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Original title: "Buddhist", Keever's title: N/A, Article draft about Buddhist agitation in South Vietnam, for The North American News Alliance
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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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Beverly Deepe.
64A Hong Thap Tu
saigon, Vietnam
November 16, 1966
Economy page 1
SAIGON, VIETNAM-Peace for South Vietnam would bring a tumultous
economic upheaval,
worse than this little Idaho-sized nation has seen in
25 years of war. It would require an American-backed Marshall Plan to
curtail the period of turbulent adjustment and to bring prosperous
stability.
"If America won the shooting war--and withdrew from Vietnam
militarily and economically, the country would still collapse in five
minutes," one Vietnamese economic expert explained. "If the Viet Cong
Communists win the war, the South will just be the rice supplier for Hanoi."
While American experts predict a Korea-type comeback with the
"If
first breath of peace for South Vietnam, Vietnamese economists predict,
we have peace tomorrow, Vietnam will still be an economic slave for 100 years.
The whole purpose of the American i economic import program (US$400 million
last fiscal year) is to halt the inflation and to finance the military war-
not to develop in a positive manner the country economically."
(More)
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Deepe
Economy-page 2
Vietnamese economists are especially critical that so little has been
done to develop the economy; yet the min dilomna is that the economic
base of Vietnam-the agricultural countryside-is either held by the
Viet Cong or is such a hotely contested battleground that development is
impractical.
Currently,
"almost all the productive resources are employed
in war and not in peace," as one economic expert explained; the
artificial "war-dominated" Vietnamese/economy would be badly bruised, if
not battered, in the marked shift towards a prop prosperous peace-time one.
The multi-fected resources with this war-time economy can be shifted-but
not automatically-into a proscious peace-time economy. With peace in tho
some of the 700,000-man Vietnamese armed forces could return to
countryside,
their rice paddies and lumber plants; agricultural production could be
vastly improved over the pre-war level. But what would happen to the others?
Some of the Vietnamese troopers, who are already beginning to think of
that problem, wish the government could finance the equivalent of the
GI Bill, in which they would be given free education-an important
commodity
in a Confucianistic-based society. But, few see little hope of
that.
(More)
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Deepe
Boonomy page 3
Current
The official spending of the American and Vietnamese governments
has put such a strain on the economy and the manpower budgets "that we may
have to out back a few programs and bring in fewer American troops,"
according to one well-informed economic specialist.
In 1964, the
Vietnamese-American government official spending was 40 billion piastres
million
million
(US$1 billion).
(US$400 ); in 1965, was 60 billion (US$600 ); in 1966 was 100 billion.
In 1967, the expectations are it will level off at
billion piastres,
man (US$750 million). In 1965, the American and Vietnamese
government hired 130,000 persons from the private sector of the economy;
in 1966, the fiture figure jumped to 160,000; in 1967, the figures are
expected to level off at 80,000. One of the prize factors that has developed
during the war has been the training and up-grading of hundreds of thousands
of skilled and
semi-skilled workers. These could be transposed to
into a peace-time economy-but whoxetam employed by whom without continuod
though gradually-diminishing monetary outlays by either the American government
or the Vietnamese government-which is almost totally backed by Washington
economy economically? The shortage of capital and managorial talent
within the Vietnamese private sector of the economy is so great that only a dozen
or so persons with a on specialized sphere have the money or the capabilities
to be even begin to fill the vacuum created by a withdraw of the American
even in the vaguest of
dollar. Rarely do Vietnamese pool their capital
stockholding et ventures.
(More)
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Deepe
Economy page 4
What will American leave behind after the shooting war? It has
directly or indirectly financed the construction of 14 jet-lenth
The
length runways in the country; but only the Vietnamese government has the
talents and money to run a civilian airline; in most cases, the fares are
too expensive for Vietnam's "black people." (working class).
Amorioan base camps and cantonment areas would bequeath some usable
buildings which could be converted to schools or office buildings.
Fine teh telephonic communications, now monopolized by the military,
would, along with the new arrival of television,
among the fragmented Vietnamés nation-food.
allow better communications
Many American officials, including President Lyndon Johnson, have
stated that the $100-million Cam Ranh Bay port, air and logistical base would
be converted into an industrial complex and planned city. But some
Vietnamese and American officials concede that is a
✓ distortion.
The
50-aore American base, under total American jurisdiction,
now appears to
be planned as a total military operational area on a long-term basis;
there is
are reports by some American officials that an American submarine base will be
constructed there.
(More)
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Deepe
Economy-page 5
civilian
The civilian industrial complex and planned city is now planned
to be built my nearly two miles from the military area;
piers and port facilities separate from the elaborate military ones are
under consideration, acording to informed sources.
But, despite glamou glamorous pronouncements, including those
during the Honolulu Conference in February, no industrial complex
has even been started, "because we don't have the money and all our
plans are on Cloud No. 9, one American official x explained.
"The
people who drew up the plans thought we had simple things we don't have-
like electricity and water." Some American officials estimate that
US$200-300 million "would do a great deal to get things started" in
Cam Ranh Bay, but that has yet to be forthcoming.
fiscal year
Now plants as constructed last with Vietnamese private investments
totaled US$16.8 million, up from US$7.2 million during the previous fiscal
year. These light industries-everything from duck feather plants, to
sewing machine heads and bicycle tires--however, depend as much as seventy
percent on American-financed imported materials, rather then on the
PLOCKADED
Vietnam-produced agricultural items which are now engered by the war.
On the medical side, the American government has financed the
building of 28 "surgical suites" attached to provincial hospitals; these
are staffed by 42 American and Free World teams from Iran, Philippines,
Australia, Switzerland, Formosa, New Zealand, Britain and South Korea.
American military patrols often move into contested or insecure areas
to
perform medical services for the peasants-some dispensaries
ETNAMESE
and rural health workers would remain after an American military withdrawal.
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Deepe
Economy page 6
IMPROVEMENTS IN
Increases in educatter of teachers' training and education of children
have been noted, even though some of the new-constructed schools lack
teachers. Economic officials predict that next year at eighty percent
of all eligible age school children at the village or hamlet level will
receive some kind of education-though some of it may be only of third
grade level..
MANY
the peace.
POSSESSES
Much of the economic asses assets SouthVietnam poses for a
peaceful tomorrow depends on what the Communists eliminate on the eve of
For example, in Long An province, immediately south of Saigon,
American and Vietnamese government built 58 schools during the first ton
months of 1966; the Viet Cong blew up 56 of them. A Korean engineering
unit stationed near Saigon built one school for Vietnamese children; the
Viet Cong blew it up the night it was completed; the Koreans re-built
the school and the Viet Cong destroyed it a second time.
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Date
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1966, Nov. 16
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 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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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B118, F6
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Format
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dispatches
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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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Collector
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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
