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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-07089 to 363-07105.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-07089 to 363-07105
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Title
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Article about the South Vietnamese presidential election
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Description
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Original title: "ELECTION", Keever's title: "Saigon's Presidential Election Campaign Stirs Disillusionment", Article draft about the problems plagueing of the South Vietnamese presidential election, for the Christian Science Monitor
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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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SAIRAD
PROREUTER TOKYO
ELECTION 1 (Normass/Deepe)
SAIGON,
AUGUST 15-The Vietnamese Presidential election
campaign-which is bin becoming something of a fiasco-is slowly
unmasking the long-standing ills of this country to which the num
balloting provides no solution.
to
At best, the elections for President and the 60-man Senate,
be held september 3, are considered to provide a first, tomon shaky,
forward step towards a long-term solution. But, to the distress
of the anti-Communists here, they may also provide a regression of
several steps backward.
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Sairad
Proreuter Tokyo
Election 2 Saigon (Normass/deepe)
The whole olection fiasco has revolved from a verbal free-for-all
among the Vietnamese generals in late June to a generals versus certi
certifying committee tiff to a generals versus civilian candidates
debacle in early August to the current deadlock between the military
ticket headed by General Nguyen Van Thiou and the other ton civilian
canid candidates, who are refusing to campaign.
one
"All these candidates are little Noros fiddling while Rome burns,"
Western observer mused. "And Rome is certainly burning."
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Sairad
Prorouter Tokyo
Election 3 Saigon (Normess/deepe)
On top of the economic and political discontent already dorment
dormant here, the election process is bringing a new kind of political
While the rural areas under government control
disillusionment.
appear to be relatively passive about the elections, the impact of
the blossoming disillusionment has hit a significent element-the
middle and upper-class in the cities,
which makes them ripe for
Communist propaganda and subversive recruitment.
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Sairad
Prorouter Tokyo
Election 4 saigon (Normass/doope)
For months, the Communist propagandists have said the election
would be unfair, rigged and concocted by American strategists and
their Vietnamese "honohmen." Now, the campaign is proving
their prediction partially true as the Vietnamese civilian candidates,
joined by American Congressmen and intellectuals, decry the dishonesty
of the oleotion procedures.
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SAIRAD
PROREUTER TOKYO
ELECTION 5 saigon (Normass/Deepe)
Today, in a saigon press conference,
Tren Van Huong, one o
the leading civilian candidates-charged the military ticket headed
by General Thiou with using tricks and pressure on the candidates
and the voters.
"I could not tell you in one whole day all the tricks the
government (headed by Thieu and Ky) has been using and will use
in the future," Huong said. "For instance, the majority of the
Vietnamese troops have two voting cards; one of them issued by
their unit and a second ono issued to them at their home. Another
example, in the remote area, on the excuse of a lack of security,
one person will gather the voting card of all the legal voters and
vote for them in their name. This is a very common practice."
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Sairad
Prorouter Tokyo
Election 6 saigon (Normass/Deopo)
He also charged that in 2 six provinces, the province chiefs
assigned scoret service mon to watch civil servants and other á
supporters of the civilian Presidential candidates, as well as
giving demonstration lessons of how to vote for Conorals Thieu andK
Lesser known candidates made similar charges
Stort military ticket.
The significance of the distisko disillusionment is this:
The Allied forces can not win by holding only the cities. They
must win si6 sizeable chunks of the countryside and hence the importance
of the current slow rate of progress in the rural pacification program.
But,
the Communists can not win by holding only the countryside. They
must crack the government's hold on the urban population. Hence,
the importance of the battle for the middle and upper-class Vietnamese,
which is the backbone of the government support.
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Sairad
Prorouter Tokyo
Election 7 saigon (Normass/Deepe)
On the American side, also, the election period-which
is becoming a crucial point of no return for all concerned-has
uncovered the divided viewpoints of how the war should be fought.
While American policymakers, generals and Congressional leadors
ARGUE
about whether or not to otwarto escalate the bombing of
North Vietnam, knowledgeable Americans here view the que question
as largely irrelevant. They view the bombing as a distinctly
secondary advantage to the Allied side--but not a substitute
for curing the ills of the south. While Americans in Washington
quibble about whether the Vietnamese elections will be rigged or
not-and the merits of American non-interference in the election
Americans here are hoping more and more for a future effective (ital)
government, no matter who wins the election or how they win them.
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Sairad
Proreuter Tokyo
Election 8 (Ix saigon (Normass/doope)
Clearly, more American officials here are beginning to believe
that unless drastic reforms are made within South Vietnam & immediaty
immediately after the election, the United States not only will lose
the war, but also should withdraw before doing so.
American officials here, when speaking in private,
are
now taking a harder, more pessimistio lock at the election.
"We are getting in tune for our oft-cun' Henny Penny song," ono
American cracked bitterly.
삼1
"Thot sky is falling. The sky is falling."
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Sairad
Prorouter Tokyo
Election 9 saigon (Normass/Deepe)
The Americans here are becoming increasingly frustrated
with the problems the elections are unveiling--and yet there is
only organized pandemonimum pandemonium as they attempt to do
many
anything about them. While American officials, in private,
openly criticize the Vietnamese for their placidity in running their
country and the war, those Americans with longer perspectives believe
the United states policy decisions share a major chunk of blame
for the current problems.
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Sairad
Prorouter Tokyo
Election 10 Saigon (Normass/Doope)
years,
00
One experienced Vietnamese source explan explained, "For two
the government of Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky created
the fo illusion, or the veneer, of stability around the political
piller which props up the South Vietnamese house. But, now the
election has a splintered that veneer. Beneath it, you can see
what always existed-a pillar eaten away by termites and decay.
The termites are Communist subversivos; the decay in the ineptness
of the nationalists. The Vietnamese election proe process is
shattering the myth that a South Vietnamese government ever existed;
in fact, it only typed appeared to have existed."
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Sairad
Prorouter Tokyo
Election 11 Saigon (Normass/Doope)
Theobsever then explained the gigantic problems facing Vietnam
Ne.
which the election itself neighter could nor would solve. He continuod
to use the analogy of the official South Vietnamese house built on
four pillars the military, political, administrative and economic.
"Only the ml military pillar is left standing and that is very
SA P
shaky," he continued. "The administrative, coonon economic and
political pillars have virtually crumbled away and the house is falling.
The Vietnamese elections can not repair these pillars--we can
only hope that the elections will toss up a government that will try
to overhaul these pills. And yet,
no guar guarantee of stress. success.
even if they try, there's
For there is nothing to repair
them with--there are no more good administrators, economists or per
polican politicians that haven't been tried. And ✰ the
Americans can not give or buy for Vietnam new pillars to replace
the old.
Or if
"If the new government does not z try to repair them,
it does try and fails, we will lose the war, the country and the
people either on the battlefield or at the conference table.
how desperate the situation is."
That's
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Sairad
Proreuter Tokyo
Election 12 saigon (Normass/Deepe)
Looking backwards in timo, he notod that during the French
Indo-China War more than a decade ago, the French colonialists
controlled all four pillars-oconomic, political, military end
administrative--and yet they still lost. For neither the French
nor any independent Vietnamese government since has inherited or
built a strong foundation for the four pillars-the foundation being
the mass of the people.
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sairad
Prorouter Tokyo
Election 13 Saigon (Normess/Deope)
Using the same analogy, he then put the American involyomont
into the focus. The bombing of North Vietnam in early 1907 did not
rebuilt the four pillars in the south-it merely slowed down their
rate of crumbling. But, the enormous impact came with the
gradual introduction of American troops. The net result of the N
American troop buildup was to reinforce dramatically and decisively
the Vietnamose military pillar when it was on the point of a rp ri
fapid and total collapse.
But, the American buildup did not reinforce the political,
administrative or economic pillars--nor did the Americans ever soise
control of these pillars as the French once did. In fact, for the
administrative and economic pillars, the American buildup did * just
the opposite--it whipped more strain on these two, which only acce
accelerated their trend towards collapse. For the American troops
brought American dollars, which created the inflation, which unrest
Jeoj jeopardized the fixed salary soldiers and administrators in
the other pillars. These fixed-salary fighters and employees took
the easy and obvious way out-oorruption--which the Americans ignored,
but indirectly financed.
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Sairad
Proreuter Tokyo
Election 14 Saigon (Normass/Deepe)
The American troop buildup, in an unplanned, but quirkish
neh phenomena froze the political pillar. As if surrounded by
a glacier, the political pillar stood still; for 26 months, time
stopped.
Now, the election has thawed the glaciersi
mino th
political activists have begun to breathe and flail about; time
again is in motion. But, no one knows for sure if the pillar will
somehow be reborn after the thaw, or whether it will continuo
its slow-motion decay. pr or, with a greater momentum, will olang
so down to chaos and anarchy.
Moro Reuter
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Sairad
Prorouter Tokyo
Election 15 S Saigon (Normafes/Deepe)
To capture time, space and motion, a wide-angle view encompassing
all four pillars, resting on a shattered foundation of the people-
which would portray the fundamental s aspects of this multi-facted war-
would show that the term "stalemate" is too optomistic an assessment.
For, onch of the pillers is continuing to fall.
More accurately, the analogy would be that the Allied, anti-
Communist effort is not simply losing momentum on one treadmill-but
is paddling slower and slower on five different treadmills simultaneou
in,
simultaneiously, each moving at different speeds and different directions.
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Sairad
Prorouter Tokyo
Election 16 saigon (Normase/Deepe)
Currently, the American officialdom has all the outward
appearances and the disadvantages of the French colonialist position--
Pol.to
yet it has none of the advantages, for it does not control, and
rarely exercises its questionable ability to influence, the administrative/
and economic pillars.
he agonizing questions now facing the Amorionn officialdon
ames the moral one of whether or not the Americans should take over
the running of the country, as the French colonialists did though
for non-colonial objectives thus seising control of the four
pillars. A joint military command, for example, has been frequently
discussed and pigeonholed, on would give the Americans control of
Vimo Vietnamese military. But, this step would undermine
the legitimacy of the Sort South Vietnamese government--which is
purpose of the upcoming election.
one
Once acked, the moral question is promptly ignored by the
Americans here, for they immediately ask the pragmatio questions
Do the Americans have the political, coonomic and administrative
capabilities to take over from the Vietnamese. Americans with a clue
to developments in Vietnam promply promptly answer no. For, they
note the enormous inability of the Americans oven to advise the
2
Vietnamese properly. They note the regular change-over in
American military and civilian advisors-usually in mid-year as the
Communist monsoon offensive is in full-swing-which even senior
American admits limits their effectiveness.
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Sairad
Proreutor Tokyo
Election 17 saigon (Normass/Deepe)
American officials here have none of the authority to repair,
rebuild or replace the four Vietnamese pillars, yet they have often
been burdened with the responsibility for seeing they function effectively.
For American Congressmen oritiese the American economic mission
when e Vietnamese ex-minister receives three quarter million United
States dollars in illegal kickbacks; yet, the problem is that the
Vietnamese economic pillar has virtually collapsed. This responsibility
without authority--or without the capability of it having the
authority--is not only a bewildering, frustrating perodox to the
American officials hore. It is also a deadly paralysis that any
Vietnamese government-hothor elected or not, f fairly or not-must
somehow correct.
End Router
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Date
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1967, Aug. 15
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Vietnam (Republic)--Politics and government; Presidents--Vietnam (Republic)--Election--1967
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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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B7, F5
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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
