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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-05436 to 363-05443.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-05436 to 363-05443
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Title
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Article about the Vietnamese elections
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Description
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Original title : "Election", Keever's title: "Pivotal South Vietnamese Election Pit Hawks vs. Super Hawks", Article about the South Vietnamese elections for President and the 60 man Senate, published for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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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 Ann Deepe
64A Hong Thap Tu
Saigon, Vietnam
August 23, 1967
Election page 1
SAIGON The Vietnamese elections for President and the 60-man
Senate on September 3 are a crucial hinge determining the agonizing
issues of peace or war--or victory or defeat--for this country and its
Allied supporters.
The short-range prospects: more war, at a fiercer, bloodier pace
plus more political disadvantages for the newly elected government in
Saigon and its Allies.
"These elections mark the end of one chapter and the beginning of
another," one Vietnamese political source explained. "But, we don't know
what the new chapter is all about. In fact, we don't even know what kind
of book the chapters are in. To outsiders, this appears to be a big comedy.
But, to the Vietnamese the elections are part of a giant tragedy.
More
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Deepe
Election--page 2
The Vietnamese electoral campaign is considered here as a verbal
exercise between ten civilian "hawks" and the one military ticket of
super hawks".
All of the leading candidates are, for all extents and
purposes, hard-line anti-Communists. All have campaigned that they are
for" peace". Most have advocated discussions with Hanoi-but not with
the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam (NIF). Only one candidate,
Truong Dinh Dau, has advocated even unofficial dixcussions with the NLF.
Yet, the purpose of these discussions is to convert the non-Communist
elements from the NLF and then to jain have them join the newly-elected
Saigon regime. The context in which virtually all the candidates use
the word "negotiation" is to ask Hanoi and the NLF to capitulate, rather
than to compromise. Even the Vietnamese Constitution, promulgated on
April 1, under which the elections are being held, is considered as a
"hawkish" anti-Communist document, barring a Communist government or
a neutralist, coalition government in the South, Hence, the document
itself is considered here as a block to any serious negotiations-the
place of the NLF in the future governmenter would be ignored and beyond
the realm of discussion.
Not even the most optomistic officials here believe the Communists
are ready for this kind of negotiations.
(More)
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Deepe
Election page 3
These are the three leading Presidential tickets:
**Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, 44, has been chief of state
since mid-1965, when the Vietnamese generals took over power from
the civilian government. A military officer for 19 years, nhiều
has attended infantry school in Franch and France and has attended
U.S. Hemy
two military schools in the United States, including the Command
and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Thieu was a prominent general in overthrowing the
Ngo Dinh Diem regime in Noveber 1963. He is the only one of the
coup leaders to have survived politically-the others being in exile
or in political limbo in Vietnam.
Thiou is a Roman Catholic in a largely non-Catholic country
and because of religious conflicts during the rule of Diem, who
was also a Catholic, this may be a political disadvantage for Thieu.
Thei
teiu's running mate is Nguyen Cao Ky, the
36-year-old
pilot who has served as Vietnam's Prime Minister for the past 26
months.
**Tran Van Huong, 64, is considered the civilian candidate
who will give Thieu the chest closest race. His given name of Huong
means "perfume." Huong was one of a number of Prime Ministers who
served in in 1964-65 (for only three months) during Vietnam's
chaotic, pre-escalation days.
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Deepe
Election page 4
During his brief Prime Minister-ship, Huong cracked down
on street demonstrations inspired by the militant Buddhist wing
This won him admiration from the Roman Catholics,
based in Central Vietnam | Huong's running mate, Mai Thọ Truyen,
is a prominent lay leader of the Southern-styled Buddhist
movement. Huong is expected to win many votes among the Southern
Buddhists, the Roman Catholics--and ironically, perhaps some votes
from the Buddhists in Central Vietnam who were once his enemies.
as President
The line of reasoning is that the militant monks would prefer any
including Huong, over the military ticket.
civilian,
**Phan Khac suu, 62, is head of the provisional legerv
legislative body which drafted the new constitution earlier this year.
Help seveda ceremonial chief of state in 1964 and 1965; An
Suu,
schooled in France,
like Huong,
south of Saigon, but isno
agricultural engineer,
born in the Southern Mekong Delta region,
not so well known as Huong.
thinking,
was
Unlike Huong. who is considered to have a rigid way of
Suu is considered by Saigon intellectuals as being too
Suu--his name means "Buffalo"-is of the Cao Dai religion,
an offshoot Buddhist hybrid, but is not considered to be religious
flexible.
candidate.
Dr. Pham Quang Dan,
Suu's running mate. Dr. Dan XXX was born in Central Vietnam,
Thus
a Harvard-schooled medical doctor,
is
and
hence the Suu ticket is thought to make a better showing in the
central provinces than Huong because=
ce presidential candidates
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Deepe
Election--page 6
The military ticket of the generals is predicted to win easily by
a large majority%;B some Vietnamese political sources predict they will win
by 65%.
A large turnout of the 5.4 million registered voters (those living
in government-secured areas) is also predicted.
The most sizzling question here is, however, not к how big a vote
the generals get, but whether the results will be interpreted as such to
indicate a fair and honest election. The charges of the civilian candidates
that the generals ar rigging the election are largely considered true here
by the rank and file Vietnamese following the electoral race; even a
number of important Congressmen in America have voiced concern with the
way the election was being handled by the generals. But, for all practical
purposes, observers here, including the Western press that is charged with
the responsibility of tracking, down alleged infractions of the electoral
law, will be unable to determine whether the election is in fact rigged or
fair, except in isolated incidences.
Thus far, the election at best has become something of a fisc00. It
has revolved from a verbal free-for-all among the Vietnamese generals in
late June to a generals versus certifying committee tiff to a generals
versus civilian candidates dbacle in early August to a dealock between
the military ticket and the ten civilian candidates, who temporarily
refused to campaign. Once, they started to campaign, the civilians charged
the generals were rigging the election%3B the American officialdom here and
President Lyndon Johnson in Washington denied the charges-which has
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Deepe
Election page 7
caused the civilian candidates simply to counter charge the America
Ambassador, Mr. Ellsworth Bunker, with meddling in Vietnamese affairs.
If the election comes off fairly smoothly with the results generally
accepted in Vietnam as well as internationally, the Communist-inspired
National Liberation Front will have suffered a sizeable, significant political
defeat, which would have undermined its claims of being the sole representative
of the Vietnamese people. The election would have established the
legitimacy of the anti-Communist, pro-Allied government in Saigon. The
Allies here are currently faced with the astronomical dilemma that they
have million troops in Vietnam at the invitation of a government that no
longer exist the government of Prime Minister Phan Huy Quat in early 1965
and even when it existed, it was never considered legal,zonsidered and for
that matter, rarely considered a government; Thus, a legitimate government
is needed to legalize the Allied presence here, and whether American-South
Vietnamese governement policy is to bring in more troops or to begin talking
with the Communists, or straddling both courses simultaneously, the Allies
need a legal Vietnamese government to validate the moves.
A significant fringe benefit from a popularly-elected, constitutional
government here would be a much more palatable regime to justify to the
Allied friends and enemies at home and abroad the increasing measure of
Allied commitment of troops and ground support elements.
More
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Deepe
Election--page 8
However, thus far, the Communists have exploited the election fiasco
to their full benefit. For months, the Communists had charged the election
with being an "American invention" which would be rigged to serve American
interests. The Vietnamese generals have at least partially proved the r
rigging charge to have some validity, for they conveniently weeded out
and barred prestigious non-Communist candidates who could have seriously
challenged them at the polls.
The Communists are expected to mount a well-coordinated pre-election
large-side military offensive to match their continuing political propaganda
against the election. Official here note the Communists have the capability
to launch well-timed attacks on election d day to disrupt the balloting
in the remote villages as well as in the center of major cities.
But, more worrisome is the full-scale propaganda war that the Communists
have been consistently siming at the election. More and more Vietnamese
in the government controlled zones are being persuaded by their propaganda
line as well as by the misconduct of the generals during the campaign.
On top of the economic and political discontent already dormant here,
the election process is bringing a new kind of political disillusioment.
While the rural areas under government control appear to be relatively
passive about the election, the imapot of the blossoming disillusionment
has hit a significant element-the middle and upper-class in the cities,
which makes them ripe for Communist propaganda and subversive recruitment.
More
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Deepe
Election page 9
The significance of the disillusionment is this: The Allied
forces can not win by holding only the cities. They must win 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.
Continuously, day in and day out, Radio Hanoi sprews out such
political material:
"The forthcoming election farce will further exasperate the internal
contradictions plaguing the ranks of the U.S. lackeys in South Vietnam....
One can thus rightly conclude that the Saigon authority is none other than
the shadow of the U.S. policy of using their henchmen. Whether under a
"military" or "civilian" cover, under an open military dictatorship or
with "Presidential" or "Congression" trappings, it will remain an out-and-out
puppet administration."
If the events on election day somehow prove the Hanoi prediction
correct, the newly elected Saigon government will become more and more
isolated from its own people.
in taking ove the country.
And,
in time, this could aid the Communists
Conversely, if the results of the election are favorably accepted.
within South Vietnam and internationally, the anti-Communists will ha
won a crucial battle in this highly-political war.
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Date
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1967, Aug. 23
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Subject
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Vietnam, 1961-1975; Vietnam (Republic); Elections
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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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B188, F7
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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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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
