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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-05340 to 363-05355.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-05340 to 363-05355
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Title
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First article about credibility gaps in South Vietnam
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Description
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Original title: "credibility", Keever's Title: "Washington has New In-House Credibility Gap", Article draft about the lack of credibility from the White House in Vietnam, for the Chrisitian Science Monitor, page 1-16
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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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zesc sag
yy nnm
credibility 1 (normass/doepe)
(This is the first of a two-part series on the proliferation of
credibility gaps in South Vietnam. The second article discusses the
Communist chasm).
SAIGON,
SEPTEMBER 11--Washington has a new credibility gap. It is
as significant as the old one between the American government and the
American people. This new one is "in-house "--Washington leadors no longer
accept as realistic in the up-in-the-clouds assessments from American
officials in Saigon about the what is happening on the ground in
Vietnam.
more
This may be a pivotal gap, for as the Administration changes
Presidents in Washington, the leadership may be induced to make
political concessions
than the Communist strength on the ground deserves-
or in reverse, it may demand more from the
than the Allied strength on the ground warrants.
wide, but it may be bridge-able.
concessions from the Communists
This gap is deepé and
==more reuter
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2020 seg
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credibility 2 (normass/deepe)
Compared to Washington's, however, the Communist credibility gap
is more of a canyon. It exists within its own hierarchy, within
international diplomatic circles, and between the Communists and the
South Vietnamese people. If President Johnson's problem is evaluating the
his top-secret reports from Saigon, the essential Communist problem
FROUND
revolves their low-ranking commissars and troops no longer believing
in the C Communist Party leadership-which is the fountainhead of
wisdom and in infallibility on their side. If the Communist
Party leadership is not maintaining the trust of its cadre and troops,
then they will have-and are having difficulty in gaining the
trust of the South Vietnamese people,
woo as supporters.
whom they are attempting to
VERBAL
Diplomatically, the/games the
Communist negotiators
played in Paris on the presence of North Vietnamese troops in the
South did nothing to enhance their credibility here--especially when some
Saigon housewives housewives had even heard the Northern accents of the
Hanoi troopers in Saigon when they assaulted the city in the past.
more reuter
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credibility 3 (normass/deepe)
These
Because these credibility gaps, and their predecessors, are un-bridged,
the chain-reaction result has been the great aerial leap into the absurdities
of the Vietnam war itself. This, in turn, has precipitated the
pirouetting plunge towards peace.
One Vietnam-based American official explained the current American
problem this way:
"We (Americans in Vietnam) have a helluva problem of eredicil
credibility and our problem is in-house.
too
The American officials here
have reported too much optimism for so long and maybe they reported
what they though we thought was honest--and then suddenly her when
Tet hit (the Communist offensive into the cities in January) fit,
BEGAN
WAS
even Washington begings to wonder what happening out here.
a consideration in the future.
the old DiCTNAM HAND
continued:
This becomes
== MORE Reuter
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zcze sag
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credibility 4 (normass/deope)
"I've visited Washington seven times since 1962. The first six times
Washington thought things were much better in on the ground in Vietnam
But
than I did from working here,
was just back recently for my seventh visit,
thinks
and for the first time Washington things the situation is worse out here
than do. But, if you look at the internal situation in South Vietnam
now
Fight ñqu
I
think there is more reason to bepim for the Allies to be optimistic
The main thing is that before time was a weapon
than at any time since 1962.
the Communists always used.
Time now is on our side. I see no need for
concession any American concessions right now because wamemkantmyxomangon
the South Vietnamese are becoming increasingly stronger visa vis-a-vis the
* enemy. The longer the wait, the wt better off we are. Of course,
I ignore the great public demand for peace--and this is a factor to be
weighed too."
==more reuter
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2020 sag
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credibility 5 (normass/deepe)
This "in-house" credibility gap is known to be of concern to both
Washington and Saigon-based American officials. Steps have been made to
look into it.. A classified six-month, classified study of the whole
report official reporting system is now underway-dove delving, not so much
into the content or accuracy of the reports, but the volume and flow of
Some senior Americans here concede that the sheer numbers of reports
to be read each day prevents them from doing other important aspects
of their job. ("If I leave my office for two hours,
flooded with reports," one said). Also, at the district level
them.
lowest Vietnamese administrative tere
AMERICA
I'm unindat
AND PROVINcial
ffed by American advisors
captains and young foreign service officers e complain about being
ORDERED
called on to ferret out so much information they can't do much else.
One American provincial advisory staff of 17 members
REPORTS
took a picture of all
the reports and computer cards they were asked to compile in a month
computer
Compute Car
HANDing Shoe
Covered the side o
their house-more than a
stapled end to end obscured the whole American team
hundred or
in the
re picture.
from Saigon.
use turn off the machines!" was the response
==more reuter
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zcze sag
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credibility 6 (normass/deepe)
the
Some
And some
Another step being taken to bridge this credibility gap is
influx of visitors from Washington, including the White House.
very disquieting face-downs are known to have occurred in private between
them and the Saigon-based Americans. The visitors conuen contended the
official reports from Saigon do not match their individual on-the-spot
assessments of the situation on the ground.
The Saigon-based Americans
counter-attack by vvociferously defending their official writings.
Many Saigonese also are known to regard these visitors from Washington
as
seven-day-wonders" who come to Vietnam with pre-conceived nee
notions and pre-cooked solutions.
the non-war areas of the country,
pretend
They spend a week or so traveling to
they do not speak Vietnamese, and then the
then they pretend to be instant experts making infallible
assessments for White House consumption.
==more reuter
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2020 sas
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credibility 7 (normass/deepe)
Between these two sets of officiels seems to be move the underlying
fear by the Saigonese that Washington is going to haram conced
concede too much in Paris--thus wiping out their efforts in fighting the
war while the Washington officials foar officially-reported progress has
been exaggerated, that the whole American war effort is bogged down
"AN Ext
in a quagmire and that concession concessions to get effect a wr
are in order.
Since journalists and other non-officials do not have access to
the classified message traffic between America Saigon and Washington,
official
it can
the accuracy of the reports at this time can not be judged. But,
safely be said that official reporting has been a constant problem,
involving a maze of multi-colored facets. 14ko in Some of these
although
problems have become public knowledge here years after the event,
they were classified at the time of the happening.
==more reuter
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zcze sag
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credibility 8 (normass/deepe)
important
For example,
It is now known that in the early years of the war,
parts of the official reports were based on almost total lies.
in 1962, the orders from the General Paul D. Harkins, then commander of
the American military here, to all his star o subordinates were that
no matter how many Viet Cong there were on the ground, there would be
no more than 25,000 in official American reports. And, that was that,
even though the Viet Cong were obviously com
mushrooming in strength.
In other cases, high-level officers, even generals, have access
to factual information on major projects, but are unwilling to rect
recogniiz recognize them and rectify the situation. Again, in 1962,
the semi-independent Rand "think-tank" agency, which is contracted
by the U. S. government, scht sent a Vietnamese-speaking American to
look into the pilot project of the Vietnamese government's stratot
strategic hamlet program (the forerunner of the pacification program).
He found the government's action deplorable. The government was forcing
the peasants to build their bamboo-fence defenses at a time when they
worked on their tobacco fields-the village's cash crop. The villagers
were not reimbursed for their bamboo, which went into the defense network,
and ab bamboo was also a cash crop. Furthermore, government district
officials, in their haste to catch up with statistical requirements of
number of building strategic hamlets, loaded the villages onto a truck
at dawn and brought them back at dark to work on another village's defense.
==more reuter
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zcze sag
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credibility 9 (normass/deepe)
The American Rand analysist briefed General Harkins on this and warned
that unless corrective action was taken the whole government program would
fail. The General reportedly said, "Thank you; "
was taken--and the program failed 18 months later.
no corrective action
This is not unlike the complaints of young Vietnamese-speaking American
civilian officials who find the reports from they write from the
provinces being discarded or toned down by their
for Provincal
superiors. The present
organization 1 American organization is now a civilian-military
AMAGAM,
organization with the more junior civilians
submitting their reports
to senior military officers. Recently, one responsible for evaluations
of provinces and provincial programs,
explained:
supported by American funds and supplies,
==more reuter
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2020 sag
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credibility 10 (normass/deepe)
"I just came back from a trip to the provinces, and since I speak
It was a wrote a pessims pessimistic
Vietnamese I found out alot of dirt.
st report and handed it into my superior,
slashing out the
pessimissm.
an at Army colonel. Ho started
"That's the way the Army works, It is very conservative;
there's
alot more careerism involved in the Army than there is professionalism.
doesn't help any colonel's career not to be able to show progress in his
Everyone recognizes y bat
section--but that's not professionalism.
the Army's way of doing things it is grotesquely bureaucratic and you
Affic
ABS AND
RESUMES
deirantes so months before the report moves up
have to
the ladder.
Because ? the Ama
AND lute Pessimism,
like to show progross
xm military officers always
there was always supposed to be a civilian
in charge of our section--but now they've moved in this army colonel.
"I'm fed up with the whole system,
It
but it doesn't bother me any more.
I just bootleg my reports around my boss and hand it to a civilian superior
to him."
==more reuter
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2020 sag
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credibility 11 (normass/deepe)
In another case, a junior civilian officer working in
SUPERIORS
a district cautioned one of civilian trends in Saigon:
"Whenever the
American captain in our district writes a report and says there is a
'minor problem' done down here, just be advised he really means it is
a 'major problem.' His attitude is he doesn't want any major problems
in his district and he's not going to report there are any."
Not only is the credibility gap evident between Saigon Washington a
a nd Saigon. It also exists between Saigon and the provinces, and be tweer
even between the provinces, and the number of subordinate districts within
it.
One non-government American contracted for a study by the American
government recently concluded a country-wide tro tour trip through Vietnam.
ESS
MISM
"I found a great deal of bitterness
"I was appalled," he explained.
among the low-ranking Americans in
They don't
immediate
AN
at the lowest-levels in the field.
The field
think their/superiors or Saigon is doing anything to straighten
out their (ital) problems.
their
S/
Even at the province level,
the American
official live in big villas and the problems in the province look different
than they do in the villages and district towns.
more reuter
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zczc sag
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credibility 12 (normass/deepe)
"One night my colleague and I visited the bet big spook in the
province (senior American Central Intelligence Agency official). Here he
was in this nice air-conditioned villa telling us that the American Marines
had just killed a high-ranking Viet Cong leader,
instead of
when they could have captured, him and the CIA would have sequee
800D
squeezed him for in. Well, my mouth dropped a mile and
and I thought my colleague would hit the guy.
"Because we had just talked with the specific Marine unit he
was referring to. In fact, the Marines discovered the Viet Cong
unit hiding in a tunnel in the village; when discovered the Viet Cong
opened fire and four Marines and Popular Forces were killed in the
barrage. Then, the Hoi Chanh (ex-Viet Cong) operating with the
On How Long
Marines got into shouting match with the Viet Cong in the tunnel,
ordering and pleading with them to come out-and finally swearing with them.
The Viet Cong we weren't going to surrender-they told the Marines to
go to hell-and the Marines had no choice but to rout them out.
they fought to the last man. But, the CIA spek
provincial headquarters didn't know any of this."
And,
po spook in the
more reuter
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zcze sag
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credibility
(normass/deepe)
In Addition,
One significant change has resulted in the official release of
military information to the Saigon press corps--and this has also
effece affected the tone of the particles appearing news/s dispatches
Hace
sent from Saigon. With the changeover in command from General Westmoreland,
General Creighton W. Abrams has ordered a very conservative, cautious
THIS ORDERS INcle de MAKING
assessment to be officially released here No predictions, no optimism,
Aximizing Probabilities
very narrow limits to interpretation of past events--and no political
Statements
Deri partisan comments or implications in-nything enytiring affo
from any officials. In af effect, he reversed the Westmoreland
era of optimism, if not euphoria, and the era of wooing the Saigon
press corps. Abrams view is the Saigon press are a nuisance,
ignored--if anything the press corps can woo him.
But,
should be
instead of
Courables courtship, he is magnifying confusion; he is trying
to bridge the credibility gap by talking in circles--and it doesn't work.
more reuter
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2020 sag
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credibility
14
(normass/deepe)
Washington's current credibility gap is simply the fledging
offspring of the grand-daddy one that developed during the Tet crisis
early this year.
on is now
referri
"Since Tet, Washington is awfully reluctant to accept reports and
assessments from the field, one American official here explained,
referring to Vietnam. "Who can blame them? General Westmoreland went
to Washington in November and told the government and the American
people we were winning the war and and we could begin withdrawing
American troops in a year. * Then, three mot months later, President
Johnson gets slapped across the mouth with the Communist Teto offensive
into the cities."
== more reuter
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ZOZO: sag
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credibility 15 (normass/deepe)
But, one American official from Washington justified Westmoreland's
expression of optimum optimism last fall.
"That was a magnificant P. R. (public relations) campaign by
Westmoreland,"
he explained. "He was creating a light at the end of
the tunnel--we were winning and the American boys would be coming home.
The real significance of the Communist Tet offensive was it shattered
the tunnel and snuffed out the light at the end of it.
"But,
now we're building another light at the end of the tunnel--
(President) e Nguyen Van) Thieu is an active, fighting leader,
(Prime Minister Tran Ven) Huong has a confu Configienist image of
the Vietnamese are carrying
Confucianist purity and honesty,
AN
more and more of their share of the war and are doing it well.
And, the American boys can start coming.
new light at the end of the tunnel."
home. That's the
==more reuter
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2020 sag
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credibility 16 (normass/deepe)
HOWEVER,
On the South Vietnamese side, President Thieu and his government
has a credibility gap in the ultimate.
a year ago
power
W the
Since a year ago when Ke took over
he has inherited a state of incredibility--the Vietnamese people
had been promised to m too much and seen no results in the rapid of
F
sucess c succession of governments;
no they no longer believe the government
President
but
and in fact, expect little in the way of performance from it.
Thieu's problem is not simply bridging the credit credibility gap,
creating his credibility faster than w own government destroys it.
His gap is also briugeab bridge-able, the bridge should be
built with urgency,
but it probably will not be for a long time.
end reuter
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Date
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1968, Sep. 11
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975--United States; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Mass media and the war; Public opinion
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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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B10, F39
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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
