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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04845.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04845
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Title
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How the U.S. Built On the Quicksand Of Asian Politics
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Description
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Article published in the New York Herald Tribune about the U.S. reaction to the state of affairs in South Vietnam, page 8
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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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Our Girl in Viet-IV
How the U.S. Built
On the Quicksand
Of Asian Politics
In South Viet Nam today, the choice seems
to lie between democratic social change
and Communist revolution. But the rigidly
stratified Vietnamese society so far has been
unwilling or unable to produce an imaginative
program of political reform that might
meet the popular demand for change.
In this fourth article of a six-part series,
the Herald Tribune's Beverly Deepe tells
how the traditional system works-or fails
to work-in such diverse fields as medical
training and distribution of children's toys.
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent
SAIGON.
In 1962, when American advisers and helicopters began
arriving in large numbers in Viet Nam, President Ngo Dinh
Diem was told by a close American friend that unless he
radically reformed his government, he undoubtedly would
be overthrown in a coup d'etat. The American had taken a
poll of Diem's former supporters and found that only 30
out of 150 were sticking with the chubby little mandarin.
"But Diem wouldn't listen and the Americans weren't
interested in hearing it," the friend lamented. "More
American troops and helicopters came, but reform did not.
The Americans built a beautiful war machine and placed it
on political quicksand."
Despite the American military build-up, the failure of
President Diem to institute reforms provided the political
fuel on which Viet Cong strength grew.
A year later, President Diem was overthrown and
killed.
President Diem had built a political Maginot Line 'for
political warfare with the Communists. On one side was
the Communist ideology, the National Liberation Front and
behind it, the Communist party, calling itself the People's
Revolutionary Party.
President Diem had built his own counter-ideology, a
vague concept called Personalism. His National Revolution-
ary Movement corresponded to the National Liberation
Front; his brothers' secret party, the Can Lao, corresponded
to the Communist party.
When President Diem was ousted, his counter-ideology
and counter-machines were washed away. Since then, no
single person has been in total command of the anti-Com-
munist forces long enough to build a similar machine or
ideology.
Since November, 1963, the country has been in a state
of political crisis. Sources in Saigon now argue that it would
be a mistake to re-build a counter-ideology even if it
could be done. They say instead that the Saigon govern-
ment must reform itself and "out-revolutionize the Com-
munists but do it 10 times better and 50 times faster than
the Communists themselves."
The last time the American-backed Saigon government
seized the political initiative involved the strategic hamlet
program. The concept of fortified hamlets, with dramatic
economic and social advantages, was officially launched
by President Diem in April, 1962.
ECONOMIC DISASTER
But it was doomed. One American, fluent in Vietnamese,
visited a pilot project in Cuchi, 20 miles from Saigon, and
was told by peasants that the hamlet program was an eco-
nomic disaster.
The peasants said the government forced them to
construct hamlets instead of farm their cash crop of
tobacco. As a result, they could produce only 10 per cent
of what normally was raised.
The dilemma of American policymakers is the schizo-
phrenic nature of the Vietnamese society itself. The gov-
erning class is generally urban-based, French-educated
with an aristocratic position based on either family back-
ground, money or land ownership. This elite minority
attempts to govern the masses although it knows little
about them and is concerned less.
The elite's lack of concern and compassion was illus-
trated in an incident related by the wife of a Western
embassy official. The wives of embassy officials had volun-
tarily presented furniture, clothing and toys to a local
orphanage.
"Several days after we handed over the goods, one of
the embassy wives returned to the orphanage," the lady
explained. "We were astonished to find the officials had
even taken the toys out of the hands of little orphans.
The toys were nowhere to be found."
In contrast, cadre wanting to join the Communist
party are sent to live with the rural masses and practice
"three-togetherness"; eating, living and working with the
peasants. Cadre are invited to join the Communist party---
which has an exclusive, and not mass membership-when
they are prepared to govern.
"The Americans had to play with the cards that were
dealt out and they weren't very good cards," one Western
diplomat explained. "In Viet Nam, nationalism went the
Communist way. We saw a lot of Vietnamese in the South
who are the political forces in the country . . . they are
the bourgeois, the landowners, the Catholics. They believe
in the same ideas as we do; we support these people and
they support us. But these people in an Asian country in
the throes of political-social upheaval-they are not in
the mainstream."
The diplomat continued:
"They're on the edges-we're supporting them and the
mainstream is elsewhere-in the nationalist movement of
the Communists. The mainstream elements got into the
hands of Ho Chi Minh in North Viet Nam and Mao Tse-tung
in China. Chaing Kai-shek didn't have the nationalist
issue; he was helped by the United States-and this in turn
made it more likely he'd lose."
MANDARIN SYSTEM
The lack of justice and equal opportunity is perhaps
best reflected in the medical profession in Viet Nam, which
one American-educated Vietnamese doctor called
"The Medical Mafia." Two elite groups of doctors-the
faculty of medicine at University of Saigon and a pri-
vate organization called the Medical Syndicate--decide
which doctors will be licensed for private practice. Vir-
tually all the members of these groups come from Hanoi
and favor licensing only northerners.
"These seven older-generation men in the Faculty of
Medicine are capable and dedicated," one American official
working in medical field said. "They just happen to be
partisan. They represent the old Mandarin system; they
choose, select and limit the leaders of the future. It's the
tradition in the East for more than 1,000 years that leaders
of the next generation are always chosen by those in power.
This gives rise to the mandarin system and an undue
amount of nepotism."
After 10 years of administering the largest. U. S.
medical aid program in the world-American officials here
still have little influence on Vietnamese medical affairs.
One American-trained Vietnamese doctor said that a
medical degree from an American medical school still is
not readily recognized in Viet Nam, on the other hand, a
"parachute degree"-a degree virtually bought with money
from a second-rate medical school in France-is easily ac-
ceptable by the "The Mafia."
The two best hospitals in Saigon are French-operated.
They are also the most expensive. There is no good
American hospital in Saigon for the Vietnamese popula-
tion (although there are two American-operated hospitals
in France). Requests by the American-operated Seventh
Day Adventist Missionary Hospital to expand their 30-
bed clinic have repeatedly been refused.
American officials in Saigon have not effectively
pressured the Saigon government to correct "this rot
within," in the words of a Vietnamese anti-Communist.
Instead they have superimposed upon "the rot" a spec-
tacular medical program in the provinces.
"The Americans think we should fight for democ-
racy," one young Vietnamese intellectual explained. "But
in fact, the Viet Cong fight because of the lack of
democracy."
TOMORROW: The key issue of land reform.
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Date
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1965, Jun. 2
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Campaigns, American; Vietnam (Republic)--Education; Vietnam (Republic)--Economy; Vietnam--Foreign relations--United States
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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
