https://mediacommons.unl.edu/MediaManager/srvr?mediafile=/MISC/UNL~139~139/1629/363-04850.pdf

Media

Part of Viet Nam a Year After Diem - His Dire Prophecy Coming True

extracted text

j

I

.

~/

T~m'riflunt

14

Viet Nam a Year Afte1~ Diem--

Hi~ Dire Prophecy Conring True
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent

SAIGON.

A year ago today, a military
coup ct·etat brought down the
regime of President Ngo Dinh
Diem.
The theme song for the Vietnamese generals toppling him in
the 18-hour coup was "The
Longest Day." Afterward, Saigonese presented garlands to the
paratroopers and tank dnvers,
and there wa dancing in the
streets.
But the dancing did not last
long, for one of President Diem's
predictions began to come true.
only a month earlier. during
the flaming Buddhist crisis that
sparekd his overt~row, Mr. J?iem
bad predicted: Apres mo 1, le
deluge."
Now, a year later, the deluge.
The military and political war
against the Communists is being
lost under Mr. Diem, too, bu_t as
one Western diplomat explame_d
last week. "We are now losing 1t
more efficiently than ever before."

When he was named Mayor of Saigon two months ago by
Premier Nguyen Khanh, 61-year-old Tran Van Huong was a dental
clerk earning $20 a month and suffering from high blood pressure.
Yesterday he was confirmed by South Viet Nam's High National
Council to take over Maj. Gen. Khanh's job as Premier.
In his first speech, he promised to clean out corruption, to put
an end to the "terrible degradation" of youth, to bust red tape
and the black market, to keep politics out of religion. His major
goal: "To defeat the Communistt and bring welfare to the people."
Said a U. S. observer: "This man looks really tough and really
honest. I get the impression we might see some big changes around
here, all for the best."
That changes are needed, no one disputes. But the observer's
euphoria is not shared by every one taking a long-range view of
mistakes made, problems faced and solutions required in the antiCommunist war, as Beverly Deepe reports in this last of seven articles.

THE TRAGEDY
The tragedy is that the war
can still be won, but probably
will not be.
.
oeve::'11 months ago, a, leadmg
Sa!!!Y.l f.,rtune-teller made another predlction: that 1n the
ninth month of the lunar calendar the trends of the fut'l~re
would become clear and Viet
Nam's "little war would become
bigger."
The ninth lunar month ends
Tuesday-Election Day in the .
United States.
salgonese and Weste ·n ob8,rvers l1ere are openly hoping
that u. s. policy becomes clearer
after the election. They feel that
in the past months that policy
has been to "back every status
quo in sight" and to "hold the
lid on Viet Nam until after the
election."
Observers view these days as
the turning point 1?, t~e war, for
to continue to drift is only to
lose " according to one Western
dipl~mat. "This is the point of no
return." The pessimists say it is
already too late to reverse the
trends.

THE CLUES

The first clues to America's
post-election policy .~v:e alreadr,
appeared. Viet Nam s little war
now appears bigger not only because of the :flareup of Cambodian incidents but also bec~use
of the continuous :flow of highranking Asian milita~Y dele~ations to Saigon, which is mterp1·eted a
evidence of a.
possible commitment _of Asian
combat troops. The Chmese Nationalist government's recent appointment of a gene1:a1 to serve
as .Ambassador to Saigon is al.so
considered significant.
In the last week of suspense
during the formation of the n_ew
Vietnamese government-which
Saigon newspapers called "a la
Hitchock"-other clues about the
future U. S. policy al.so appeared:
First, there will be no negotiations. A last-ditch attempt to
prosecute the war will be made.
Second, the U. S. will again
attempt to back a strongman
ruler-who will be the former
Premier, Maj. Gen. Nguyen
Khanh, now the Commander 1n
Chief. The civilian government
will be restricted 1n authority, if
it survives at all.

THE PROBLEMS
Based on talks with American
officials and experts on countermsurgency and communism in
Asia, this is the rundown on the
basic problems and possible solutions facing the "Ong M11"-Mr.
American, as the children in the
rice paddy villages call the
"white man with the big nose."

1 The basic American mistake
wa; to expect that Viet Nam
. ld be another Korea-to exwo~ mvasion instead of guernlla
pee fare and subversion.
'I\ ~;The communists won South
. Narn 1n south Korea," acVie!·ng to one we tern ob erver.
~~h:re was a Korean-type con' tional war atmosph~re he~·e
~il the American owldup m
1962.'~r that, the U. s. committed
miiltary advisers, but only
20•
t fow· months have the
111 thei:bassaY and Information
U. s. increased their staffs to
Service with the problems of pokeep up bversion and psycholitical SU
logical warfai;Y mid-1956, the
Howev~rts Viet Cong shifted
Com~Uill~ to subversive political
from fga s their cells in the vilstrugg e ad cities went underlages an

~1i

be a t-Otal commitment- of
money, men and the blood of
more than 200 Americans killed
in combat. But in many instances
Americans themselves never took
the final systematic steps needed
to insure successful implementation of a program.
For months American leaders
here toyed with the idea of having American advisers to Vietnamese commanders in the provinces stay more than a one-year
tour. But the painful decisionunpopular with the GI's and
their mothers-was never made.
So even expert, Vietnamesespeaking field advisers effectively
advise for a maximum eight
months and then are shipped
home. Thi· is a symbol of the
half war.
At the beginning of the important strategic hamlet, program to fortify villages, the highest-ranking U. S. general 'here
was told that instead of producing a socio-economic revolution in the villages the program
was considered by the 'peasants
to be an economic disaster. For
villagers were .forced to build
strategic hamlets instead of
working on the cash crop of tobacco and were forced to make
fences from bamboo trees, their
cushion crop.
But the policy had been set,
and it was never changed. Consequently for two years America's multi - million - dollar strategic hamlet program rolled
along to disaster until finally it
failed after rthe fall of Mr. Diem.
The strategic hamlet concept
is valid. The Communists proved
that when they swiped the entire
idea. They expertly set up their
own combat hamlets complete
with anti - helicopter poles and
trenches in houses for defense,
and their own hamlet militia
program as the government concept called for. But they succeeded; the Americans did not.

THE FUTURE

ground--and they hav~ since
been organizing and effecting
subversion with the help of
thousands of party cadre who infiltrated from North Viet Nam.
While the Communist conducted this invisible but everpresent subversion, assassinating
local leaders and weakening the
government, the U. S. largely
neglected to strengthen and reinforce the government administrative apparatus, and looked
largely to ttght1ng the armed
guerrillas.
The newly formed civilian
government, headed by Phan
Khac Suu, has a weak apparatus
with which to fight the Communist political organization- already eight years ahead of it in
stability and direction. 7
A much-discussed solution to
the problem of subversion is air
strikes in Communist - infested
southern Laos or air raids on
North Viet Nam as a means to
smother the significance of the
internal developments. Observers
here view this as a delaying action to postpone defeat and to
attain aa better bargaining position for negotiations. Instead,
they s'..lggest a "political raid''
against Communist agentswhether they be Buddhist
monks, student leaders or Catholic priests.
2. The American approach was
to be liked rather than respected. "But you know Communists
do not care if they are loved 1n
Asia," said one Western observer.
Eren Vietnamese generals say
the U. S. should interfere more
in Vietnamese affairs-but "you
do not have the courage to do
that. You are afraid of being
called a colonialist, but you will
be called that anyway. You
should force the government to
be honest."
The result was that the U. S.
acted neither with firmness nor
with diplomacy;
Vietnamese
leaders were forced to read
minds and, more important, only
guess how programs should be
implemented.
An example: Shortly after becoming Premier, Gen. Khanh
appointed his brother-in-law as
consulate general in Hong Kong,
an important post not only for
intelligence but also for financial
dealings. The U. S. Embassy
cabled Washington that the
appointment would only remind
the Vietnamese of the nepotism
of the Diem regime. It did. But
the embassy did not even suggest
to Gen. Khanh that the appointment was unwise.
Observers believe that at the

highest level there should initially have been a formalized arrangement between the two governments-similar to an alllance
-with specific areas of responsibility and authority for each
nation. Vietnamese generals and
Cabinet ministers should then
have met with American teams
regularly and formally to make
joint decisions and oversee implementation.
Since the arrival of Ambassador Maxwell D. Taylor. such a
committee has met in emergencies. But joint communiques
have nto been issued, which perpetuates Communist propaganda
that Americans are taking over
command instead of advising the
Vietnamese.
Observers believe htat unless
these top-level Saii::on meeting-s
are regularized, the strategists
are only in a position to react to
crises. Vietnamese intellectuals
accuse America of not having a
policy but instead it appears that
this policy is not co-ordinated
among au Vietnamese and American agencies.
3. As a corollary of this attitude, the U. S. gave everything
<except nuclear weapon.~) to help
the Vietnamese with materiel;
its mistake was to demand nothing in return.
Especially under Mr. Diem the
conditions of military and economic aid should have been demands for real reform in the
Saigon provincial and village
government. Instead, reforms
were postponed until after the
winning of the guen-illa war; but
the Jack of these reforms only
refueled the war in the countryside.
Since the end of the French
Indochina war in 1954, the U. S.
lias given $3 billion in military
aid and $2 b!ll1on in economic
aid-more than $300 per capita,
a year's salary for the lowestpaid Vietnames".
Obviously much o! this went
into the defense budget. But no
economic program can be successful without a well-functioning government machinery to
pass through, which Americans
did not demand. The consequent
unplanned distribution systems
give the impre.,sion that aid has
gone only to the Mercedes Benz
class rather than into the pockets
of the rice paddy farmer.
In many instances America
took the easy way out in Viet
Nam: It made a half commitment and treated the war as a
half war. Viet Nam appears to

Observers believe unity in the
American mission has improved
considerably under Ambassador
Taylor, but more steps are needed. Possibly the fundamental
mistake of Americans and Vietnamese is the same one made by
the French during their anticommunist struggle: Simply to
make the same mistake over and
over again. Clearly this must be
changed-if it is not too late.
Victory in Viet Nam must be
earned with back-breaking, painstaking efforts of working side
by side with Vietnamese. Vietnamese troops must be held in a.
province until the area is pacified: government administrators
must systematically interview
each family to root out Communist agent1>.
This must be enforced with
determination and justice and
insisted upon by Americans. If
this painful decision is ignored
now, the result will be years of
drifting toward a neutralist solution and an eventual Communist
takeover. History may well say
that Americans were defeated by
Communist expansionist.s, but in
fact it appears they will be defeated by their own mistakes.
At the philosophical level, Viet
Nam is often vtewed as a testing
ground between American democracy and Asian communism.
some observers say that America
has not made its revolutionary
appeals relevant to Asia-especially its economic view of private
enterprise is seen as increasing
the wealth of the wealthy class
without aiding the poor. Others,
however, say that the U. S. has
not demonstrated its democracy
to Viet Nam.
"It is not a problem of philosophy but ~f performance," one
Western d1plomate said. "And
our performance has been bad.
The Communists preach our own
philosophy of honest, efficient,
just government to villagersthey implement it. We do not."
The key lesson from Viet Nam
is that ,as one Western diplomat
explained,
"the
only good
counter-insurgency is the one
that ls never fought because it
18 never allowed to start."
Observers here openly suggest
that after the election the U. S.
will set up "a small elite task
force" of career civilian and military officers from all branches
of service to deal with this "predictable type of war in the
future."
In short, America's test is to
win the counter-guerrilla and
counter-revolutionary war in
Viet Nam at this "crucial point
of no return" and to win the
same type of war in south
America and Africa-before it
needs to be fought.

1