Politics in Vietnam

Premier Ky of South Vietnam told a British reporter last summer that he had only one hero--Hitler--and that "Vietnam needed above all leadership and a sense of discipline in order to face the criminal aggression of Communism." Perhaps only a Hitler-like regime can survive in Saigon under the present conditions, but one should add that the threats to Ky's Administration extend well beyond the Communists.

Aside from the other military officers who would eagerly displace Ky at their first chance, Buddists in Saigon and throughout the countryside remain antagonistic to any government of Saigonese Catholics. Ky has been notably more tolerant towards the Buddists than his predecessors, but the fact that the Catholic minority still holds power over the large Bhuddist majority will continue to preclude a concensus. Student demonstrations against the harsh martial law which Ky imposed last June became so intense during September that the Premier was forced to suppress them with troops. When the government made support of neutralism a capital offense on July 24, several moderates and academics were subsequently shot.

Perhaps the most tragic example of the destruction of Vietnamese liberalism is the case of Pham Ngoc Thao, a former Colonel in the Vietnamese Air Force. Pham, an active Catholic, was sentenced to death in absentia on May 7 after he, along with Ky, attempted an abortive coup against Bhuddist Premier Quat. When the Quat regime fell one month later, Pham should certainly have received amnesty. But in fact, Ky kept him on the wanted list.

After Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's inspection trip to Vietnam late last June, Pham sent a letter to Newseek in which he explained that McNamara "is a very bad advisor for President Johnson because he has very little understanding of South Vietnam's basic problems. A certain form of humanitarian socialism is essential. If you fear this word socialism, call it what you will. Essentially it is a profound social reform, beginning with agrarian reform." Pham's letter indicated that here at last was an alternative to the string of despots which the U.S. has supported in Saigon. Here was a liberal with a strong military background who might have resolved the dissident elements in Vietnamese politics.

According to the official government report of July 17, Pham was "ambushed by the security forces and seriously wounded in a forest near Bienhoa. He was taken by helicopter to Saigon, but during the flight he died owing to his serious wounds." The New York Times reported four days later that the Colonel had, in fact, been arrested in a Catholic monastery and shot by the security police in a prison cell fifteen miles north of Saigon.

But the real problem in Vietnam is far more significant than personal disputes or the short-sightedness of American political advisors. The rural population has long resented the hegemony of Saigon over their affairs. Contrary to many leftist critics in this country, land reform is not the pressing need in Vietnam, for the large majority of the peasants do own their own land. The central problems lies in the exorbitant taxation policies of the central government coupled with immense corruption in Saigon.

The Viet Cong have based their political campaign on the assassination of thousands of tax-collectors and government officials. William Tuohy described in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine how "Viet Cong terror is bloodthirsty, but selective. It is a scalpel, not a hammer. It is aimed at the leaders. In three years they drove out 50 per cent of the Vietnames leaders from the countryside." The selectivity of Communist terrorism often gets distorted by American propaganda; surely a decapitated tax-collector in the village square inspires more loyalty and enthusiasm than fear for the Communists.

As James Reston reported from Vietnam three months ago, the people in the countryside consider their rulers in Saigon "as merely the successors of the French colonial regime with upper-class urban Vietnamese replacing the French." The escalation of the war has served to intensify this split between Saigon and the countryside. American soldiers on leave spend thousands of dollars daily in the city, while the fields are constantly despoiled by battles and bombings. Red China, to fan the flames, issued a manifesto in September which specifically described the "war of liberation" as a revolt of the agrarian classes against the cities which dominate them. Ky has issued several statements about reform in South Vietnam, but no action has been taken. Again according to Reston, "the Vietnamese leaders are willing neither to take the leadership nor to accept American leadership in this exercise."

Thus while American troops may succeed, at great cost, in driving the Communists from certain regions, American officials in Saigon will still be confronted with a political vacuum once the fighting is over. Furthermore, while American saturation bombing of the countryside may have boosted morale in Saigon itself, such terror has certainly not endeared the Saigon government to the rural population, which is the central strategic task.

Perhaps no social progress can be made while the bombs are falling. But then, all military victories will become meaningless if Saigon cannot command allegiance in the captured territory. The longer American policymakers fail to recognize this paradox, the more difficult the solution will be and the longer the war will go on.