Huntington: Foiling the NLF

A report written by a Harvard professor for officials of the U. S. Agency for International Development (AID) in South Vietnam details ways in which a post-war coalition government can be set up in order to provide most benefit to the present government of South Vietnam.

Samuel P. Huntington, professor of Government and Fellow of the Center for International Affairs, said in July that his report-entitled "Getting Ready for Political Competition in South Vietnam" -was written in late 1968 and early 1969 at the request of James P. Grant, then assistant administrator for AID for South Vietnam.

Huntington explained that he had gathered the information during a trip to Vietnam in 1967 as a paid consultant for the State Department.

Huntington said that the report was "directed toward making a case to officials of our government and of the Saigon government for a loosely organized South Vietnam."

Although he declined to name other officials with whom he had discussed the report, Huntington said, "I think it had a certain amount of impact on the thinking of some people in our government."

He also termed "distorted and inaccurate" an article on his report which appeared in the Old Mole under the title "Samuel P. Hunts??em Down."

"It also displays an appalling ignorance of South Vietnam," he added.

Huntington said that the report was circulated to members of the Southeast Asia Development Advisory Group (SEADAG) and was scheduled to be discussed at a meeting of the group in March of 1969 in Boston.

However, he said, the meeting was disrupted by anti-war demonstrators, and the group never formally considered the study.

SEADAG is affiliated with the Asia Society, a group formerly headed by Kenneth Young, former U. S. Ambassador to Thailand.

The Old Mole incorrectly reported that Huntington had read the report to the Asia Foundation.

The report proposes a settlement which concedes NLF authority over the areas which it currently controls, adding that "it would appear to be clearly in the interest of the U. S. and the GVN (Government of South Vietnam)... to make substantial concessions of NLF local control to minimize concession of national power to the NLF."

Local control, the report suggests, would be granted to the NLF under an agreement which would guarantee freedom of movement and trade throughout the country. This would "provide a basis for the immediate political autonomy which the NLF will demand and, at the same time, prepare the way for the incorporation of those areas into the national economy which will eventually undermine the NLF power base."

The local control system would strengthen the U. S.-GVN, the report says, because it would:

prevent the NLF from gaining "an open foothold in the cities."

undermine the image of the NLF as the equal of the Saigon government."

"increase political competition at the provincial and local level and.. reduce its significance at the national groups" in the national government, and dispute among noncommunist level, thus reducing "fragmentation."

confront the NLF with a difficult choice: either to attempt to isolate its areas from the economic integration of South Vietnam-which, the report suggests, would cause population draining" and an increasing gap in standard of living between NLF and government areas-or to allow the integration, which would undermine its authority.

Another section of the report details areas of political competition in Vietnam, and concludes that the crucial areas will be the metropolitan centers and those rural areas not controlled by either the government or the NLF.

The section concludes that the U. S. can influence post-war Vietnamese politics by:

"shaping the rules of the game through its negotiations with Hanoi and the NLF and through advice to the GVN."

"influenc [ing] the identity of the players in the game by encouraging or discouraging some individuals... or groups... to participate in politics."

"giv [ing] money and material aid to candidates and groups... either through covert means or openly through the distribution of 'pork-barrel' projects."

The next section-entitled "Fixing the Rules of the Game: The Electoral System" -illustrates with statistics the political consequences of various systems of elections.

"Within the broad range of reasonable, equitable, and democratic systems, choices have to be made in terms of the consequences of the system: Which groups will it help? Whom it will hurt" the report asks.

"I wasn't trying to design the most theoretically beautiful system for South Vietnam," Huntington said in July, "I want a system which would be democratic and which would ensure that any benefits that the NLF might derive from the structure of the system would be minimal."

The report concludes that the current electoral system in Vietnam "is likely to lead to the NLF receiving highly disproportionate representation in the national assembly."

"It would be desirable to safeguard this eventuality by altering the existing electoral system," it continues. The report suggests a majority-vote runoff system-in which another election is held if no candidate for an office receives a majority.

This would be preferable to a two-vote system-in which the voter indicates first, second, and third choices-because in the run-off system "the second choices are made more by the politician than by the voter."

The final section-entitled "The Players and How We Can Help Them" -considers possible political coalitions among the political groups likely to emerge in post-war Vietnam.

It concludes that the most advantageous system for the U. S. and the GVN would be the "one-and-a-half party system," in which the NLF and its allies form a party of "permanent opposition" -one which holds a solid power base but is unable to capture control of the national administration in an election.

However, the study states that the most likely system to evolve is a multiparty system in which no group is strong enough to gain a majority in the National Assembly, and elections will be decided by coalitions of groups, concludes that "the U. S. should push for a one-and-a-half-party system but should be prepared to accept a multi-party system."

Huntington said that the paper had been "an interesting exercise" which didn't reflect anyone's views but my own."

"In Washington, people read papers because they are interesting or because they carry weight," he said. "I think people read mine because it was interesting."

Although the report is now more than a year old, Huntington said that he felt many of the strategies it outlined were still valid. "I would favor a settlement which recognized the NLF's authority in territory it controls, because that's the case in reality," he said.

However, he added, recent military successes may have made the Thieu government less willing to negotiate such a settlement. "The Saigon government obviously feels that it has very little to gain from such a settlement now," he said.