THE DANGER OF TERRORISTS GETTING ILLICIT A-BOMBS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP77-00432R000100080001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 76
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 8, 2001
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 15, 1973
• Content Type: NSPR

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CONFIDENTIAL
NEWS, VIEWS
and ISSUES
INTERNAL USE ONLY
This publication contains clippings from the
domestic and foreign press for YOUR
BACKGROUND INFORMATION. Further use
of selected items would rarely be advisable.
NO. 29
6 FEBRUARY 1973
General. . ? 0 0 ? ? ?0 0 ? 0 0 0 0 Page 1
Far East . 0 0 0 00?0 .. . Page 16
Eastern Europe . 000000000e Page 52
Western EuropePage 58
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Near East. . . . . ? O? ?? ? 0 0 . Page 62
Africa . . . ? ? ...?... . . Page 70
Western Hemisphere . . ? ? ? . . . . Page 71
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GE EMI
A
LOS ANI-LES TIl'ES
1 5 JAN 1973
The Dangber. of Terrorists Getting
Illicit A-Bombs
BY LOWELL PONTE .
In DK when I was editing a
satire magazine, a "think tank"
hired me. Its masters :needed
someone ,to write reports, :they
said?someone with a bizarre
mind.
The reports. it turned out,'.
were commissioned by the Pen-
tagon. The first dealt with "non-
national nuclear threats"?what
if atomic bombs fell into terror-
ist hands? My gothic fantasies
on this theme filled half the re
Port. . f
one scenario, young radicals After all, the sullP"se'll-Y "se-
In_ ,...?..,..,?___ ,..,,,,. _,0?,- act" technical information was
'i'c'-";::0;11 lili'lis'lik,?.dgau"h',:!' 1;11('-)cli's openly available, and so the ex-
plosive materials, in criminal
from the Capitol in Washington hands, could be converted readi-
. D.C.. and an hour later destroveti ly into crude atomic bombs.
the heart of the 1? .5. gfivernnient
by remote on ml. The security precautions are
? In another, the teriurists?were
. extort ionists. holding New. york still lacking in 1973, and the
: City for :s10 billion ransoni..chance of terrorists acquiring
Their demands refused, they .atomic bombs grows daily. ?
. " ? .
war. he saw my fantasies as pro- tonium sells for about S10,000
phecies that could begin coming
per kilogram. it is thus five
true at any moment.
The source of such weapons. in times as costly as heroin and 10
his estimation. would not he nth- times as expensive as gold. What
er nations but a criminal black its value would be on. an illegal
:market supplied by thefts from market is anybody's guess."
our "peaceful" nuclear rea:tor
Nevertheless, criminal penal-:' ?
program. Thus the second half of ?
? ? ? I fl Ow iaci - ties for mere theft of radioactive
materials are milder by far than
precautions would siinplify the
theft of plutonium and uranium
from our electricity-generating
reactors.
. loaded an A-bomb and timer into
a small privz.n-. airplane on a
Canadian airfield, flew into the
Cnited States, .p..irachtned out :10
-miles from their target?and let
(h.'? craft's automatic pilot carry
it over Alanhattan Island.
In a third scenario, the terror-
ist.; were pacifist scientists who
secretly put together A-bombs in
suburban basements around the
country, booby-trapped them to
, thwart. defusing attempts. then
: demanded that, the government,
dismantle its missiles or Jose
: cities,. one by one.
In April, 1971. with Taylor's
help, the journal Science eval-
uated the prospects for a crimi-
nal black market in -plutonium.
By the year 2000. Science esti-
mated. the United States.will get
705, of its electricity from nu-
clear reactors, most of them "fast
breeders" .khat use plutonium as
fuel and Produce more of it as a
byproduct.
By them civilian plutonium
supplies will top 720,000 ? kilo-
grams. any five kilograms of
wbich could make a bomb com-
parable in size to the one used on
those for heroin pushing.
Sonic materials are already ?
listed as missing. According to,.
Science, the AEC reported one.
Arkansas reactor facility defi-
cient in "a few kilograms"r of plu-
tonium and a processin,, facility
in Pennsylvania unable to ac- :
count for 6 of its materials ?
over a six-year period. In Brail-
Eng_reactor workers were
caught hauling 20 loaded fuel
rods over a fence, apparently to '
be picked tiP by accomplices.
, If security is pom? at reactor ?
facilities, it is worse on 'chicks ?
carrying radioactive materials'
from site to site. The AEC. has
made it a common practice to
smut large raclioactive shipments ?
on ordinary airliners and trucks,
usually unguarded.
On one flight in the late 1960s, :
703 kilograms of enriched urani-
um were transferred to the Selni
reactor in Italy: had this, ship- ,
ment been hijacked, it could
'have provided the fixings- for 25 ?
uranium A-bombs of 20 kilo-
grams each?the sort and size
This last fantasy troubled 1)1?. Nagasaki. (V that destroyed Hiroshima.ice kilograms of
Theodore -Taylor, head of the plutonium. come to one handful, One nuclear power specialist
"think tank," more than the oth- weighing II pounds.) insists that railioactive airliner -
em's. After a few cities were According to Atomic Energy shipments have been hijacked to
buried under mushroom clouds, commissioner Clarence Larson, ? Cuba and at least one truck ship.
he conceded in 1969, the govern- the reactor industry will proba- ment has been diverted to Mexi-
: ment would "undoubtedly" bly always have an "unavoid- co.
? knuckle under to terrorist de- able" loss rate of -1 to 2f;;, in In these cases, says Dr. Dean
, mands. radioact ive materials?the per_ Abrahamson, director of the
? Taylor had been deputy direc- centage that, Without causing Center .for Studies of the Physi-
? tor of the Pentagon's Defense alarm. can "disappear" in proc- cal Ellvirehmeht at the Ulliver"
- Atomic Support Agency during ? essing. ? sit' of Minnesota. the shipments.
, the mid-1960s, when a newly nu- were recovered, along with the.
By the year 2000, a 1% hiss in vehicles. si n c e their presence.-
: eleatized Peoples Republic or plutonium stores would involve abroad had not become known..
China was talkhig?loosely cr enough t ? ? 1
missing ma el o ?
spreading atomic weapons to I he AEC has denied Alwaham-
ma ke 1,140 A-bombs.
? many Third World powers. Hav- .. ? ? son's report on the Cuba hijack-
ing come to view terrorism by A- is strong to divert ings, but as of this writing it has
Ps even to al' not denied a similar Cuba hijack-
?! bombs in private hands as more materials,"
probable than global nuclear range "accidents," to account. for ing report this month lw nuclear
larger-than-usual losses. . specialist. Lawrence Sheinman
Said Science: "At present, plu- ? of Cornell. nor has it denied the
? ? possibility that such incidents
Lowell Pattie lives in nor.;
hinds. Ile i$ a former defense.
researcher and has often written
about tempottry.
1
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could happen in the future.
Last January, a. poorly shield-
cil shipment. aboard a Delta .;
? Airlines plane "leaked" radioac-
tivity at 11 American airports...!
'The AEC said the amounts were
not hazardous to people. which
? may be true. hut the incident de-
monstrate.3 the limited care that
,
such shipments receive.
Taylor's think tank now works '
- on en vironMental concerns, hut
his nightmares. continue. .Last
November. he said some small
steps were being taken to pre-
:vent. thefts?automatic alarm;
? In shipments. tor example, and
surveillance at facilities.
In addition. the AEC Is slowly
. adding stricter regulations to
? licensing agreements with pri-
vate reactor and procesking com-
?
panics, and it is moving toward a
U. S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, Jan. 22, 1973
policy of "dedicated vehicles"
whose sole job would be the
transporting of plutonium and
raniu m. presumably under
guard.
But the AK is moving at a
snail's pace. Taylor added. in
, part because reactor companies
'resent and resist paying the cost
of security measures. Complete
safeguards. he estimated, would
raise the consumer cost of nu-
clear..: generated electricity by
!less than I r , but, in the abSence.
of public .demand for theiri; the
risk persists of uranium and phi-
.tonium being stolen and con-
Ceded Into weapons of almost
Inestimable danger. ,
(Two years ago. ;Taylor
warned: "If the AEC doesn't get
some kind of safeguard system
and operating system set. up by
NOW: A IN
IN SALES
,.107:1, there ill he leaks of
radioactive material that
would be very hard to stop." for
the losses by then would have
grown routine. "Then" has be-
come "now.")
After a year submerged in
think-tank thinking, I took my'
bizarre mind elsewhere. Iy
nightmares, like Taylor's,. were,
too real for comfort.
Then, as now. I found It deeply
unsettling 10 dwell on this
plc scenario: that the average
American millionaire, regardless ,
of race or creed or sanity, might, .
buy the makings of 20 atomic
. bombs and then, for less than -
$15. purchase the know-how for
producing nuclear hombs.from-,-
no, not from spine underground
tipster--i-the U.S. Government
Printing Office. , ? ? '
LDWIDE BOOM
RiViS
Talk of peace is in the air?but nations today are dealing in
weapons as never before. Selling of military hardware, vital to
some countries, is hotly competitive and expanding rapidly.
B? uying and selling of military weap-
ons around the world is surging to rec-
ord levels-and no end to the boom is
in sight.
At latest count, international trade
in aircraft, missiles, ships, tanks, small
arms and other hardware totaled nearly
7 billion dollars a year.
That is about double the amount sold
a decade ago and does not count bil-
lions in arms given away free each year,
mostly by the United States.
What's more, says one leading arms
expert, the weapons trade is likely to
double again by 1980, approaching the
15-billion-dollar mark.
Big-power play. It is a fiercely
competitive business, with the U. S., the
Soviet Union, France and Great Britain
the principal suppliers.
"International anarchy" is the way
one authority describes the competition,
with each nation setting its own rules,
offering equipment on generous credit
terms, moving in quickly when another
seller pulls out of the market for diplo-
matic or other reasons.
It is a business, too, which has seen
many of the small private dealers all but
squeezed out of the market.
Private sellers who deal chiefly, in
small arms and ammunition account for
about 200 million dollars annually in
sales. The great bulk-about 97 per cent
-is sold by one government to another
or by large private manufacturers, with
the encouragement and blessing of their
governments. The rapid growth in the
arms trade comes, at a time when na-
tions all over are sinking more and more
of national incomes into their military
establishments.
Arms and men. In 1971, accord-
ing to the ?U. S. Arms Control and Dis-
armament Agency, 120 nations spent
216 billion dollars on defense, an in-
crease of 82 per cent since 1960. Over
? the same span, the number of men under
arms worldwide increased from 19 mil-
lion to 23 million.
2
It is the developing nations that are
the main purchasers of weapons from
the industrialized countries, accounting
for about 4 billions of annual sales. Na-
tions of the Middle East, India and
Latin America are the principal
buyers.
The chart on page 52 gives some idea
of how much is sold by the chief arms
makers and who their major customers
are-as well as can be determined in a
field wrapped in secrecy.
The figures were compiled chiefly by
"U. S. News & World Report" correspon-
dents based overseas and with the aid
of experts within the United States
Government.
The U. S. sold 2.8 billion dollars'
worth of arms in the year ended June
30, 1972, up from 2.1 billion the pre-
ceding year. The Soviet Union sold an
estimated 2.2 billions' worth in 1972.
The "Big Four" suppliers account for
about 90 per cent of the sales, with the
rest divided up mostly among Sweden,
Canada, Belgium, Israel, West Germany,
Italy and Czechoslovakia.
Aircraft lead off. Warplanes are the
No. 1 sales item, accounting for roughly
half the arms sold. Tanks and armored
vehicles, ships, missiles and ammunition
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are other big-selling items in interna-
tional markets.
Why the urge to sell more arms? One
reason is purely economic?to improve
a country's balance of payments, or to
help a particular industry. Often though,
officials say, sales are regarded as a
matter of "national interest"?that is, to
improve the seller's influence in the pur-
chasing nation.
Russia, for example, supports Iraq,
the United Arab Republic, Syria and
Libya, not for ideological reasons, but
to gain a foothold in the Mediterranean
basin. It also is in a position to threaten
oil supplies to the U. S. and the Far
? East. The U. S. supports Israel, Iran and
Saudi Arabia, not only to offset these So-
viet moves, but to counter the growing
Russian presence in the western section
of the Indian Ocean.
In recent years, the mix of "give-
aways" and sales of U. S. arms has
moved sharply in the direction of sales.
From 1950 through 1965, this coun-
try gave away 31.7 billion dollars of
military goods to other nations?and sold
just 6.5 billion.
Since 1965, however, the U. S. has
provided 4.5 billions in military aid
while selling 11.1 billions' worth of
hardware.
The arms network. The U. S. arms-
? sale network involves about 10,000 mili-
tary and civilian attaches around the
world. Through these "agents," the U. S.
learns what the "customer" wants. Trans-
actions themselves are generally handled
on a government-to-government basis.
Before a big transaction has been
signed, more than a dozen agencies with-
in three Cabinet departments may get
? involved.
At the Pentagon, a special agency
must approve a sale. Then another one
seeks credit for the buyer through the
U. S. Treasury or major private banks.
At the State Department, one agency
gets involved in licensing exports, while
a host of others determines such things
as whether the sale is in the nation's
best interests, or whether it involves
the transfer of military secrets.
For other nations?. Elsewhere
among arms-selling nations?
For France, the manufacture of arms
is vital to its economy. Only automo-
biles and textiles rank ahead of arms
among its exports.
The French arms industry provides
jobs for 270,000 people, of whom 15
per cent are involved in producing arms
for export. There are enough orders now
on the books to keep the industry busy
for years.
Of late, however, incoming orders
have been declining, e'en as deliveries
of arms have been rising. What worries
many French officials is that recent
"breakthrough sales" in
Latin America and the
Middle East, as one expert
recently put it, "may have
been one-shot affairs that
will not continue in the
future."
In the Persian Gulf re-
gion, the French sales
pitch is based on the offer
of well-trained Pakistani
personnel, experienced
with France's Mirage air-
craft, to provide technical
help in flying and servic-
ing the supersonic jets.
In Europe, French arms
salesmen offer to share
technical know-how with
customers if they sign con-
tracts to buy French aero-
nautical products.
For Great Britain, the
arms trade, according to
a London economist, is
"no longer just a welcome
shot in the arm to the bal-
ance of payments. In
many sectors of the de-
fense industry, it has be-
come vital to staying in
business."
Britain's arms sales, esti-
mated at 700 million dol-
lars in 1972, have doubled
since 1965, when the
country began overhauling
its whole overseas sales
effort. Now Britain is chal-
lenging France to regain
its former position as the
world's third-biggest arms-
trading nation.
A major change: mak-
ing sure that a new weap-
ons system has a potential
for foreign sales before the
Government buys it for the
country's own defenses.
Old marketing methods
have been revamped, and ,
sales campaigns intensi-
fied. Embassy posts, for
example, have been cre-
ated in five key capitals?
Washington, Paris, Bonn,
Canberra and Ottawa?to
deal specifically with arms
trading.
Exhibitions of British
wares are put on at major
international air shows. Weapons' capa-
bility is demonstrated in Britain and
abroad for foreign buyers.
Twice a year, a comprehensive cata-
logue is published, showing what equip-
ment is available.
Another move increasing arms sales:
Since coming to power in 1970, Brit-
111====allk.,
WHAT U.S. HAS SOLD OR GIVEN AWAY
From 1950 on?
U.S. sold
$17.5 billion
worth of arms,
including-
209 bombers
521 cargo planes.
1,492 fighters
580 helicopters
45 destroyers
15 submarines
11,270 armored personnel carriers
4,351 tanks
627,233 rifles and carbines
19,199 missiles
U.S.
gave
away
S36.2 billion
worth of arms, including-
184 bombers
1,027 cargo planes
9,683 fighters
714 helicopters
100 destroyers
24 submarines
2,034 other ships
19,855 tanks
403,439 trucks
4,967,844 rifles and carbines
271,291 machine guns
27,012 missiles
Note: Dollar totals are through mid-1972;
details on arms through mid-1971, latest
available.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Defense
3
Copyright dO 1973. U. S. News & World Report leo.
ain's Conservative Government has lifted
embargoes on arms deals with South
Africa and Spain.
In West Germany, where the Govern-
ment's policy has been to restrain arms
sales to other countries, a build-up in
volume is expected in years ahead. One
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reason: Many NATO countries will be
re-equipping their forces with new gen-
erations of weapons systems. West Ger-
many's "Leopard" tank is expected to be
introduced within NATO in growing
numbers.
Hard facts on Russia's arms sales are
difficult to come by. As well as Western
experts can piece things together?
Not counting! shipments to Vietnam
I y either 1.1,ussia. or the U. S., the Soviet
U nine has probably !become the ;largest
supplier of weapons to developing
countries. ,
Until the recent break with Cairo, ?
Egypt was the chief recipient of Soviet
arms, getting weapons valued at 250
million dollars in 1970 and 420 million
in 1971, chiefly aircraft and missiles.
Next came India, which has been li-
censed to make MIC-21 aircraft, includ-
1.
!mg the missiles and engines with which
he craft ; are equipped. Soviet ship-
ments to India include planes, antiair-
6aft missiles and tanks.
Since 1955, the Soviet Union has
provided an estimated 22 billion dollars
of military aid to its clients and cus-
tomers, the great bulk of it in the form
of sales.
Roughly 10 billion dollars of that
amount has gone to its East European
satellites.
Of all the arms dealers, Czechoslo-
vakia is, in the words of a former U. S.
arms-control official; "the nastiest, with- .
out a doubt." The Czechs have estah-'
lished an arms-sales firm, Omnipol, which
is. an agency or the Ministry of Foreign
ATT4 .1144itaLiibtkli8LUPIVICW1 1141.141loiainal,444 MA,
e? r
Trade. 'Wherever there is trouble in the
,world, officials say$ Czech arms usually
can be found. When terrorists can find
weapons nowhere else, they can always
turn to Omnipol.
Arms on the cuff. Most suppliers
sell arms on fairly liberal credit terms.
Russia, for example, offers loans for mili-.
tory purchases at an annual interest rate
of 2 to 23; per cent ; for periods of six to
12 yearS. Fr?rich and British deals gen-
erally. Involve loan of 53i to 0 per cent.
The V. S. charges one 'half of 1 per
cent above the Cost of borrowing by
the U. S. Treasury,' which now conies to
about: the charges leveled by the French'
and British. .The repayment period is
six to 12 years in most cases.
; It's in the Middle East where the mar-
ket for arms is growing most rapidly?
even though some Western nations
claim they. have imposed restraints on
sales to the region. !
'Iii Italy, newspapers' a few months
age published reports that military
equipreent, !including armored cars,
were being 'sold to Libya. Italian. au-'
thorities first' denied these reports, then
? 3 !
later admitted .they were true?and, . ;
fact,; that an -agreement had been
reached ?11 year earlier to provide mili-
tary arms to Libya.
France insists it will not sell offensive
weapons to any of the Mideast belliger-
ents.. It has, however, sold 114 Mirage
fighters to - Libya?which is a staunch
supporter of Egypt.
The arms-trade business can produce
some ironic situations in the Mideast.
Israel has a 500-million-dollar line of
credit with the U. S. for the purchase
'of weapons in its struggle against sur-,'
rounding Arab nations.
Yet Great Britain, a close ally of the
United States, is reportedly in ;the proc-
ess of concluding a 236-million-dollar
deal with !Israel's chief enemy, Egypt,
for Cairo's acquisition ? of light, tanks,
pafrol boats, armored cars, short-range
antiaircraft missiles and helicopters.
Two good customers. Among Mid-
dle East nations, Iran and Saudi Arabia
represent perhaps the largest arms mar-
kets for the immediate future. Both are
building their forces 'rapidly to fill the
vacuum left by the British withdraWal
, from the .area.
Iran's Air Force has already taken de-
livery on more than 100 U.S.-made Phan-
tom fighter-bombers, valued at around
340 million dollars. It has placed orders
with Britain for somewhere between 700
and 800 tanks.
There are reports that Bell Aerospace
Company is negotiating the sale of 580
helicopters to Iran at a cost of 720 mil-
lion dollars.
From the Soviet Union, Iran! is buying;
jeeps, trucks, personnel carriers and
artillery and air-defense systems.
Saudi Arabia signed a 350-million-
dollar contract earlier this -year for the.
purchase of Northrop Corporation's su-
personic F-5 fighter-bombers. It is setting
aside' another 145 million for its Navy?
in all likelihood for the purchase of !pa-
trol boats and possibly some submarines
from the U. S. The French are reportedly
negotihting an .80-million-dollar, tank
deal. ?
4tru war:7444,
'
?2E13 V1/4101-111,1)90 ALTID20 SILIPM112110
Based on estimates for 1972?
, UNITED STATES
Total sales: 2.8 billion dollars.
riaajjOir customers: 1\1,TO
countries, plus Israel,'Iran, Jordan,
Saudi Arabia, Australia, Thailand,
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan.
Major itesitas sold: Aircraft,
tanks, armored personnel carriers,
artillery, ammunition, missiles.
1144111 LAW,a. dita It)wkr4
'SOVIET Ulk11014 ?
Total sales: 2.2 billion dollars.
Milfjor etastotiners: Warsaw
Pact countries, plus ? Egypt, India,
Syria, North Korea, North Vietnam. ,
Maijor items sold: Aircraft,
missiles, tanks, armored personnel
carriers.
EDI:UTAIN
Total sales: 700 million dollars.
DlaDor customers: NATO
countries, plus Iran, Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia, Lebanon, South Africa,
Australia, India, Ecuador, Brazil.
DIalor items sold: Aircraft,
missiles, helicopters, ships.
ktarimrariicammema===sarzsna=ca
1.11:1 i.? a 1111
Total sales: 700 million dollars.
MaLor custornero: South Af.
rica, Greece, Spain, Turkey, Argon.
tina, Venezuela, Lebanon,. Libya,
Algeria'.
Mallor items scan: Aircraft,
engines, tanks, armored vehicles.
4
Mrl:TrIr t , 1-itt
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In both Iran and. Saudi Arabia, rapid-
ly rising revenues from oil production
are providing the' wherewithal to spcnd
more heavily on arms. !! i
' In Iraq and Syria, it is the'. SoIiet
Union that is the chief arms suppller.',
One authoritative estimate is that 111;os-'
I
sin has sold more than 500 million
Jars of arms to Iraq since the 1907 N? if,
U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, Jan. 22, 1973
and roughly the same amoirm to Syria.1
"Back to strong exports." As aims
experts see it, competition is going to
get tougher in the years ahead?with
the U. S. a'formidable foe. One .assOss-
ment 'from Paris:
"The end of the war in Vietnam,
along with the Soviet-American agree-
ment to limit, strategic nuclear weapons;
is expected to bring the U. S. back mOre
? 1:
'.1/INERE ARMS
BACKFIRED ON U.S. ?
Latin America is one part of the world
where the U. S. is trying to sell fewer,
rather than more, weapons?a policy that
is coining under increasing fire.
: The big clampdown on U. S. arms to
Latin America, imposed by Congress in
1967, has been so successful that Euro-
pean suppliers have been outselling U. S.
arms manufacturers by 5 to 1.
Top officers in the Pentagon call this
arms-control 'policy a military blunder.
Diplomats say it has failed in its polit-
ical goals. Executives of U. S. arms
firms complain that it has diverted prof-
its to foreign suppliers and worsened
trade woes. Members of Congress, as
' well ' as national-security officials, are
voicing serious second thoughts.
Heavy Ceiling. U. S. restrictions
now in force, place a 100-million-dollar
ceiling on U. S. Government military
grants and sales to all nations in the
. Hemisphere combined.
The regulations ban shipments of "so-
phisticated weapons systems" of all kinds
?including supersonic jet fighters?and
forbid military assistance to governments
of the region which are deemed to be
dictatorial.
All of this represents a sharp depar-
ture from the sort of co-operation in the
arms field that marked U. S. inter-Amer-
ican policy earlier.
Until the 19(37 clampdown, the U. S.
' had been the No. 1 supplier of arms to
, Latin America ever since World War II.'
It was after the U. S. gained a near
stranglehold on the military-aircraft
market in Latin America in the 1960s
that Washington began a tacit policy
of regional arms control.
Hold-down on expenses. Policy !
makers explained at the time that they
wanted to prevent underdeveloped na-
tions of the Hemisphere from wasting
. scarce funds.
Equally important, said Washington
officials, was a conviction that no na-
tion in the region needed such sophis-
ticated weapons as the new and costly
supersonic jet warplanes. Latin-American
military men had .been pressing for such
jets in seeking to modernize and to get
rid of World War II surplus aircraft.
Congress .first imposed a ceiling of 75
million dollars on total annual arms
sales in the Hemisphere. Later, boosting
the ceiling to 100 million, Congress
provided that the President could raise
it by up to 50 per cent if be deemed
this to be in the interest of national se-
curity. Other restrictions followed, led
by the Conte-Long amendment to for-
eign-aid legislation, barring use of U. S.
funds for buying advanced ? military
equipment, and the Symington amend-
ment restricting aid to countries that may
be determined to be spending an "unnec-
essary" amount of their financial re-
sources on military equipment.
Cutoff to dictators. When a num-
ber of military coups took place in Latin
America in the 1960s, Congress reacted
by passing the Reuss amendment. This
provided for cutting off aid to countries
ruled by dictatorial regimes "denying
the growth of fundamental rights or so-
cial progress to their own people."
Recalls one U. S. official:
"America's sudden case of cold feet
stemmed from more than just fears of an
arms race. The U. S. at that time gtill
had high hopes for the Alliance for
Progress.
"There was a feeling in many quar-
ters that by delaying or denying Latins
supersonic jets, they might be pressured
into spending more of their available re-
sources for food, roads, hospitals."
Not too successful. But things turned
out differently. Lt. Gen. E. B. LeBailly,
the U. S. Chairman of the Inter-American
Defense Board, describes what has. hap-
pened under five ,years of arms restric-
tions in this way:
"Attempts to have the Latin-Ameri-
can governments concentrate on nation-
al-development projects to the exclusion
of military needs have not been very
successful. Our restrictions have not re-
sulted in a direct switch of funds from
'guns to butter,' but only in a switch
from the U. S. to Europe as principal
arms supplier."
Chile led the way by buying 21 sub-
sonic Hawker Hunter fighters from Brit-
ain at a cost of 9.6 million dollars. It
had -sought to purchase F-5 Freedom
Fighters?a relatively low-cost supersonic
5
strongly into the export of conventional'
weapons. .:
"Many of the sophisticated weap(in
developed by the U. S. for the war it
n,
;
Vietnam will then become available or
sale to buyers around the world." . .
In short, while world leaders talk
hopefully of a "generation of peac:,'t
the world goes right oil buying and T-
ing weapons at a record rate. . . .
;
jet developed with U. S. official encour-
agement as suited to the needs Of de-
veloping countries. But Chile was .turned
down on this, and refused Washington's
counteroffer of subsonic Skyhawks or
F-86 Sabers.
The Chile-Britain deal?made by a
reform Government carrying out just the
type of social programs favored by U. S.
Alliance for Progress officials?marked
the beginning of the turn toward Eu-
ropean markets, away from the U. S.
The first sale of supersonic warplanes
to a Latin-American country came a year
later, in 1967, when France concluded
an agreement to deliver to JPeru 14 faster-
than-sound Mirages.
That plane is said by military men to
cost about five times as much as the F-5
Freedom Fighter that the U. S. was de-
clining to sell.
Repercussions from that sale brought
about a partial retreat by Washington.
In an effort to salvage some part of the
jet-warplane Market and maintain some
control, the U. S. Government offered to
relent and sell F-5 fighters after all. But
the U. S. offer proved to be too late.
Then?more vendors. The French
have followed up their Mirage sales to
Peru with similar deals in Argentina,
Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela. British
shipyards have obtained frigate orders
from Brazil and Chile. West German
yards have sold mine-sweepers and sub-
marines to Brazil and Argentina.
All told, the Latin Americans have in
five years turned to. Europe for 1.5
billion dollars' worth of arms free of any
restrictions. These arms sales often have,
been followed up by a rash of commer-
cial deals. The U. S., which once made
70 per cent of the total aims sales, now
is down to 6 per cent.
No wild race. In spite of unlimited
opportunities to buy in Europe, tio mas-
sive arms race has taken place in the re-
gion as American lawmakers feared in
voting for the 1967 clampdown.
Hemisphere officials say that, even
with the increased purchases of recent
years, Latin-American countries spend
less of their gross national product on
arms?about 2 per cent?than any other
region in the world, including Africa.
Says Gab o Plaza, Secretary General of
the Organization of American States:
"Actually, we have a kind of balance.
One country buys some Mirages, so an-
other country feels it must do the same.
But the second buys only about the same
number as the first. So there is no real
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race.
"It's simply a matter of prestige, of
the military establishment in each coun-
try keeping up with the times."
With nationalism on the rise, Latin
Americans are increasingly resentful of
what they regard us unwarranted inter-
ference by the United States in their in-
,ternal affairs.
As one U. S. authority puts it:
' "Our generally paternalistic approach
and denial of military hardware has
tended to alienate a largo segment of
Latin-American leadership?civilian as
well ,as military. They all deeply resent
? our implication that we know better
than they what's best for them."
The Nixon Administration recently has
made known that it opposes some of the
arms controls and has urged their repeal.
Outgoing Defense Secretary Melvin
Laird, who as a Congressman helped
push through some of the controversial
measures, says he has changed his mind.
In testimony in 1972, Mr. Laird said
the "restrictions have worked to the dis-
advantage of not only the countries in-
volved, but also of the United States."
Secretary of State William P. Rogers
appeared to sum up the present official
mood for change when, in seeking to
boost the ceiling on arms sales to Latin
America, he declared that such a stop
will enable the U. S. to "secure import?
ant economic and political advantages."
WASHINGTON POST
19 JANUARY 1973
U.S. Snrpriced
Heroin in Bags
Made in China
United Pratt International
State Department officials
yesterday expressed disbelief
that heroin seized In New
York City Werineeday was
from meinlend China,
New York authorities said
the confiscated heroin was in
bags made In the People's
Republic of China.
State Department apoke.
man Simone Poulain said,
"Our investigations of prey.
bus charges of People's ie.
public of China Involvement..
have not producted evidence
to substantiate the allegation.
1We find It difficult to believe
that any country shipping
!legal narcotics abroad would ,
carefully label it so that every-1
one would know who was
Involved."
NEW YORK TIMES
30 January 1973
A Top Ecnin &nut; ece Cavan
20-Year Senzence, Ohe Maximoya
? By PAUL L. MONTGOMERY
Auguste Joseph Ricord, whom
the Government called the larg-
est trafficker in heroin ever
brought to trial in the United
States, received the maximum
20-year prison sentence in Fed-
era Court yesterday for con-
spiracy to smuggle narcotics.
Ricord, a 62-year-od Argen-
tine citizen of Corsican extracl
tion, had been found guilty at
a jury trial last month. The
small, bald restaurateur, known
as Monsieur Andre, had been
accused of being the master-
mind of a many-tentacled ring
operating from his Paris-Nice
motel-restaurant on the out-
skirts of Asuncien, Paraguay.
In imposing the harshest sen-
tence he could, Judge M. Can-
nella noted that Ricord was not
an addict or a pusher accused
of making a few sidewalk sales.
Suffering and Death -
"This is a sale of a very large
quantity of heroin," the judge
said. "The end product in suff-
ering and mortality from this
quantity would probably equal
the recent figures given for
the war in Vietnam."
Walter M. Phillips Jr., an as-
sistant United States attorney
in charge of the narcotics unit
in the Southern District of New
York, said that Ricord's rings
were responsible for bringing
in at least 2,000 pounds of
pure' heroin a year into the
United States.
Mr. Phillips said he had evi-
dence that, in the three years
before his arrest in 1971, Ri-
cord had changed between
$350,000 and $400,000 from
American to Paraguayan cur-
rency at just one of the ex-
change shops he used in Asun-
In addition to the 20-year
prison sentence, Judge Can-
nella imposed a $20,000 fine?
the maximum under the law?
and directed Ricord to pay the
costs of prosecution.
Ricord Questions Locale
In a statement before sen-
tencing, Ricord said that he
had never been in the United
States until his extradition
from Paraguay last September.
"It is entirely possible that I
never committed any offense
in the territory of the United
States," he said, consulting
handwritten notes.
Ricord said that in his years
in the restaurant business
"some traffickers" had been
among his customers. "But I
never, never was an accom-
plice to anybody," he said. He
said he was a "victime of an
intrigue," which he did not
6
NEW YORK TIMES
28 January 1973
.--'011:11111
INDONESIA min9IS
BlARINANA FIELDS
MEDAN, Indonesia, Jan. 27
(Reuters)?The police have
burned off more than 240 acres
of marijuana plants around
Medan in the last few months
and farmer in this north Su-
metre area have been sternly
warfaal about growing it.
'rho crackdown was brought
about by north Sumatra's sud-
den popularity among young
Westerners and a growing
'struggling trade along with
signs that young Indonesians
In large numbers were starting
to smoke marijuana.
But supplies show no signs
of drying up. All the police ap-
parently did was to force the
sources of supply farther from
the city.
Marijuana grows In profusion
hero and residents have used it
for years?to spice their food
and cure upset stomachs and
sore, feet. For years govern-
ment officials ignored its sale
and purchase.
110101MMNAOMMENNIMMEMMI?
specify. lie also said' he was
sick with kidney stones, ulcers
and diabetes.
Ricord's lawyer, Herbert I.
i
Handman, said n his pica that
his client had.a "complex and
difficult background" because
he had "grown up in Europe in
the turmoil of war."
IVIarseilles Background
The records show that Ricord
began his career as a small--
time hoodlum and pimp in Mar-
seilles and was an agent of
the French Gestapo during
World War II. He fled to Latin
America after the war and, it
is believed, began his narcotics
activities in the nineteen-fifties.
Judge Cannella was critical
of the presentence probation
report prepared for Ricord. He
noted that it leaned heavily on
an interview the probation of-
ficer had with Nathan Adams,
an investigative reporter for the
Reader's Digest who has done
more than a year's research on
Ricord. His 30-page article, "The2
Hunt for Andre," is to appear'
in the March issue of the
magazine.
The judge said that he did
not think the interview was
proper material for a probation
report, and that he was ignor-
ing that portion of it in fixing
the sentence. Mr. Adams, who
works in Washington, said that
he had given his information
to the authorities because he
felt strongly about the case
and Ricord's implication in it.
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CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
25 January 1973
we
0
A provocative book ar-
gues that the benefits of
modernization too often
do not filter down to the
people in most developing
countries. The reason: lo-
? cal citizens are not in-
volved in the decisions
that affect them nor do
they have access to the
money, skills, and infor-
mation they need to take.
advantage of local re-
sources.
By Richard Nenneman
Business and financial editor of
The Christian Science Monitor
Washington
COTT FITZGERALD ONCE SAID TO ERNEST
Hemingway, "The rich are different from us."
Hemingway is supposed to have answered,
"Yes, they have more money."
Now Edgar Owens and Robert Shaw, two devel-
opmental economists, also are saying that the rich are
different from the poor ? only in another way. The poor,
they argue, lack access ? access to the means of
production, to credit, to the market, and to technical
knowledge. And all the foreign aid the United States
might continue dispensing and even major increases in
the gross national products (GNPs) of Third World
countries will neither relieve poverty nor increase the lot
?of the average man if there isn't the political decision to
give this access.
There is no dearth of discussion about the developing
countries. The talk has focused on the disappointments,
which have outnumbered the successes.
Edgar Owens has been with the Agency for Inter-
national Development since 1660 and has served in both
the former parts of Pakistan, in Thailand, and in South
Vietnam. Out of his experience in AID he began to piece
together the reasons for the limited success of many
Third World development projects. Along with Mr. Shaw,
a young Briton working for the Overseas Development
Council who has done extensive work on employment
problems in developing countries, he has written
"Development Reconsidered."
Strong case for new type
Their book makes a formidable case for a new kind of
development. It goes to the heart of any economy, to its
people. And while they argue that jobs are the important
thing (since jobs create purchasing power and raise the
lot of the average man), they say that something else
comes even before jobs. And that is the organization of a
country so that (1) the proper decisions are made at the
right levels of government, (2) as many people. as
possible are involved in decisions that affect their own
lives, and (3) there are effective links between the
different levels of decisionmaking. "The creation and
diffusion of sufficient political power to enable govern-
ments to govern is the great political problem of
development."
Messrs. Owens and Shaw divide the Third World into
what they call "modernizing" and "dual" societies. By
dual, they mean any society that is still essentially split
into a group who do the ruling and a group who are ruled.
This is not a Communist vs. democratic split, they argue.
? One must look below the label and see how power is
? really exercised in any nation. The modernizing societies
are those which are to some extent learning to trust their
own people and share deoisionmaking.
Taiwan comes out as their prize example of a country
that is successfully modernizing. Several other nations
? are mentioned as good examples in at least part of what
they have done ? Egypt, Yugoslavia, the part of
Pakistan that is now Bangladesh, and both Koreas.
On the other hand, Mexico and India, even though
?
democracies, get rated as the old, dual-type societies,
since the authors don't find the necessary input into
decisionmaking at the local level.
_ Having established that the organization of a society is
of prime importance and that power must be widely
diffused, the authors then go on to argue, as does an
increasing amount of development literature, that the
emphasis from now on must be on developing the small
farm and small-town industry.
Cities unable to provide jobs
The cities have shown themselves incapable of putting
to work the landless peasants who migrate to urban?
areas. The spread of urban slums all over the world
demonstrates that the type of capital-intensive devel-
opment going on in the cities does not alone generate
enough major new employment opportunities. ?
It has been a mistake, Messrs. Owens and Shaw argue,
for the West to emphasize the kind of capital-intensive
industrial development that was appropriate at another
time to the Western nations and particularly for the
United States, which did not have a large surplus of
labor.
This type of development in most Third World
countries has only served to create a new class of urban
elite (which includes some of the urban workers, too).
While the incomes of this elite have grown, the gap
between them and the remainder of society has widened.
Thus the aims of development, or at least of the foreign
aid that supported much development, have been at least
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partly thwarted.
It is more appropriate, say Messrs. Owens and Shaw,
for the developing nations to emphasize the resource
with which most of them are blessed ? people. Even in
crowded India, there is potential work for today's
population if it were organized along these lines.
Messrs. Owens and Shaw suggest specifically that
labor-intensive, small farming (using large inputs of
fertilizer, miracle seeds, irrigation, and multiple crop-
ping) make it possible in tropical areas for a single
family to make a living on one hectare (2.5 acres) of
land. But to do this they must have access to all the
information, credit, physical inputs, and marketing
knowledge that the large farmer has. And there also
must ,be either honest land reform or equitable land-
tenure arrangements.
Heartened by receptivity in India
They argue that if the government would make it
possible for this to happen, the poor would learn to
organize their own lives very well. It is one variation on
the thesis that the poor are not basically different from
other people, but that individually they cannot fight a
structure that keeps them down. And in this case,
Messrs. Owens and Shaw argue,the structure that keeps
them down may even be a central government that calls
itself a democracy.
I watched Mr. Owens "selling" some of these ideas in
India a month ago. In one of his talks, he said:
"The distribution of GNP is profoundly influenced by
the manner of its production. If GNP is produced by a
few it will be consumed by a few, and the gap between
rich and poor will continue to widen. If GNP is produced
by many, then people in general will share in the
material benefits of economic growth." What is most
important, he said, is creating the "conditions of access"
so that the small people have an equal chance to create
their own wealth.
Mr. Owens was heartened by the degree of receptivity
he found to at least part of the Owens-Shaw thesis in
India.
Some Indians say that three hectares would be a better
minimum size farm, and that in some parts of the
country one must have at least 20 hectares. Simple
arithmetic shows that with today's population in India,
which is smaller than tomorrow's, there is only one
hectare of arable land for a theoretical family of four.
In any case, the method would seem to assure vastly
more employment and spreading of income in the rural
areas than there is today.
The increased income that would come from honest
land reform and intensive small-scale farming would
need to be spent. This would support the creation of
village industries, which in turn would offer employment
for more rural workers. The most interesting part of this
small-farm and small-town industry concept is that
neither requires the spending of much capital per person
? both emphasize putting people to work, and people are
the resource that is in abundance. And today in many
cases they are a resource that is being wasted.
This small-town industry would produce wares that
people needed in rural areas ? building blocks and other
building materials; simple consumer goods; retail
serVices; and a limited number of luxury goods as well.
2
"If," they write, "we accept the premise that
development should consist of a continuous succession of
small advances, millions of individual actions by
millions of individual people, then small, much more
than large industry, suits the psychology of people in
transition from traditional to modernized methods of
production."
The development of small towns also would relieve the
big cities of the world from pressures that otherwise may
make them uninhabitable by the end of the century. (For
instance, a-United Nations study estimates the combined
population of Bombay and Calcutta at 92 million by the
year 2000.)
Messrs. Owens and Shaw claim that instead of
haphazard growth of the tiny farming villages, there
needs to be a national polify in developing countries that
identifies certain crosroads towns as natural market
centers and fosters their development. Taking the
experience of other countries, they say that each 75
square miles of farming area needs a market town.
(They are not advocating making every rural village a
prosperous center of activity; they are saying that rural
society needs reconstructing.)
Applying these figures to a country like India, which
has 565,000 villages, they find India sadly lacking in
market towns. They say it should have from 12,000 to
14,000 such centers, whereas it has only 3,000. Ten
thousand new towns of 10,000 each would absorb an
additional 100 million people.
One major result of this - type of wide-based devel-
opment, they say, would be a decline in the birthrate.
They note that family planning programs have not been
successful in nations in which there is little prospect of
economic improvement. But as soon as the incentive of a
better life lies ahead, the birth-control techniques that
are available begin to,be used.
Emphasis on spreading of incomes
There is a new emphasis in most of the aid agencies on
job creation and the spmading of incomes (instead of
looking' at what can be misleading GNP statistics). In
this sense, the ideas of Messrs. Owens and Shaw
complement the new thinking.
Where they are boldest in their approach is their
insistence that a people must be properly, organized
before the job of development can succeed. And the idea
of doing through local organization, not everything, but
those things that can best be done there and involve the
abundant local talent should sound pleasingly familiar to
anyone familiar with the pattern of American westward
development and the role not only of states but of county
and local government. These institutions all played a
major role in giving U.S. citizens a feeling of having at
least some control over their own destinies.
The implications for U.S. aid programs are, clearly,
that the United States should concentrate its future
foreign aid on those countries that try to lift themselves
out of the "dual" society classification and modernize
themselves along the lines suggested by Messrs. Owens
and Shaw.
They make no guesstimate of what demands this might
make eventually on U.S. foreign aid. For the moment,
they say, "the crucial starting point is ideas, not the
amount of money."
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WASHINGTON STAR
20 January 1973
4 ,4 r' ,;i:
, By Anumt OTTENBERG
Star?News Staff Writer
: The top federal narcotics in-
telligence official said today
' that a concerted law enforce-
ment effort has "turned off
the open faucet of herion"
into the United States.
"It's still dripping," said
' John Warner, assistant direc-
tor for strategic intelligence of
, the Bureau of Narcotics and
? Dangerous Drugs (BNDD),
but we've stopped the flow."
That's the most optimistic
assessment yet given by a
knowledgable federal source
about success in the war
? against drug traffickers.
In an interview. Warner said
he could document a real hero-
in shortage in this country
now.
He cited fewer heroin over-
dose deaths and hospital ad-
missions, lower quality heroin
and less of it, steadily rising
:? prices and the less-preferred
brown Mexican heroin show-
ing up in New York because
. that's all that's available.
"A Helluva Shortage"
"We've queried all our of-
fices," he said. "We've come
to the conclusion there's a hel-
. luva shortage. We've made a
real dent."
The official attributed the
' situation to an increasingly
worldwide law enforcement ef-
fort, supported by good intelli-
gence programs, diplomatic
? efforts and the White House
; emphasis on doing something.
What it finally gets down to,
though, the narcotics agents
' themselves, he said.
"Whether they wear French,'
British or American badges,
they are the ones who are
' doing the job, turning off the
fauce t," Warner said.
"They're penetrating the traf-
ficking organizations, making
! arrests and seizures."
Latest Seizure
, The latest seizure came with
the announcement that Thai-
land's special narcotics orga-
nization has seized 28.6 pounds
of pure heroin and arrested a
' woman courier on a bus near
? Chiang Rai.
The heroin was a consign-
0
? meat of No. 4 Asian heroin,
the kind closest to the Europe-
an variety of injectable heroin,
with a street value of more
than $7.5 million.
The task force in Thailand,
working close to the opium
producing "Golden Triangle"
where Thailand, Burma and
Laos meet, gets BNDD train-
ing, financial and technical as-
sistance and intelligence.
Since it started operating last
spring, it has seized more than
four tons of opium.
Another substantial opium
seizure was made recently in
India, where a BNDD agent is
now working with Indian po-
lice.
?
Widening Attack
Pakistan, too, s typical of
the widening attack on the
drug traffic. Warner disclosed
that a study team of U.S. Cus-
toms, BNDD and State De-
partment officials is now help-
ing Pakistan ? establish a cen-
tral narcotics investigative bu-
reau.
Warner gave this assess-
ment of the present world nar-
cotics traffic:
o Although growing opium
has been made illegal in Tur-
key, the drug business there is
not over. No effect has been
noted yet because there was a
large quantity of opium and its
derivatives in the pipeline and
because farmers withheld
enough opium to provide dow-
ries for t he (laughter and
luxuries in the days ahead.
These supplies are coming on
the market now.
o There's no change yet in
the movement of the opium
from Turkey to France, but
the drug traffic has been hurt
between Marseilles and the
United States.
o Recent arrests in France,
MIAMI HERALD
3.6 January 3.973
Latin America and the United
States have "scared the hell"
out of traffickers, who are be-
coming extremely cautious,
Warner said. Five major traf-
fickers were captured in
France in the last few months.
A 400-kilo seizure in Mar-
seilles, seizure of 60 kilos of
. heroin hidden in sheepskins
aboard ship at Rio.de Janeiro
and a seizure of similar size in
Argentina also were cited.
Risk Increasing
These people can't move
without our knowing about it,"
Warner said. "Fewer and few-
er shipments are getting
through. They're losing a lot of
money and the risk is getting
to be too great for them."
But so much money is in-
volved that the traffickers will
try new routes to evade cap-
ture, and that's what BNDD is
checking on now.
Agents know there's illicit
cultivation of opium in eastern
Turkey. ? To get it to the mar-
ket, BNDD ,predicts, the traf-
fickers will try to go through
Syria and Lebanon and then
by ship to the heroin laborato-
ries in Marseilles. That would
be a new route since most of
the traffic so far has been
through Yugoslavia and Ger-
many to France.
BNDD will continue to work
with Turkish police to beef 'up
border control between East-
ern Turkey and Syria.
BNDD intelligence also is
aware that Asian traffickers
are seeking new routes to
avoid ? a squeeze in Thailand.
There's a developing pattern
of shipping opium from the
"Golden Triangle" to Rangoon
and Moulmein in Burma and
Penang , in Malaysia, where
there is access to the sea.
"We'll just have to do some
By FREDERIC SI ERMAN
Herald Editorial Writer
THERE is at Yale University a doc-
toral scholar who would like to believe
Richard Nixon is trying to cut loose
from Vietnam because of ev idence that
American involvement
in Southeast Asia is a
? major factor in the
increasing problem
with heroin addiction
here in this country.
? Alfred W. McCoy
has offered such evi-
dence in his book enti-
tled The Politics of
Heroin in Southeast
9.
?
11 3 C."
r7,7? *-17)
more plugging up," Warner
said.
What narcotics officials are
determined to block is a major
flow of Southeast Asian heroin'
Into the United States.
"Southeast Asian heroin is
coming here," Warner pe-
knowledged, "but it's in small
quantities, usually no mere
than five or 10 -*kilos, often
body-packed by Chinese sea-
men. But the traffic is not wtell
organized, and we're not 'al-
lowing it to become organized.
"We can't eliminate it but
we can prevent it from becom-
ing a major problem. Propor-
tionately more heroin is com-
ing out of Southeast Asia, but
these traffickers don't have
the long-established 'traffick-
ing and consumer organiza-
tions of the Frenc h-
Latin-American-U.S. traffick-
ers."
Warner sees Increasing evi-
dence that the world is rising
up against drug traffickers. As
an example, he noted that Af-
ghanistan's new prime minis-
ter has announced that one of
the major programs he hopes
to initiate is elimination of op-
!um production. .
It's the first time an Afghan-
istan official has taken such a
stand, and, \Varner indicated,
it stems from the work there
of a BNDD agent and the U.S.
ambassador.
Afghanistan's attitude is sig-
nificant because American
"hippies" had been trafficking
in hashish from there.
In a recognition of the lead-
ership of the United States in
the world-wide struggle
against the illegal drug traffic,
the 25th session of the U.N.
Narcotics Commission, now
meeting in Geneva; has elect-
ed BNDD Director John Inger-
soll as chairman. 1
. ? ? a
11
ttji
? ?
.14- ir -rr . ?
"1-41 or.-1-1,/r?tkyi
?
Sherman
Asia (Harper & Row).
Those who support American
intervention in Vietnam as a selfless act
in defense of freedom will judge the
McCoy book as a spurious indictment
filled with wild .and baseless charges.
But. there is too much iti this book for it
to he dismissed as anti-Vietnam propa-
ganda. Eighteen months of study pro-
duced the names, the places and; the
dates of trafficking in the poppy gtvo
that is turned into the powder of white
death. ?
Sources of opium and heroin are
V'
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traced through the politics and the econ-
omies of the military dictatorships in
South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and
Thailand.
. Aircraft controlled .by General Ky in
, Saigon transported from Laos the hero-
in that was pushed on tens of thousands
of American servicemen. It was sold,
cheaply because there were more than
? 500.000 potential customers. It was
General Kv's sister who directed much
of the traffic in heroin from the Sc:clone
lcJloteHn Pakse,. a city in Western
Laos near the Thai border.
The?Cambodia invasion did not ac-
complish the capture of the North Viet-
namcse headquarters, but it did enable
the Saigon Navy to expand its role in
the heroin traffic. Up until the invasion
of Cambodia, there was no surface tran-
sit for heroin from Laos. But with the
protection of American air power, the
Vietnamese admirals were able to run
.their heroin in competition with General
Ky's aircraft.
?
THIS is a book the ,.QA tried to sup-
press because it dOcuMairthe use of
American money and American
? airplanes in the heroin traffic. This
again is more of the political expediency
on which Washington's stumbling in
Southeast Asia is based. The loyalty of
? mountain tribesmen could only be
bought by purchases of their poppy crop
and transport of the opium gum to pro-
cessing. plants. controlled by political
leaders in 'Laos and Cambodia. It was a
repeat of the game invented by French
? intelligence officials who use profits
from heroin traffic to finance political
machinations.
? On Page .263, McCoy writes, "With-
out air transport for their opium, the
Mc? (tribesmen) faced economic ruin..
There was simply no form of air trans-
port available in northern Laos except
the CIA's charter airline, Air America.
And according to several sources, Air
America began flying opium from moun-
tain villages north and cast of the Plain
of Jars to Gen. yang Pao's headquarters
at -Long Tieng." This, then, is the major
factor in the so-called secret American
war in -Laos: traffic in opium destined
for pushers in Saigon and for the smug-
glers coming into the United States by ?
way of Miami from Latin America.
THE BASIC problem, as McCoy out-
lines it, is that American officials in
' Southeast, Asia who know the inside
story of the heroin traffic cannot or!
, won't .do anything about it because of
fears that their actions would somehow4
harriper the war effort. z/it
If agents of the U.S. Bureau c$:??
Narcotics, for example, were to get
tough with Thai leaders mixed Up witl
heroin in Bangkok, American command
crs of the airbases in that country would,
suddenly find it impossible to get, jeti,
; fuel delivered or other vital supplie
delivered.
i<
This is why McCoy called his book
The Politics of Heroin.
sairien.f, 4. T "a laISIVW)Cilorkesomemr.s. emeg?air.lomo....:nwa
WASHINGTON STAR
31 January 1973
'WHITE HOUSE MOVES IN
11
13, Cr4r,
By OSIVALD JOHNSTON
Star-News Staff Writer
As the strategic arm limita-
tion talks with the Soviet Un-
ion enter a new and crucial
phase, the Nixon administra-
tion is taking steps to concen-
trate all phases of disarma-
ment policy in the White
In a series of moves culmi-
nating in this week's budget,
the Arms Control and Dis-
armament Agency has been
? stripped of many of its re.
sources 1.id much of its au-
thority to do its job.
The budget announced Mon-
day shows that ACADA, a I
semi-autonomous a gene yt
housed in the State Depart-
., merit, would lose a third of its
operating funds next year ?.a
cut from $10 million to $G.7
million. ?
Much of the cutback, it is
understood, is in the agency's
research budget. It used to let
/ out contracts for up to $2 mil-
, lion ?a year; Next year, the
research fund will be only
$500,000.
White House Project
At the same time, informed
sources disclosed that the
White House itself has quietly
let out a research contract on
disarmament to a krmer
president of the Hudson Insti-
tute who is an outspoken oppo-
nent of last summer's arms-
control agreements with the
Russians.
The researcher is Dr. Don-
ald G. Brennan, a strategic
arms specialist who testified
in Congress against the agree-
ment to curb an anti-ballistic
missile and against its interim
five-year freeze on offensive
nuclear weapons. Brennan has
been engaged by Henry A.
Kissinger's foreign policy ap-
paratus in the White House,
the National Security Council,
to assess the political impact
of the arms agreement on
UEurope.
Symptoms of Mistrust
These developments are
only the most recent symp-. /'
? toms of a mistrust in the ?
White House of ACDA profes-
sionals that has been apparent
' since the first arms-control
agreements were concluded in ,
Moscow last May.
One arms expert close to the
'? administration viewpoint ex-
plained it this way: "The prin-
? ciple at stake is whether the
responsibilty of negotiating
. these arm treaties should be in
, the hands of an interested ?
agency ? one whose mission
is to promote arms control."
- Kissinger himself moved
publicly to take over from
ACDA in Moscow last May,
when he took charge of a press /
briefing scheduled to explain
the details of the treaty and
left Gerard C. Smith, the
-ACDA head and chief negotia-
tor during two-and-a-half
years of talks, standing in the
background.
Smith's sudden relegation to
the shadows has been cited by
sources close to ACDA as a
factor in his decision Jan 3 to
resign from the agency.
ACDA, has remained with-
out a, chief since. But a new
chief negotiator to SALT was ?
quickly named in an evident
move to keep the SALT negoti-
ating team separate from the
arms control elperts.
The new thief negotiator is
V. Alexis Johnson, the former
undersecretary of state, who
has also been designated am-1
bassador-at-large in President
Nixon's second term.
' The White House announced
yesterday that the next round
of SALT negotiations with the
Soviets will begin March 12.
Johnson has been character-
ized as much more receptive
to hard-line Pentagon views on
arms control than any of the
ACDA professionals.
roil
American allies- in Western
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WASHINGTON POST
23 JANUARY 1973
',Marquis Childs
Unsettling Signs for Arms Control:
To return to thiS capital .from even a
.brief absence is to feel like Rip Van
,,Winkle confronting a world utterly
,1?changed. Questioning those who have
+- lived through the Nixon upheaval is of
little help. - ?
Why has se much of the -government
been turned upside down? We don't
knew.' Only the secretive man in the
White House now entered on his sec-
ond four year term knows the answer.
i:And; in a. voice dropped to a whisper,
:we're not sure he.knows.
The most dismaying change. . in many.
.?:\vays the. most mysterious; is the dis-
mantling of the disarmament and arms ?
'control apparatus. Inaugural rhetoric
' cannot conceal the damage done to be
5"effort that for a decade has made in-
!'ereasing progress toward controlling
and- to some degree scaling back the ,
Mountain of imam armaments
'With the judgment of life and death
over all mankind.
WHAT MAKES this more mysteri-,
?
pus is that one of the great achievements
'clear arms agreement culminating in
Of the Nixon first term was the nu-
the President's mission to 'Moscow..
With a limit on defensive missiles and
a five year agreement to restrain fur- ,
ther, building of offensive weapons, it
was a small beginning hailed, around
the world. ,
A dedicated public servant, Garard C.
Smith, with 20 years experience in the
nuclear jungle, worked tirelessly for
four years as chief American negotia-
tor in the SALT talks at Vienna and
Helsinki. When he went back at the
start of 'SALT Ii he was without any
clear and finally arrived at. position 'ap-
.
NEW YORK TIMES
25 January 1973 '
Will Momentum Be Loa?,
? proved by the White House. On return-
ing from Geneva, the new site of the
talks, Smith resigned. ?
.IN HIS PLACE the President ap-
pointed U. Alexis 'Johnson, under sec-
retary of State for political affairs.
Johnson is a career diplomat with no
experience in nuclear matters. Griev-
ously 'overworked, suffering from ill
health, he is within a year of retirement
age. The private word is that his will
be a temporary appointment.
But this can mean that the momen-
tum growing out of the modest success
of last year will be lott. It can also.
mean that the Joint Chiefs of Staff who
have reluctantly gone along with arms
limitation will have the dominant
voice. Arms control specialists with
long knewledge of the tortuous process
of arriving at agreement with the So-
viet Union are dismayed ? by the John-
son? appointnient. They say that. he has
been in the lap of the JCS for 10 years.
? A further .handicap is that Johnson
will not be head, as. was Smith, of . the
Arms Control and Disarthanent Agency
ACDA)'. The semi-autonomous agency'
created in 1961 has played an impor-
tant part in developing programs and
conducting research on the techniques
of control and the verification of limita-
tion agreements. A recent agency
.study showed that in 120'countries sur-
:veyed $207 billion was spent in 1970
for military purposes as against only
$168 billion for education and $80 bil-
lion for health care.
The Arms control agency now seems
in the process of being dismantled. A
budget slash of 30 per cent will cut the
agency back to $6.7 million. Divisidn
heads with long experience in disarm-
ament wore asked to submit their
resignations. They have thus far had 'no
response. Happening throughout
ernment, this is. a sure fire prescrip-
tion -for demoralization,
MEMBERS of the General Advisory
Commission on disarmament also were
asked to submit their resignations. The
commission includes distinguished men,
concerned over the years with the
growing nuclear burden one of them.
being William C. Foster who for seven
? years was' head of the arms control
agency. Chairman of the commission' is
John J. PlcCloy, a Republican with.
long time credentials in Public life.
McCloy has been trying in vain
for several weeks to see the Presi-
dent and present the commission's,
view.
The President has made plain his in-
tention of paring down one domestic
program after another?education,
poverty, welfare. But these parings,
will not, bring the budget into balance.
The only real economy can come out
of detense with a total somewhere
above $80 billion including all the'
costly new toys for the three services.'
The only way is a verifiable agree-Y
ment with ? the Soviet Union to scale
back this appalling burden.
6,) 1973, United Feature Syndicate
Some Suggestions for the sistance in economic development.
impartial protection and impartial as-
This kind of framework would be very
New, Man at tae U.N.
petition, intrigue and instability, rather
By Charles W. Yost
As a new Ambassador prepares to
represent the United States at the
United Nations, it is a good time to
, reflect on what the essence of his job
should be, that is, on what these two
great unions might do for the other
in the nineteen-seventies.
? We might begin by recalling that
when Franklin Roosevelt and Cordell
Hull helped set-up the United Nations
they did so in the firm conviction that
the old-fashioned "balance-of-power"
system had failed to prevent World
Wars I and II, and was bound to keep
on failing simply because no strong
nation is ever satisfied with a "bal-
ance" unless it "tilts" in its direction,
unless each nation believes itself a
little better armed, a little more potent
than its rivals. So "balance of power"
is really a deceptive formula for corn-
than for international order, coopera-
tion and peace.
Roosevelt and Hull certainly never
, imagined that the United Nations
would solve all these problems nor
that all foreign relations should be '
conducted through it. It should com-
pose one side of a three-sided struc-
ture, of which the others would be a
much closer association of the devel-
oped democracies and a more compre-
hensive series of accommodations with
our adversaries, most particularly in
strategic arms control and reduction.
The main role of the U.N. in this
three-sided structure would be to pro-
vide the framework for relations be-
? tween the great powers and that two-
thirds of mankind that lives in devel-
oping countries, to deter the former
from the sort of unilateral action the
United States so foolishly undertook
much in the national interest of both
,large and small nations, especially the ,
United States. -
Unfortunately this has not been the
conception of the U.N. role held by
recent U.S. Administrations, including
the present one. They have tended, as
in Vietnam and in the East Pakistan
crisis of 1971, to bring threats to the
peace to the U.N. only when the tra-
ditional expedients of diplomacy have,
failed and when it is too late for the
U.N. to act effectively.
It should be Mr. Scali's first task,
therefore, for which he is well equipped :
as a recent member of the White House
staff and confidant of the President,
to persuade the Administration that '
it will henceforth be in our national
interest to take much of our inter-
national political action multilaterally
through the U.N. rather than unilat-
erally 'in naked and vulnerable isola-
tion, as we have become accustomed.
? It will be claimed that the U.N. is
in Vietnam, to provide theiatter Nyith.,, ineffective to take such action. The
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reply is that it is ineffective primarily
because it lacks U.S. support. During
its first nineteen years it had U.S. sup-
port and it grew steadily stronger.
During the last eight years U.S. sup-
port has diminished and the U.N. has
declined. .
Mr. Scali's first and most difficult'
job, therefore, will be not in New York
but in Washington. If he can prevail
there, 'he will soon find? that the U.N.
structure and the U.N. members are
ready to work seriously with the U.S.
not only in dealing with the environ-
BALTIMORE 17,71S AMERICAN ?
2 1. JAN)973 .
ralicte-to-
11-Ireroin Fit)w
k).
r-1-1(1
CiPo " ? d
IL, A .? 1?
. By JOHN HARRIS
? ?. ?
ment and with economic development
but, even more important, in making
the U.N. Security Council what Roose-
velt and Hull intended it to be, the
main instrument both for keeping the
peace and for keeping the great pow-
ers together. If vigorously used for
this purpose, it can be far more effec-
tive than separate national security
councils, each working in secret to
tip the balance of power "just a little
bit" its way.
On the other hand, if the U.S. like
some others, uses the U.N. mainly as
a propaganda forum, a place to de-
? nounce terrorism we don't like while
? indulging in terrorism we do, a con-
venient scapegoat when "the games
, we play" don't work, an international
assembly where our principal triumph
this year was to reduce our assess-
mept by $13 million, then the U.N.
will conform to what we do, not What
we say. .
Charles W. Yost was formerly Ambas-
sador to the United Nations.
F: ? As a result, Murphy said, the availability of
f-, heroin - has dwindled drastically in the United
Et.. States, especially since last July. Street prices
sz: of .heroin have "doubled and tripled," he add-
ed, to the extent that, to an addict, it is often
i "not much more than aspirin."
Murphy produced a recent U.S. government
Fa" report that quoted the "Wholesale" price of
lei heroin, "delivered in New York City," at S3,000
P. to $7,501 per pound early last year. The report
. LI added that since the shortage beginning July,
' prices up to $17,000 are being quoted in New
Special to The News American
? - York.'
Murphy attributed these developments to a
?.
PARIS ? The "French Connection" is in massive, combined U.S.-French anti?narcot-
elisarray, according to an American narcotics ics drive that began in France after former
enforcement official here, and a "classic" drug U.S. Ambassador Arthur K. Watson, who re-
flow from France to the United States may be
Coming to a halt. ? . . signed last August, assumed office in 1970. In
the process, Nturphy added, a growing drug-use
. The official disclosed that during the past problem has been curbed in France, too. .
two years U.S. Air Force planes, Navy vessels
we've made more progress
- and the Central Intelligence Apency have been "In two years
used in Europe "with the cooperation of local' ethxaanin.the last 40 years," Murphy saisl. "For
example,
'authorities" to achieve this. lie said this use .0 f 1 five beroin?producing laboratories
were smashed in Marseilles in 1972, compared
U.S. military, and intelligence elements in nal%
to six in the entire previous 21 years.
cotics enforcement outside the United States "
syas "absolutely unprecedented." The importance of France in the interna-
tional drug traffic was stressed by other
The official, Thomas P. Murphy, is "narcot-
?, sources here, v.lio noted that Marseilles was a
ics coordinator" at the U.S. Embassy
Per" "traditional smiteeling way station." It Was
With the title of special assistant to the ambas-
also pointed out that Marseilles was close to
sador. Murphy said he plans to return to-pri-
vate life in the United States next month, after yra. nce,'s tmajor perfume-producing region, a
setving in his drug enforcement post here for tact. Nvoicii gave it a Wee supply of skilled
two-and?a?half years.
? chemists who could often -be recruited td work
"For. 40 years the narcotics flow from , in heroin laboratories for high returns.
France to the United States has been far and ' "Ambassador Watson simply felt the U.S.
away the classic drug route to the U.S.," Mur- should bring every area of government that
phy said. "Today the operators of this traffic ? could help into the fight against drugs,' Mur-
popularly known as the 'French Connection' ? phy said. "As a result, we have used U.S. Air
are frightened, demoralized and on the defen- Forte planes, U.S. Navy vessels and even the
sive 'for the first time." Cattral Intelligence Agency ? the CIA has big
12
files, you know.
'?!`All this has been done in cooperation with
European authorities. ? and is absolutely un-
precendented outside the U.S.," he added. de-
clining . to elaborate. "But it is a battle we have
to win, and the ambassador felt that every re-
source the U.S. has should be used."
, Murphy noted that outside the United States
the State Department has overall responsibility
! for other U.S. government agencies. ,
:"So our thought was to support the Bureau
of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs with other
U.S. resources ? and what I've done is pull
thee others in, and hit them with everything
we've got," he said.
-Other sources noted that U.S. narcotics .
Wits began to work undercover in 'France,
airengside French agents, during the past two
years, too. The sources said that despite offi-
cial French reluctance to concede it, the U.S.!
agents frequently go armed on antidrug opera-
tions f.,
s ohfer,e, "or they might get their heads
b
Official figures also attest to a dramatic ex-
pansion of French narcotics enforcement agen-
cies. In 198, for example, the "Police Judi.:
ciare" drug force consisted of only 11 officers
but by 1970 this had grown to 63, and in 1972
to 170.
Murphy said cooperation between French
and U.S. drug forces was "distant in the old
days," when French officials tended to look on
the narcotics flow to the U.S. as an American,
not -a French problem.
"Now we even share office space, particu-
larly in the U.S. consulate in Marseilles," Mur-
phy said. "In addition, one top French narcot-
ics officer has visited.the United States so often
recently that he's become addicted himself ?
to cheeseburgers and sundaes with chocolate
sauce."
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LOS ANGELES TIMES
14 JAN 1373
PUTTING IT TOGETHER AGAIN
oreit n
LINCOLN P. BLOOMFIELD
The New Left's assault on estab-
lished U.S. foreign policy has been
often misinformed, sometimes male-
volent, always intemperate. But it
has also carried with it an element
of enormous potential value to the
nation, if we know how to use it.
The single greatest contribution
the radical critique has made toward
a generally better American foreign
policy is in raising questions about
the fundamental assimptions con-
cerning this nation's role in the
Prof. Bloomfield, II former State
l)partnunt 1.A. njjnirs plan 11 Pr,
teaches political science at 3111. Ilis
article. is adapted front Foreign Pol?
. icy. a new quarterly ant to be con.
fu,ed with the venerable Foreign
Affairs.
world and about the world itself?
assumptions that are rarely recog-
;.rized let alone challenged inside the
i system.
I recently made a list of the pre-
mises underlying U.S. foreign
poli-
cy, assumptions that seemed to me
to lie beneath the foreign policy con-
sensus as it prevailed frotn 1945 to,
say, 1963. Some or all of these basic
' assumptions are Still shared, con-
sciously or unconsciously, by many
, in the "foreign policy community,"
particularly inside the government.
I myself held many of them and
? still share some. But I now believe
, that at least some of them have
caused great damage to America
; and sometimes to other people as
well. What worries me is that, by
. and large, most of these underlying
assumptions continue to go unchal-
lenged within the system.
If this list appears painfully recog-
nizable, my point will be made. La-
ter on I will suggest some-places
where I think we should change.
But just in case anyone starts mut-
tering about "straw men," consider
my comments in parentheses.
?
1?Communism is bad: capitalism
Is good. (Don't almost all Americans
believe this?)
2?Stability is desirable. instabili-
ty threatens U.S. interests. (This is
indisputably the 'underlying premise
of U.S. policy toward the Third
World since the r505.)
? 3?Democracy is desirable. but if a
choice has to be made, stability
serves U.S. interests better than
democracy. (This represents the
chief political, moral and spiritual
problem of our foreign policy.)
4?Any area of the world that
"goes socialist" or neutralist is a vic-
tory for the Soviet Union and, a loss
for us. (A boxscore mentality long
dominated U.S. postwar policy and
still may.)
5?Every other country, and par-
ticularly the poor ones, would bene-
fit from American ."know-how."
(One .of our greatest shocks was to.
learn that we frequently don't
know how.)
6?Nazi aggression in the 1930s
and democracy's failure to respond ?
provides the appropriate model for
dealing with postwar security prob-
lems. (Read Dean Rusk's speeches
as secretary of state.) ?
7?Allies and clients of the United
? States, regardless of their political
structure, are members of the Free
World. (This may be just rhetoric,
but friends of mine in the govern-
Ment get red in the. face if you ask
them to define "Free World.")
6?Western Europe (a) is indefen-
sible ? without something like the
current U.S. military presence and
(b) would not be defended by the
people who live there because (c)
they don't understand the threat.
(For details, apply to NATO head-
quarters or the Pentagon.)
9?The United States must pro-
\-i d e leadership because it (reluc-
tantly) has the responsibility. (This
one has fallen from grace, but is still
believed by many.)
10?The United States has vital
interests. in (a) the Pacific and (b)
some or (c) all of the offshore terri-
tories and (d) or some parts of the
Asian mainland. (Easy to show?
hard to analyze.)
? 11?Foreign aid (a) rests on an al-
truistic concern for the well-being of
foreigners, (b) should inspire grati-
tude and pro-U.S. feelings, (c) is
only justifiable if it promotes socci-
fie U.S. interests. (Phrased this way
to illustrate our schizoid approach to
foreign aid.)
12-1n? negotiation the United
States has a virtual monopoly orC.,
sincerity. (Americans since Ben
Franklin have believed this, at least
until recently.)
13?Violence is an unacceptable
way to secure economic, social and
political justice?except when vital
U.S. interests are at stake. (Most
Americans like the revolutions of
1C86 and 1776 but deplore those of
1917 and 1949.).
14?Depending on the extent to
which U.S. interests are at stake, 1,:e
United Nations is either the noblesi:,..
hope of mankind, or a nuisance. '?
(Ask aayone.)
1.1--1n southern Africa the United
States favors racial equality but not
at the price of (a) instability or (b)
economic loss. (Not necessarily hy-
pocrisy, merely a policy premise
with an irreconcilable internal in-
consistency.)
16?Incipient foreign conflicts
warrant top-level U.S. attention
only when they threaten to become
violent. When they become acute,
only diplomatic and military con-
siderations are relevant. (If this isn't
true, why does U.S. decision . ma-
chinery spring into action only
when violence breaks out?)
17?However egregious a mistake,
the government must never admit
having been wrong. (Eisenhower
admitting the U-2 spy flight is the
only example of admitting wrong-
doing. No one admits having been.
wrong.)
? 18?Challenging underlying as-
sumptions is "speculative," "theoreti
ical." and a one-way ticket out of the'll
inner policy circle. (Read a few
memoirs. Ask why the Policy Plan-
ning Staff is no more.)
If at one time a full consensus ex-
isted on these propositions, either on
conscious or unconscious levels, it ?
1.$
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has substantially crumbled so far as
many in the "foreign policy commu-
nity." are concerned. But a number
of these articles of belief are still re-
flected both in U.S. polices and in
the arguments made by defenders of
the policy status quo.
Those with short historic memo-
ries might well ponder the durable
. theme of a supernatural calling for
this nation. It was not an invention
, of power-drunk cold warriors, nor
'even of those -imperialists intoxicat-
ed at, the turn of the last ?century
; with ;the heady Wine of overseas em-
pire.
* ?
Rather, it goes hack to the 'very
birth of this nation and even earlier.
Ft* almost 2,00 years from Jonathan
Edwards through Adams, Clay and
Lincoln, through Wilson and Kenne-
dy to Richard Nixon, the theme has
recurred of a unique, even divine
American world role. '
But this strain in American belief.
and American rhetoric strikes a jar-
' ring note today, It combines an em-
barrassing self-righteousness with
what Raymcind Aron (speaking, in-
? eidentally, of Karl Marx) called
"catastrophic optimism." Yet this
; nation in fact did furnish a beacon
for many people and it did provide a
. model for new democracies and it
was for generations unself-seeking in
relations with others.
In redefining the U.S. world role,
what has to be resolved is not to be
found in cost-benefit calculations
nor:at the level .of diplomatic style
' and maneuver where a "Matter-
' muck" competes with Wilsonians.
' Beneath all that, the deepest con-
flicts in our body politic are over
conflicting beliefs about the nature
of man. and the 'meaningof morality
in public policy. The sickness in
American foreign policy reflects this
underlying tragedy of the human
condition.
Demoralized in the face of failures
and .disillusioned about the validity '
of its self-image, America seems to
me ,paradoxically ready to move de-
cisively to fresh "commitments," not
In this or that tin-horn dictator who
. ;claims anticommunism, but. corn-
- figments to redefined purposes
; such as economic equality and con-
flict. prevention along with such val-
id older stands as disfavoring naked
, military aggression.
Reconciling economic gain with
? human values demands renewed ded-
ication to partnerships, free trade,
and -a purging of the ideological Con-
. stipation that blocked such solutions
as commodity agreements on which
depend the very lifeblood of humans
eletvhere, ?
Revulsion at the "mad monien-
turn" of arms races or at Strangelov-
ian analysis needs to be accompa-
mied by a renewed commitment to
genuine rationalism.
Clearly, isolationism is-a nonpolicy
for the United States in the 1970s,
the. 1930s. and until the end of the
century despite the mood of Many
Americans who want to put domes-
tic problem-solving first and .believe
.the way to do this is to downgrade..
.foreign affairs. Their urge to decou-
ple America from the giobalism that
has turned sour is understandable.
But the linkage between troubles
abroad and troubles at,home turns
out 'to be a tricky one.
The "inside". world at home may
be profoundly altered, but the out--
side world is a separate system with ;
its own constants 'and variables,
mostly.'unsusceptible to manipula-
tion by any single state, even a su-
perpowerful one. U.S. domestic life
is long overdue for some basic re-
forms, and U.S. foreign policies need
to change to conform to altered
realities and perceptions.
But if the national perspective
gets too much out of register with
external reality it will become as ir-
rational and inappropriate as pre-
vious policies which led us astray. ?
In recent years we often looked
like unprincipled pragmatists in
our own sphere, and pious moralists
elsewhere. We need to returnnow to
the tradition of an America that
dealt realistically with the world
while giving primacy to its demo-
cratic commitment wherever it's
own writ ran. This is not a return to
isolationism any more than it is a
prescription for renewed military
interventionism. It is a step beyond
both.
The American task is to decide
afresh what is vitally important to
the nation, while nht abandoning
our link! on external reality.
But lastly, in suggesting some spe-
cifics of policy, I would echo George
Romney. perhaps the only honest
; man in the United States or any oth-
er government, when (speaking of
the equally refractory urban prob.
lems) he said, "The truth is, none of
tis are sure what are the right things
to do." ?
The list that follows is my own
"decalogue"?a short catalog of re-
vised fundamental assumptions that
in my view should underlie U.S. pol-
icy today:
1?Neither states nor ideology nor
things but people represent the
highest value for American policy.
While men (not women) who are
today in their 50s and 00s will -con-
tinue to run this country for a few
more years, others ,are coming up
who believe that the human beings
14
who :live in this country, and for
that matter .people everywhere,rep-
resent the irrefragably highest value
for American policy.
This has to belhe.rentral point in.
a restatement Of Our -ideology. It is
linked to the;spirit for which Ameri-
ca used to stand. It tan refurbish: a
tarnished image: Above all, it is ety- ?
cally right.
2?Nuclear weapons -can destroy
'the United States, '
However conifortably ' strategic
analysts and indeed almost every
'one have learned to live with M -
f
clear weapons they still could de-
stroy civilization as we know i.
This inherently suicidal possibility
twill persist as a threat until amid-
thing basic is done about it, such as '
genuine -reductions in stockpiles of
H-bombs, and basic turndowns in
the military budgets of the major ;
nations. SALT I was the application
of brakes. But we are very far from
going into reverse gear.
3?The United States has a major
world foie, but no God-given man- ?
date.
We have no divine commission.'
Tither to right all assumed wrongS
(Or to impose our version of right or
wrong on others, whether in their
defense or not?and neither (lees
; any other country have that right.
The United States is still strong
empigh to blow up the world, and 01.
most. rich enough to buy it. lint
somehow we haven't proven to be
smart enough to run it, so goodbye
. (and, for my money, good riddance)
Pax Americana. At the same time,
Our influence and power in the ser.
vice of genuine war prevention, gen
-
tithe humanitarianism, and genuine
collective security, will be desper-
ately needed.
4?The major forces affecting'
? Jut-
man life are increasingly transition-
al.
Society does not exist to support?
bureaucracies but vice versa?Max
Weber and all governments to tlie
contrary. The things that affect hu-
man life at the human level are
what it is really all about. (I confess
to having sometimes forgotten that
myself, in 16 years in and out of uni-
form, gripped as. I was with what
might be called the glamor of the In-
Basket).
The' greatest single les-
son for leadership, and the heart of
the needed transformation in Ameri-
can attitudes about its world role
turns on this: The air, the water, the
quality of people's lives. the commu-
nications that enrich them, the wars
and diseases that kill them, the con-
sequences of affluence and scientific
discovery?every single one of these
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will turn out on analysis to be large-
ly indifferent to a single nation's
boundaries a n d effectively ap-
proachable only on the basis of re-
gional or international cooperation
; and eventually international regula-
tion.
5?The balance of power mecha-
nism still keeps the peace.
: On the most fateful matters of na-
; tional security, the governing me-
chanism of world politics, so far as I
can see, is still the balance of power.
? Events which are likely to upset the
overall balance are perilous and
? should be resisted and corrected?
although not by ourselves alone. By
the same token, events which do not
really upset the over-all balance
should not be portrayed in terms of
? Munich, fighting on the beaches of
California. or the Apocalypse
6?Hostile or incompatible forces
remain in the world.
Only someone on a very powerful
trip could fail to notice that the cold
war is not fully ended, that there
still exist plenty of groups in the
world, some ruling powerful coun-
tries, whose notions of how to orga-
nize and "improve" mankind are dif-
ferent from ours, and- that some of
these people are deeply hostile to
this country. How we ourselves
change is going to reduce this ten,
sion to some extent; in other cases it
Is not, and we had better maintain
good intelligence and some dry pow-
; der.
7?Worldwide strivings for eco-
nomic, social, and racial equality
will intensify.
All projections into the future
confirm the cynical proposition that
' "the rich get richer and the poor get
children." The GNP gap will create
' a built-in source of tension. On a
scale of probability and imminence,
led by Latin America and trailed by
central Africa this tension will per-
sist until the poor gain a greater
measure of equality with rich,
white, Western man.
8?On the surface world order
tendencies are weak, nationalism is
strong.
The forces that make for conflict,
' such as virulent nationalism, are in-
creasing in Africa, Asia, and Eastern
, Europe, and in pockets within the
allegedly advanced northern coun-
tries.
There is nothing to indicate that,
the present rate of about 1.5 new
; conflicts per year won't continue
; and even increase. As the 1970s be-
gan, half the nations of the world?
about 70?were either engaged in
conflict or preparing for it.
9?Military power remains rele-
vant to some?but by no means all?
national strategics.
Blame for the recent U.S. ?obses-
sion with Military solutions primari-
ly rests not on military men but on
civilians who forgot that their busi-
ness was diplomacy, conflict preven-
tions and compromise, and went
whoring off after shiny toys of pow-
er, subversion, and force majcure.
But given the other realities, milita-
ry power still remains a crucially
important element that is relevant
to some but by no means all policy
problems.
10?Technology is not a frill but a
growing determinant of world polit-
ics.
As a nation we have thought of
exported technology and technical,
assistance at root as pragmatic in-
struments for our own national ad-
vantage. But the corollary of my
premise is that all three have to be
Confronted on fundamental moral
grounds.
It was not very long ago that one
could derive the external objectives
of America by simply looking
around the world and seeing what
we were doing. It could be'added up
and synthesized into a reasonably
coherent whole called the "United
States national interest," at least as
of that year.
For a time that worked as an in-
ductive method of defining national
interest. But a list of what we have
been actually doing everywhere, in
different parts of the world or at
home, is no longer acceptable by
even a majority of Americans as en-
abling them to infer a valid state-
ment of American interests and na-
tional purpose for the period ahead.
Indeed we have been badly served
by the invocation of something mys-
tical called the "national interest" as
a substitute for the hard, painful
analysis needed to devise coherent
national policies.
Some Americans?including Pres-
idents?talk as though American na-
tional interests were immutable.
But of course, apart from sheer sur-
vival, they are not. We may have
preferences ? a demoe rat icallv
ruled, contented, admiring world
around us?but we are forced to de-
cide as a nation what is vital to us
and what is not. To this extent atti-
tudes, rather than geography or di-
vine law, determine interests.
If Southeast Asia became a new
Tonkinese Empire under Hanoi,
neutralist at best .or allied to China
or Russia at worst, many people now
believe the average American could
still live out his life quite happily.
Unless the domino theory or the
Munich analogy can be more persua-
sively demonstrated, what. vital U.S.
interest was really involved in the
Vietnam war? There is, widespread
agreement now that the answer is:
None.
How can this be? Is nothing vital.
except our own survival as sentient
human beings? I suspect the answer
to this is "yes"?that nothing is vi-
tal except what is truly vital, mean-
ing affecting life itself. And so it
must be unless we want to let every
corner of the world be defined by
one or another politician or agency,
of government as "vital" and therer.
fore deserving of a total American
commitment.
To make "vital" mean the sarrt
thing as "important" or "desirable
or "appropriate" (or possibly annoA
ing or just interesting) not only der
grades the language but may need-
lessly kill a lot of Americans. The se-
mantics here involve not simply
making words mean what you want
them to mean, a la Lewis Carroll.
Words may wind. up changing the
lives of a lot of people.
"Vital interests" can only refer to
the danger that the United States
can be destroyed or mortally hurt,
This may be the first element of cla-
rity in sorting out what we have.
been calling "vital interests" all over
the globe.
The people who run governments,
at least our own, are neither male-
volent nor stupid, despite a distur-
bingly widespread opinion to the
contrary. For my money they are peo-
ple who are both bright and devoted
to the national well-being as they
see it.
I believe the Nixon Administration
has made some substantial gains in
foreign affairs. But the added ingre-
dient that is needed is to overcome
what this President liked to Call
our failure of nerve. I am afraid he
was usually thinking of nerve in the
sense of acting unilaterally, if neces-
sary, in defense of what is construed,
as the national interest.
It can perhaps be seen that for me
the needed recovery of nerve is for
the purpose of imagining bold and
creative designs for a more unified.
and cooperating world, and then
have the courage to push them to-
ward reality. It remains true that
without vision the poeple will per- ?
ish. But with only vision and no fol-
low-through, idealism becomes hy-
pocrisy.
Let me suggest a final litmus-pa-
per test for policy. After we ask "Is
it strategically important? "?which
we must?and after we ask "Is it po-
litically feasible or viable"?which
we must?and after we ask "Is it .
cost-effective?"?which we should-1
perhaps the greatest lesson of Viet.'
nam for the United States is that we
should also ask "Is it humane?" I
This is not a substitute for the
other questions. But only with this
additional question, or so it seems to
me, can we cure the sickness that
has crept into the veins of American
foreign policy.
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1, I
BALTIMORE SUN
24 January 1973 '
0
iL cu.)
fur
at (7,10.)0 di
By SCOTT SULLIVAN
Paris Bureau of The Sun
Paris?On March 31, 1968,
President' Lyndon B. Johnson
announced to the American,
people that he was prepared to
meet with North Vietnam in
"any forum, at any time to
discuss the means of bringing
this ugly war to an end."
In the interests of peace, the
President continued, he had
decided to withdraw his candi-
dacy for re-election, had or-
dered the "unilateral" cessa-
tion of bombing raids north of
the demarcation zone and had
appointed W. Averell Harri-
man, the 77-year-old former
Governor of New York and
diplomatic trouble-shooter, as
his persOnal representative in
the coming talks.
Tet mocked U.S. words
The President's dramatic an-
nouncement came after more
than 18 years of American in-
volvement in South Vietnam,
after 8 years of overt partici-
pation in the war. More than
20,000 GI's had died in action
in the conflict, and total Amer-
ican troop strength in Indo-
china had reached half a mil-
lion.
The Commuhists' bloody, if
inconclusive, Tet offensive two
months earlier had'brought the
war to a new pitch of intensity
and horror, making a mockery'
of official American estimates
that the United States and
South Vietnam were slowly
"winning the war."
In Arnerica, the war had
divided the country and made
Mr. Johnson the most unpopu-
lar President in recent mem-
ory. At first it was the young '
?because of their -radicalism,
because they ran the risk of
fighting and dying in the far-
off rice paddies?who ex-
pressed th-ir opposition to a
war they perceived as unjust
and deg. aqing.
? Then, little by little, older
and more conservative Ameri-
cans began to follow the
young. They could not under-
stand hew, the patently undem-
ocratic regime in Saigon
could serve the cause of de-
mocracy. They could not jus-;
tify to themselves the expense
of American blood and treas.
They grew heartily sick of
the war and wanted to get cut
of it.
So, President Johnson's evi-
dently sincere bid for peace
was greeted, except on the
extreme right wing, with sym-
pathy and relief. The Presi-
dent's personal standing im-
proved and the American peo-
ple Settled back to wait for
peace within a reasonable span
of time.
Their hopes were to be bit-
terly, cruelly disappointed.
Nearly five years passed be-
fore another President and his
special representative finally
patched together a treaty that
did little more than register
the military stalemate in the
war-torn land.
Meantime, 29,000 more
Americans lost their lives in
battle, about 580 American.
prisoners
prisoners languished in Hanoi's ?
prisons, the Communist side
unleashed a major offensive
unparalleled in the previous
history of the war, and the
United States responded with
massive bombing of the North
and mining of its ports.
The official Paris talks:.
which grew out of Mr. John-
son's initiative, developed into
an exercise in pure futility.
As the fighting and the dying
went on and on, representa-
tives of the United States,
North Vietnam, South Vietnam
and the Viet Cong met weekly
to trade repetitive insults and
propaganda, restate invariable
arguments and boast of their
own "good will."
So manifestly fruitless were'
the public talks that President
Nixon opened an entirely dif-
ferent channel of communica-
tions to the Communist side,
sending Henry A. Kissinger,
his globe-Circling personal
envoy, for 21 separate "se-
cret" sessions with Le Due
The, the charming but rigid
plenipotentiary of Hanoi's
Politburo.
October movement
For more than three years,
the private talks proved as
frustratingly useless as the
public forum. Each side tire-
lessly repeated its unvarying
demands and rejected the op16
-
TO
0
Aro
0
/T1 ? 7711
tr/
ponent's arguments.
It was not in fact, until Octo-
ber 8 of last year that the
secret talks began to move at
all.
On that day, Mr. Tho pro-
posed a formula that, in effect,
separated the political from
the military aspects of the Vi-
etnamese situation. Dr. Kissin-
ger, in turn, agreed to accept
the Communist contention that
there were "two governments,
two administrations, two ar-
mies" in South Vietnam.
' Futility inevitable
From that moment on de-
spite the tensions and suspense
of the previous months, the
process of Compromise and
eventual agreement ineluc-
table.
The almost five years of fu-
tility and frustration that pre-
ceeded the treaty were also in
a sense inevitable.
,f In the very speech in which
President Johnson called for
the talks, he added that the
United States "will not accept
a fake solution."
And he assured his country-
men that the solution reached
must include "political condi-
tions that permit the South Vi-
etnamese ? all the South Viet-
namese ? to chart their
course free of any outside
domination or interference,
from us or anyone else." .
Mr. Nixon held to that same
principle, to the end.
And to the end the North
Viet
Vietnamese and their
Cong allies rejected it?at least
the
in the sense in which
Americans meant it.
Choice of venue
The endless, pointless wran-
gling that was to surround the,
talks throughout their life got
off to a quick start.
In the first week of April,
1968, American and North Viet-
namese representatives in
Vientiane, Laos, sat down to
choose a venue for .the peace
talks. The. Americans sug-
gested Geneva, New Delhi,
Rangoon, Jakarta, Indonesia,
and Vientiane itself. Hanoi held
out for Phnom Penh, Cambodia
or Warsaw.
Gen. Charles de Gaulle, still
president of France, felt that
the only logical site for the
_LE11
r
Tri)etEce
talks was his country, with it;
own long history of intimatt
.relations with Vietnam. It
said so loudly and often an ,
after a period of uncertainty,
his view prevailed.
Gestapo setting
It was May 13, 1968, when
Mr. Harriman sat down with
Xuan Thuy, the former poet
and journalist who was to rep-
resent Hanoi through the al-
most five long years of the
talks.
That first meeting .took
place, like all the others, in
the ground floor grand salon of
the old Hotel Majestic on Par.
is's Avenue Kleber, the once-
splendid hostelry that was
commandeered by the Gestapo
as its Paris headquarters dur-'
big World War. II, then re-
verted to the French Foreign
Ministry that uses it for all
sorts of international confer-
ences.
, The massive old building,
somewhat worn with age, was
to become a familiar sight to
televieWers the world over and
a symbol of the morass into
which the talks would slip and
founder.
No common view
That first meeting, which
took place against a backdrop
of a general strike and student
disorders on a grand scale,
took place in an atmosphere of
pleasant courtesy that was al-
most immediately to dissipate.
On the business side, there
was no evidence of a common
view. Mr. Harriman spoke of
"mutual de-escalation of the
war"?an idea that'would have
required the North Vietnamese
to do the unthinkable by ad-
mitting their direct involve-
*ment in the South Vietnamese
conflict. Mr. Thuy accused the
United States of "sabotaging"
the 1954 Geneva agreements.,
So began a long summer of
stalemate, and with it the
growing realization?on both,
sides?that the bilateral talks
were insufficient, ' that some-
how the government of Presi-
dent Nguyen Van Thieu in Sai-
gon and the Viet Cong, or
National Liberation Front,
must be attached to the nego-
tiations.
But Hanoi demanded a stiff
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price for the enlarged negotia-
tions, the admission of the
front on the same basis as the
Saigon government and cessa-*
tion of the bombing of the
demarcation zone.
Throughout the? summer;
1 President Johnson refused to
pay the price. Mr. Harriman
'Continued to meet in fruitless
semi-public sessions with Mr.
Thuy, while Cyrus Vance, No.
2 man in the American delega-
tion, handled most of the se-
cret parleys on enlargement.
Finally, on November 1, just
a week before the American
elections that would see Hu-
bert H. Humphrey, the Demo-
cratic vice president defeated
by Richard M. Nixon, Mr.
Johnson declared a halt to all
bombing of the North. The
move came just too late to
save Mr. Humphrey.
/ Nor did it immediately bring
the four parties to the bargain-
ing table.
Under the tacit agreement
reached between the U.S. and
North Vietnam, the Americans
felt they had accepted a "two-
sided" conference. Hanoi
maintained the talks were to
be "four-part."
The dispute on principle led
to the farcical problem of the
"shape of the table," which
delayed the actual negotiations
for three months.
Round table accepted
During that time, the
Americans and North Viet-
namese, each verging on rup-
ture with its own principal
ally, met in public and private,,
again and again, and argued.
whether the table should ? be
four-sided or not, whether
there should be two tables or
one.
At last, on January 16, it
was , agreed that the table
would be round. Delegates
could sit where they wished.'
The U.S. continued to describe
? the affair as "two-sided talks."
For. the Communists, it would
remain a "four-part confer-
ence."
On January 25, the four par-
ties met at the Majestic, with
Henry Cabot Lodge, the for-
mer ambassador to Brussels,
replacing Mr. Harriman as the
American spokesman. For the
next four years, the bitter for-
mer American envoy, was to
criticize ceaselessly the handl-
ing of the conference, arguing
that the United States missed
ecurring Communist peace
ignals.
From the day the four par-
ties first met, the history of
the Paris conference began to
lose the few elements of relief,
that had characterized its first
oaths.
The endless process of prop-
gandistic argument and re-
crimination began. The world
stened less and less. So often
were false hopes raised, so
' often were they dashed that
observers feel it possible some
real signals were missed.
Indeed, the conference devel-
oped more as an affair of
personalities and setting than
of issues.
Permanent smile
There was scrappy little
; Nguyen Thi Binh, the pleasant,
Ibig hearted foreign minister of
the Provisional Revolutionary
Government that the National
Liberation Front founded in
June, 1969, brimming with na-
tionalist fervor and outraged
indignation at the American
"neo-colonialists," but charm-
ing all the same in her well
cut Ao Dai.
There was Xuan Thuy, with
'a permanent smile pasted to
his face, capable of calling his
opponent a liar and smiling as
he said it. There was Le Due
Tho, the enormously impres-
sive, white-thatched revolution-
ary leader, who held the real
power from Hanoi and left the
name-calling to his subordi-
nates.
There was Pham Dang Lam,
the scholarly but rigid chief of
the Saigon delegation, who
wrote out his own speeches in
longhand though they were
rarely listened to, and spent
endless hours explaining his
government's positions to the
Western press.
?
Insult for insult
On the American side, the
popular, vigorous Mr. Lodge, a
Boston blueblood with a long
political past, gave way to
David K. E. Bruce, whose Bal-
timore blood was just as blue
and whose diplomatic finesse
was legendary. But Mr. Bruce
was aging and ill, and his
interests ran to painting and
fine wines. He wanted badly to
crown his fine career with a
Vietnam peace, but the cards
were against him.
Finally in mid-1971, the Pres-
ident transferred the hopeless
task to 'William ?J. Porter, a
younger but widely experi-
enced diplomat who believed
that the Communists under-
stood tough-talking and gave it
to them, trading lecture for
lecture, insult for insult.
Behind the principals, a
crowd of colorful supporting
players provided a back-
ground: Philip C. Habib, the
long-time No. 2 in the Ameri-
can delegation, more hawk-like
than the hawks of Washington
?after- his long career in Viet-
nam; Nguyen Thanh Le, the
scholarly,6much-liked but pro-
foundly deceptive press spokes-
man for Hanoi; Le Chan, the
chief of the North Vietnamese
news agency who kept up
friendly contacts with his
Western 'journalist "col-
leagues" from the beginning;
Thich Nhat Hanh, the saffron-
robed Buddhist, who with his
neutralist co-religionists, of-
17
---A-pprove-d -For Releas-e-2001108/077-elA=ROP77--00432R0001-00080001-8
fered highly moral- but ineffec-
tive advice from the sidelines;
the well-intentioned squads of
American Quakers, students
and . priests who paraded
through Paris, listening with
naive credulity to the Commu-
nist delegations' presentations
and automatically proclaiming
that peace was near; Senator
George S. McGovern, who did
the same thing.
Of all the visitors and minor
figures, none were more touch-
ing than the wives and moth-
ers of American pilots who
arrived singly, then in larger
and larger groups to try to gain
some news of their lost loved
ones. Comforted by the Ameri-
can delegation, they were regu-
larly turned away by the North
Vietnamese, who politely, but
firmly, told them they had no
news at all.
Some of the distraught
women camped outside the
1North ? Vietnamese compound
at suburban Choisy-le-Roi. Oth-
ers haunted Avenue Kleber,
stopping Hanoi's representa-
tives on the street and begging
for a scrap of compassion:
None of them received the
slightest satisfaction.
Meantime, inside the old:
hotel, the. routine ,wore on,:
morning meeting, lunch-break,"
a ?round-table discussion, end-
less press conferences, ? in
which reporters from around
the world sought to elicit the.
slightest nuance in either
side's presentation, the faintest
ray of hope for peace.
. On the surface, the confer-
ence abounded with events. But,,
with the passage of time, most
.of them revealed themselves
,as classic pseudo-events.
On May 8, 1969, the Viet Cong
offered a 10-point peace plan.
A week later, President Nixon
replied with an eight-point plan
that included the unacceptable
demand for a mutual pullout of
troops.
Points' and clarifications
On September, 17, 1970, Mrs.
Binh produced a, "new" eight-
point plan, which the United
States saw little new in. On
October 7, President Nixon re-
.formulated the American posi-
lion in five points, and the
Communist side lost no time in
'rejecting it.
July 1, 1971, saw the Commu-
nists proposing a seven-point
plan that provided for release
.of all American prisoners of
, war by the end of the war, if
? all American troops were with-
drawn by that time. Mr. Bruce
admitted there were "new ele-
ments" in the plan. But it,
, finally, went nowhere. The
same fate awaited the Viet
I Cong's two "clarifications" of
February 5, 1972.
The rhetoric that ? embel-
lished the weekly meetings
varied and the subjects
shifted, but the substance re-
mained the same:
. Through 1970 and most of
1971, the United States concen-
trated on the fate of the' pris-
oners. The Communists replied
that the prisoners would be
released when Ainerican
troops left Vietnamese soil.
Mrs. Binh and Mr. t_Thuy
hammered at the "fascisrna-
ture of the Thieu regime ,and
demanded that its president be
deposed. To do so, the Ameri-
cans replied would mean deny-
ing the South Vietnamese peo-
;pie the right to the government
they had "freely chosen" 'The
Communists laughed out 'loud
:at the defense.
;i
, Mr. Lam, Mr. Thieu's'.-repre-
isentative, described thelNorth
Vietnamese as invader's and
called on the Viet Cong tp meet
; directly with him to resolve
'South Vietnamese problems
"between South Vietnamese."
Propaganda window
Systematically, the Commu-
nist side used the Paris forunk
to comment upon and criticize
events in Vietnam: in Paris,?
they denounced the "farcical"
election that returned Presi-
dent Thieu to power, they
boasted of battlefield victories,
they condemned American
bombing raids and, on several
occasions, called off sessions
of the talks in protest against
them, they accused the United.
States of bombing the vital'
North Vietnamese dam system'
and practicing "genocide.
American officials com-
mented drily that the Commu-
nist side needed the Avenue
Kleber talks as-a propaganda ,
window on the world, and.
slowly began to follow suit,
hammering away at such sub-
jects as the treatment of
American prisoners and the
presence of Northern troops in
the South.
President Nixon appreciated
the propaganda value of the
talks to the other side. He also
recognized that, "before world
public opinion," the United
States was obliged to stay at
the apparent negotiating table.
11 meetings
Together with the policy of
Vietnamization, the President
sought, almost from the begin-
ning of his term in office, to
exploit the possibility of pri-
vate contacts with the North
Vietnamese.
in Paris, Mr. Lodge met
privately with Xuan Thuy on
11 separate occasions in 1969,
but to no effect.
? And, on August 4, the same
year, Dr. Kissinger held his
first secret meeting with Mr.I
Tho and Mr. Thuy.
Communist sources have de-
scribed the early Kissinger-Tho
meetings as exact reproduc-?
tions of the semi-public talks,
with each side twitirtg OXAttly
the same positions that his
:country was advancing before,
Ian the world.
No. progress occurred, but
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP77-004
those meetings, which began in
the downtown Paris apartment
of Jean de Sainteny, a long-
time French representative in
Indochina, served at least to
develop some sympathy and
familiarity between the two
plenipotentiaries.
The meetings continued at
intervals over the months and
years, as 'the process of Viet-
namization moved into full
gear, as the Communist side '
consolidated some positions
and lost others, as the Saigon
government regained its con-
trol over much of the country-
side, as the semi-public talks
ground on, growing shriller
and less useful with each pass-
ing session.
Intensive round
By midsummer of 1971, the
Vietnamese situation had al-
tered radically from? that of
March, 1968. American troop
strength had dwindled to 230,-
000 and was falling rapidly.
According to American and Vi-
etnamese claims, the vast .ma-
jority of the country had been
"pacified. "The Communist
? side had mounted no major'
offensive for 31/2 years.
Dr. Kissinger and Mr. Tho
? began an intensive round of
negotiations. They met in
Paris on July 13, August 16,
September 13 and October 11.
BALTIMORE SUN
25 January 1973
There was still little agree,
meat on the principal subjects:
.the institution of a cease-fire
and the form of political ar-
rangement to be provided for
postwar South Vietnam.
Chapter closed
But Mr. Tho was talking.
The North Vietnamese had of-.
fered a new peace plan and
offered it secretly. The United
States had also offered a new.
Tian, which provided for !Presi-
jent Thieu's resignation a
month before new elections
and for a United States troop
withdrawal within four months.
Further secret talks ' were
scheduled for November 20. On
November 17, Hanoi called
them off, pleading Mr. Tho's
"ill health." A chapter had
closed.
Throughout the winter, Mr.
Porter alternated between re-
fusing to talk to the Communist.
side at the regular weekly ne-
gotiating sessions and scathing
them with his own particular
brand of sarcasm. The peace
talks reached their lowest
point.
China visit
I On January 25, President
Nixon revealed both the exist-
ence of the private talks and'
;the content of the two secret
, peace plans. North Vietnam
tand the Viet Cong howled
"foul," and "rejected" the
American offer publicly.
In February, the President
visited China.
On March 30, North Vietnam
unleashed its largest, most
overt attack on the South in all
the history of the long war.
For weeks the possibility
seemed to exist that the North
might overrun the South and
finish the conflict with a clas-,
sic military victory.
On May 8, just days before -
he was to leave on his state
visit to Moscow, Mr. Nixon
announced his decision to ming
the North Vietnamese harbors.
Sort of peace
The public talks remained gs
they had been for two months,
"indefinitely suspended."
But, at last, the long process.
that would finally produce a'
sort of peace had begun in'
earnest.
The United States agreed to
resume the public talks July
13. On August 1, Dr. Kissinger
and Mr. Tho met for t,he 15th
time. New meetings followed
August 1 and September 15.
Inconspicuous villa
On September 21, somewhere
in Vietnam, the leaders of the
Provisional Revolutionary Gov-
ernment met and adopted
their "two governments, two
armies" statement, which was
to be the key, ultimately, to
peace.
Mr. Tho presented a peace
treaty draft to Dr. Kissinger
on October 8. Together with
their staffs, the two men
worked over it in an inconspic-
ous villa in Choisy-le-Rol,
until October 11.
There was another meeting
October 17, after which Presi`
dent Nixon told Pham Van
Dong, the North Vietnamese,
premier, that the text could'
be regarded as "completed.,"
. North Vietnam asked foMnd
said it got an American prem-
ise to sign the document on
Halloween.
Reluctant ally
But peace, so elusive,- so
nearly unattainable'was ;not to-,
come that quickly. '
In Saigon, President (Mien',
raised basic objections to the'
treaty draft. Washington asked
for a delay in signing in order
to talk around its reluctant..
ally.
Exasperated, the North Viet-,
namese published a shortened,
version of the treaty October.
26. Embarrassed; Dr. Kissin-
ger told the world that "peace.
was at hand" but that there
were still matters of detail to
be sealed. ?
Nothing could be achieved
before the American election:
After it, the Communist sided.
for the record, accused the
U.S. of "bad faith" and said
the existing treaty "should be'
signed immediately." ?
AT (-5.1 (F8,grz(T- .c5
TlyitirliPrete
0
By JAMES S. BEAT
Wo51Lington Burrell/ oj The Sun
Washington?The. Vietnam
agreement that vill he signed
Saturday is a vehicle that can
carry the warring' parties to
peace if they all decide to get
aboard.,.,
Given the history of Indo-
china in the past 25 years, it
would be foolhardy to .predict
that a true peace is in 'the
offing. There are many signs
that it is not. But it could be.:
, Close reading of the agree-,
.ment and accompanying Troto-1
cols that were made public
yesterday disclose many pit-
falls, ambiguities, snares and
fragile safeguards
But, as Henry A. Kissinger,
,one of the authors of the
agreement, insisted yesterday,
the agreement can work if the
Vietnamese want it to work.
With his customary clarity
,):iut without his usual humor,
pr. ,Kissinger neatly outlined
the dilemma. The agreement
relies 'heavily on goodwill, and
,that emotion Is almost totally
lacking 'among the Vietnamese.
How can two parties, the
Saigon government and the
Viet Cong, who will ?not even
formally acknowledge each
other's existence at Saturday's
Aigning ceremony, be expected
..to observe the provision in
Article 11 that they "immedi-
ately . . . end hatred and en-
mity" and foreswear acts of re-
,prisal?
The suggestion is absurd and
I;
its authors know it.
However, the fact remains
that, both the South and North
'Vietnamese, however reluc-
tantly, and for whatever differ-
'cut reasons, have agreed to
Jay down their arms and try to
work out a political settlement.
The factors that induced them
to reach that bargain might
induce them to try to keep it,
rat least for awhile. ,
, Aside from the deep animosi-
ties that would hamper even
the most cleverly designed
peace machinery, . some ob-
vious' difficulties are in the
agreement itself: .
1. The rule of unanimity that'
governs all of the peace-keep-
ing - 'and reconciliation organs.'
2. The careful contradictions
built into the pact that paper
over the argument whether all
Vietnam is one nation or
whether there are two Viet-
nams.
3. The relegation of all but
the most temporary political;
arrangements to negotiations.
between the Vietnamese them-
selves.
'18
4. The continued presence of-'
North Vietnamese troops in
parts of South Vietnam.
5. The assignment of far
fewer international truce su-
pervisors than the United
States sought.
6. A lag of as much as two
weeks before any substantial'
number of truce supervisors
take positions in the field.
. 7. Uncertainty over the es-
tablishment of an, effective
cease-fire in Laos and Cambo-
dia.
The provision that the Na-
tional Council of National
Reconciliation and Concord,
composed equally of govern-
ment officials, Viet Cong rep-
resentatives and neutralists, as
well as the three truce supervi-
sory groups, function by unani-
mous -agreement can be a
curse or a 'blessing to each
ide.
On the, one hand, it provides
President Nguyen Van Thieu
of South Vietnam with some
assurance the council will not
evolve into the coalition gov-
ernment he fears and permits
him *to veto any long-range
political solution for his nation
that does not suit his purposes.
On the other hand, he rule of
unanimity is bound fil blunt the
effectiveness of the ?oint mili-
tary commissions liat are to
ente
vet') will'
supervise the truce in its ini-
tial stages and the new Inter-
national Commission of Control
and Supervision that gradually
akes over that task.
That drawback, in Washing-
ton's and Saigon's eyes, Is
tempered by the fact that the
international commission's
members will be able to initi-
ate investigations on their Own
and to report their findings
even if the other members do
not agree.
The four members are Can-
ada and Poland, which have'
served on the old international
control commissions created in
Indochina 'by the 1954 Geneva
accords, plus Indonesia and
Hungary.
Canada, in particular, was
concerned about the unanimity
rule, which hamstrung the old
commission. Mitchell Strong,
the Canadian foreign minister,
said yesterday his country will
supply troops for,the new stk..
pervisory group at least in the
initial stages of the cease-fire:
The supervisory force will be
spread very ? thin over South
Vietnam. United States offi-
cials were understood to want
between 2,500 and 5,000 observ-1
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APproved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-IRDP77-00432R000100080.001-8
! ers. Instead they settled for
1,160. This force, not all of
whom can be in the field at
the same time, must guard
against cheating on the truce,
supervise the return of prison-
ers, help search for Missing
'soldiers and guard the borders'
against infiltrators and, smug-
gled munitions. ?
? Although the, headquarters
contingents of international
.truce supervisors are to reach
their posts in the day or two
'after the cease-fire takes ef-
fect, field units- are not sched-
?uled to be deployed for as
much , as two weeks later. ,In
the interim joint government
and Viet tong patrols are to
enforce the truce and agree On
'what , territory 'each controlS. ? .
The' political provisions 'in
the agreement are equally, re-
plete with the potential for.
;trouble. Dr. Kissinger ?.ex-
plained that it has always been
Vnited States policy to:, leave
NEW YORK TIMES
27 January 1973
FEAR IS EXPRESSED
FOR THEIR PRISONERS
Spend to The New York Times
LONDON, Jan. 26?Amnesty
International expressed fear to-
day for the safety of political
prisoners in South Vienam. ?
"The Vietnam peace set-
lcment has failed o provide
adequate safeguards for he esti-
mated 100,000 civilian detainees
in Souh Vietnam," he London-
based organization tha cam-
paings against religious and
poliical persecution said.
"There is real danger," it
contended in a statement,
"hat key members of the South
Vietnamese non-Communist op-
position who are detained will
be killed before the supervisory
commissions come into opera-
tion."
? It said that there was "evi-
dence hat selecive elimination
of opposition members had
begun."
The statement said that last
month, "267 political prisoners
were sent from Chi Hoa na-
tional prison in Saigon to the
notorious prison on Con Son
Island, home of the "tiger
cage" detention cells." It also
said that "300 prisoners travel-
ing on a boat 'from Con Son
to the mainland are reported to
have been killed." '
V
the political future of SoUthietnam to its own people 'to
I
determine. And that is what
the agreement does.
The agreement calls for free
elections, internationally super-
Vised. Somehow the'govern-'
iment and Viet Cong?which at
the 'moment' refuse even to
acknowledge each other's legit--
imacy-Lare to agree in 90 days
on a niutually acceptable 'elec-
tion'prOcess.
Fabric of government
In effect, the agreement
calls on these two old foes;
fearful and rnistrustful of each'
other, to agree on what
amounts to a new constitution
for South Vietnam. Although
this point is neatly' buried, the,
pact provides in Article 12 that
the 'government arid Viet Cong
must agree on the "institutions
for which. general elections are
to? be held:" '
?i
BALTIMORE SUN
26 January 1973
To ,an'aeademic olitithilSci-si
enlist like Dr.' Kissinger, the I
term institutions has only onel
meaning in' that context: the
fabric of * government. He
tacitly acknowledged that point
in his press -conference yester-
day by: saying that the elec-
tions Would be for "offices to`,
be decided by.two parties:"
From Mr:',Thieu's point of
view, the feature is 'likely' to be'
regarded 'as a plus. 'Agreement;
on new political institutions i's'i
not a, likely Prospect in the 901
days earmarked fol` the first,
steps toward a permanent
litical settlement.
As' Dr. Kissinger carefully
'noted, the piesent Saigon
gime retnaing in *Office ,until it
agrees to sten aside. With the
right Of veto in All organs cre-
ated by the agreement, Mr.,
Thieu can maintain the status'
quo, which 'on balance favors
Saigon.
. ' 1-1OWever, one of Mr. Thieu's,
predecessors, Ngo Dinh Diem,
was in a Similar position. in'
1956, when he decided not to'
hold the reunification electionl
'Called for in the Geneva agree-.
ment ? two year earlier. ?The
election' was not .held, but the
second 'Indochinese war ? the
one which is to end this week-
end?had RS genesis in that
'
The , so-called sovereignty,
issue, which Dr., Kissinger
Songht? to deride as a funda-
mental questionin the recent
stalemate,left at a standoff.'
It is 'best illustrated by the
preamble to the agreement,
whiek speaks. of the "Vietnam-
ese people's fhndamental na7
tionaI rights,implying'qt is
single . nation. as Hanoi insists
-?-taild. 'the South Vietnamese
People's right to self-deternii-
nation," Which is Saigon's in.:
I cortiPa tible concept..
t?
Cease-Fire: Some Questions
The clearest facts of the Vietnam
cease-fire agreement have to . do
with America's role, an". end of
direct American' combat military
participation. Though we will con-
tinue to supply replacement mate
riel, to the South Vietnamese, we
are.. at last pulling out. For us in
the large sense the war may be
described as over, Beyond that,
most provisions, of the agreement
depend for ;implementation on the
decisions and the will of the re-
niaining parties: Because it was
only through elaborate legalistic-
academistic ambiguities that an
agreement could be reached at all;
ambiguity is the tone of the bulk
of its provisions and the bulk of
the accompanying :protocols.
Before we came to those,, how,
ever,'one question about America's
role in, its late stages cries for an'
answer. Since the dooument finally
agreed to differs in no way that
can Properly be 'called essential
from the accord almost reached
in October, is there anything even
today to explain adequately, much
less to justify, the massive Ameri-
can bombing last month? The only
explanation offered at all is. mili-
tary;., that the bombings damaged
North Vietnam's potential for an
arms buildup in advance of a
cease-fire; and after. a ? cease-fire,
making Hanoi stronger than' it
otherwise would have been for the
internal ? Vietnamese struggle,
ahead. ?
Like, most claims for . heavy
bombing since the institution of
heavy bombing,: this does not
press us much. Tlie great and
costly attack on the ball-bear-
ing plants at Schweinfurt in World
War II Comes to mind as one
case in point:After the raid, in the
Air Force's phrase, ball-bearings
were rolling all over Germany,
and ?a vital element in Germany's
war production had been. virtually
knocked out:, yet on the day years
later when American ground forces
captured Schweinfurt ball-bearings
were still being made there. .
In the Indochina -war the story
has been similar, with variations.
Attacks from the 'air on industrial
targets never, despite all the
claims in Saigon and Washington,
managed to cripple seriously North
Vietnamese capability of action,
nor did the "interdiction" by air
of North Vietnamese routes of sup-
ply in any "decisive way serve
their purposes. As to the terror
aspects of bombing, particularly of
the December bombing, what ef-
fect did they have on the enemy's
will to resist? To judge by the
terms of the`cease-fire agreement,
very little, if any. It may indeed
have worked the 'other way. The
North Vietnamese say it did, *and
in this experience backs them.
Turning to questions about the
agreement itself as it may affect
the Vietnamese future, one large
one can be singled out as an ex-
ample of matters not resolved,, or
even' fundamentally dealt with.
In early talks, by all reports, the
future of South Vietnam was seen
as depending on the'coopuation of
three elements, the governira.,:tin
Saigon, the VietsCong and the nc..-
tralists?those who, in one defini-
tion, though anti-Communist , in
sentiment held themselves apart
from the Thieu government.. believ-'
ing that the best future for Vietnam
lay in conciliation and a policy of ?
neutrality.
Sonic of these are fre:.. if quiet,
today in South Vietnam. be-
cause the Thieu- regime 4'.\:uates-
neutralism with pro-commir.im,
are among the tens of thous' nds of
people still held as political ;Iris-
oners. With them the cease-;, -e
agreement does not deal at a.
Kissinger says that this dilemma,
because of the difficulty of sorting'
out political prisoners from others,:
was deliberately separated from
the question of prisoners of war,
and will have to be settled by the
parties of South Vietnam- among
themselves. It provides a likely
source of immediate and bitter
disagreement. To have swept it
under the rug is to have evaded
an issue with an important bearing
on Vietnam's future.
Thus with this as With much else
the 'cease-fire agreement, except in
the important matter Of an end to ;
direct American military Participa-
tion, may raise more questions
than it answers.
19
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Approved For ReAnk?Ociltiggffp:H91/140BR7-00432R000100080001-8
28 January 1973
/TORE than three months have
a passed since Dr. Henry Kissinger
arrived in Saigon with the first draft
treaty to end the Vietnam war in his
liriefcase and the news that Hanoi
had capitulated on all major points.
For 24 hours the euphoria persisted
ix-and then President Thieu and his
-Principal advisers saw the draft treaty
f Or the first time.
They were shocked. The Demilitar-
ised Zone between North and South,
which they wanted enlarged, was aban-
doned. No provision was made for
Withdrawal of the North Vietnamese
Army that had invaded the South in
such massive force at Easter. And,
niore serious than anything else, the
Council of National Reconciliation and
concord, to which the English version
Of the draft assigned the administrative
function of supervising and organising
elections, appeared in the Vietnamese
version as a coalition Government.
, I spent several hours, a day, or two
Wer, with ,one of the few people who
attended the talks between Kissinger
and Thieu, and was briefed in detail on
the draft treaty and Vietnamese
reactions to it. On the basis of that
briefing, there is no doubt that Thieu's
?dogged resistance to those original
terms has given , South Vietnam a
greater chance to survive as an inde-
pendent sovereign non-Communist
State. But this is the third time in the
post 19 years that the war horse in
Indo-China has been brought to the
trough of peace. Is it reasonable to
believe that circumstances are now
more propitious and that this time it
really will drink? Are we about to see
genuine peace with genuine honour?
'1 Peace euphoria about Indo-China is
not new. On December 11, 1962,
Malcolm MacDonald, British chairman
of the 1.4-nation Geneva Conference
working to bring peace to the Kingdom
of Laos, opened the day's session with
a brief review of past progress and
future prospects. "We are in fact on
the point of creating a practical and
just system of international guarantees
which will assure to Laos neutrality,
untroubled peace and sovereign inde-
pendence," he said. A week earlier
William Sullivan, acting leader of the
American delegation, called it: "A
pattern for peace not only in Laos,
not only in South-East Asia, but through-
out the world."
Not long after the agreement had
been signed and both the world and
Laos were singularly unmoved by the
prospects I was waiting at Vientiane
airport for the return from abroad of
Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma.
Next to me was a Polish officer from the
International Control Commission.
"How do you think the new Govern-
ment will work?" I asked him.
"Government!" he snorted. "This is
not a government. It is a comic opera.
It cannot possibly work."
In the long sorry story of Indo-
China these comments merit Special
place. For what Geneva created for
Laos in 1962 produced neither an effec-
tive system of international guarantees
nor any sort of pattern for peace, but
only a brief breathing-space while pre-
parations for renewed war went on
apace.
It is not that the Indo-Chinese people
are more warlike than their neighbours,
but simply that neither in 1954 nor 1962
had either side established such mastery
23
Both Vietnamese sides are expected to cheat on the
ceasefire agreement signed in Paris yesterday. The
North has even codified methods in a party
directive. If President Thieu is to win a real future
for South Vietnam, he will have to fight for it, reports
r,-.07-^0-111(77, nriri r"\ nr\nr?vr?Th
IL \I
on the battlefield as would entitle it to
dictate the absolute terms of the peace.
"Peace with honour" provides the
Americans with the opportunity to.with-
draw in good order from the war as the
French withdrew before them. It also
provides South Vietnam with some sort
of chance to survive. How much
depends on a num,ber of factors, includ-
ing the capacity and intentions of the
North Vietnamese, the ability of Presi-
dent Thieu to hold the South together
once the reassuring weight of American
support has been withdrawn, and what
happens in those often forgotten
theatres of war, Laos and Cambodia.
In the view of one of the closest
students of North Vietnam, 1972 was
a year of immense strain there, with
new pressures developing and old ones,
worsening in virtually every sector of,
its society. The Easter offensive, with
its massive demands on manpower and
material, failed to deliver decisive
victory, and the resumption of American
bombing raids and mining of Northern
ports and rivers caused great economic
distress. Heavily reduced imports added
to the already heavy burdens of life in
the cities and towns. Agriculture suf-
fered from chronic manpower shortages
and past errors in the allocation of,
resources. ?
' There were pressures from Peking
and Moscow to end the war by negotia-
tion, and strong divisions in the Polit-'
bur? and among party members about
whether to continue the war or to
embark on bold new strategical
gambles.
It would no doubt be comforting to
read into this the notion that North
Vietnam was beginning to crumble.
There is no evidence on which to base
such an assumption, but much to
suggest that a protracted war 'was
becoming unduly protracted.
'And so we come to the Easter offen-
sive. This abandonment of the Maoiat
principles of revolutionary war and the:,
refined techniques devised by the late
General Nguyen Chi Thanh of operations
by big units, small units and guerrillas
working in conjunction was caused both
by Hanoi's need to accelerate the pace
and its legitimate fears that Vietnamisa-
tion and pacification were threatening?
the entire cadre and indigenous Viet
Cong network in the South.
Without doubt Hanoi hoped to cap-
ture Hue and at least to reach Saigon,
but as usual its targets were political
rather than military. Political power, it
?continued to believe, grew out of the
barrel of a gun. ? ?
According to this view every military
victory would be a political gain, a
bonus, but the primary intention of the
offensive was to put North Vietnam's
battle corps into South Vietnam and
then to talk peace.
Junior party cadres learned of this
decision only in September, when
?C.O.S.V.N:, or the Central Office for
South Vietnam, through which Hanoi
has run the war, issued Directive Six,
which instructed that "cadres and party
members must be made to realise that
the party's resolution to launch a
general offensive to end the war and to
bring the South Vietnamese revolution
to a new (political and peace struggle)
stage is appropriate. It is sound- and
timely." .
This did not in any way imply
retreat by Hanoi. To the party leaders
there the war is a guerre sacree, its goal
one Vietnam under Hanoi's banner. To
the achievement of this end everything
in the past has been subordinated and
everything will be subordinated now.
Even so it cannot but suffer from the
wasted years and lack of proper poli-
tical organisation. I have no doubt that
Thieu would win comfortably in any
straight two-way political election with'
the National Liberation Front, but the
addition of a "uoutriiiitit" otomoot
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ensures that the election, if it can really
be organised,mill be fought out between
:at least three elements, and this will
inevitably diminish the non-Communist
vote. ,
. The movement of population that
will inevitably follow the ceasefire also
seems likely to erode the Government's
,authority. Hundreds of thousands of
refugees will insist on returning to their
home areas and most of these will be
in regions where the Viet Cong claims
authority and where the formidable
presence of the North Vietnamese Army
will be a potent reminder that it pays
to be with "the strength."
Both sides may be expected to
"cheat." C.O.S.V.N. Directive Six says,
"Although the war will stop with the
ceasefire and the big guns will fall
silent, the small guns will 'remain in
action and such activities as tyrant;
elimination, abduction and assassina- .
, tion will continue under various dis-
guises." Secret armed forces, partly
Northern and partly Viet Cong, have
been established for the purpose. The
South has been aware of this since the
end of September, and its own arrange-
ments have been made accordingly.
International supervisory teams can-
not hope to police the ceasefire agree-
ment. That there will now be 1,160
men instead of the 250 demanded by
North Vietnam means that the Corn-
mission will learn more about the
Violations, especially if it is allowed to
move with freedom in both Communist ,
and non-Communist areas, but it has
no enforcement powers. It will be able
to do no more than to note with regret.
In fact, .if the Laotian .experience of a
three-power Control Commission counts
for anything, the Canadian, Indonesian,
Hungarian and Polish observers might
aS well stay at home. Perhaps, as the
Canadians suggest, publication of
violations might bring world opinion to
bear against the offenders, but that is
scarcely a basis for hoping to preserve
the peace. ,
Most of these considerations are for
the short term, and this is not the
period in which the Government, of
. _ .
South 'Vietnam has most cause for
concern.) The long term is what will
matter?and the long-term outlook is
scarcely 1,hopeful. .
The agreement provided that both
National Liberation Front and Govern-
ment forces should be reduced and
troops progressively demobilised. Since
all theretically indigenous Viet Cong
units in the South have now been
padded out with up to 80 per cent. of
North Vietnamese recruits, the Govern-
ment filces the unhappy prospect of
seeing s bine Northerners demobilised in
the Smith and sent not to the North
but to Sknithern villages to reinforce the
local cadres. It also faces the prospect
of becoming weaker militarily while
North Vietnam becomes stronger.
The South must begin to disarm.
There is no limit to the rearmament of
the Ned h. Perhaps this has been settled
by ,agneement between Washington,
, Moscow ,and Peking, but unless details
.are made public the effect must be to
undermine . the morale of non-
Commtuaists.
Finally, the situation in Laos and
Cambodia must have a strong bearing
on South Vietnam's future. Since the
beginning of the war and even long
before it began, the struggle for South
Vietnanx? Laos and Cambodia has been
one amPindivisible. Ho Chi Minh never
botherea to conceal this. As long ago
as 19304 when he created the Com-
munist rplarty of Indo-China, he rejected
the suggestion it should be simply an
' Annarnite party and insisted it should
embrace not only Tonkin, Annam and
Cochin China, three component states
of Vietnam, but also Laos and
Cambodia.
One of his first acts after seizing
power in Hanoi in 1945 was to send
Prince Souphanouvong, whose Vietna-
mese wife worked as his secretary,
and 10 'of his officers to Vientiane to
lead the resistance to the French in
Laos. Though Ho dissolved the Com-
munist 'party of Indo-China as a poli-
tical expediency in 1946, links with
Laos were maintained, first through the
National; United Front of Vietnam,
Laos arid Cambodia under the leader-
ship of his successor, Ton Duc Thang,
and subsequently through the recreated
Laodong (Communist) party, whose
members include key figures in the
Pathet Lho movement in Laos. From the
outset, in the Pathet Lao the controlling
authority of the Vietminh was clearly
set out and understood.
A Vietminh invasion of Northern
Laos by two regular North Vietnamese
established the " Government "
of Prince Souphanouvong in the two
northern provinces of Phuong Saly and,
Sam Neua in 1952. A second invasion
in 1953 and 1954 dissipated French
reserves before the decisive battle for
Dien Bien Phu, and a third invasion in
1959 marked the beginning of the
second Indo-China war.
Having decided to ,seize South Viet-
nam by force of arms, Hanoi saw the
capture of the strategic Plain of Jars
in Laos as essential. to the protection,
of the myriad Chi Minh trails along
which military supplies and later
troops were to be sent to feed the
war effort. As the South Vietnamese
discovered when they attempted to cut
the trail at Tchepone in February,
1971, the North Vietnamese attached
the highest priority to the defence of
their Laotian positions.
With heavy American air. cover,
South Vietnamese forces reached Tche-
pone on February 8. On March 25 they
fell back over the border with heavy
losses. If anyone had doubted it in the
past, it was now clear that Laos ,was
essential to the North Vietnamese in
South Vietnam.
Initially Cambodia was of peri-
pheral importance. During the first
Indo-China war the principal Vietminh
actions were confined to Tonkin and
the Central Annamite Chain. Cambodia
and Cochin China were too remote from
sources of supply in China.
When Hanoi began to build up its
strength in South Vietnam for the 1968
Tet offensive, however, a helpful Cam-
bodia had become as important to the
successful implementation of General
Vo Nguyen Gia.p's plans as a secure cm,-
ridor in Eastern Laos. The Ho Chi
Minh trail could not carry all the sup-
plies needed for the offensive.
' By agreement with Prince Norodom
Sihanouk, North Vietnamese forces
which had already been given sanctuary
rights in Cambodia now received sub-
stantial shipments of arms through the
port of Silianoukville. Cambodian army
trucks ran supplies from Sihanoukville
to Phnom Penh where they were taken
over by a Chinese trucking firm.
The Chinese trucks, operated by a
man named Hak Ly, ran the supplies
south along the Bassac River end across
the Mekong River ferries at points
close to the Vietnam border, and
delivered them direct to the North
21
rt
NNORTH
%.? VIETNAIVI
HANOI ?
0
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DEMILITARISED ZONE
.r C AMB 0 IA
KOMPON
PHNomni4 00.al
G
?
P
Bassac R.+ 2;.? 1 1n-"1"1\IAK ?lif
a .
FEAUNK6;
SIHANORVILLEJ
Miles 20r"
'Vietnamese bases. Every night lines '
of trucks waited at ferries on their way ,
to the border areas east of the Mekong
River. "Sometimes up to sixty trucks a
night crossed the river here,' the chief
of the Gendarmerie post at Neak Leung
told me. "Not always sixty," said a,
major who commanded an infantry
battalion on the opposite bank. "But
sometimes."
At Kompong Chant a British resident
had seen up to twenty of the Hak Ly
trucks waiting for their turn to use the
ferry. "A hundred trucks were going
out at a time with rice for Charlie,"
said Eu Ly In, at that time chairman of
the Economic Committee of the National
Assembly. "Fifty trucks at a time made ;
the military run." I
No country has ever been less pre- .
pared for war than Cambcdia was when?
the North Vietnamese struck. I saw
children in uniform covering banana
fronds with earth in the hope of getting
some protection not from the heat but
from the North Vietnamese mortars.
At Kompong Charm the populace used
park benches as barricades to block the
road. Outside Phnom Penh they relied
on earthenware jars filled With stones.
In those days the Khmer Rouges.
counted for little. North Vietnamese
did the job. Today things are very
different. Forty thousand newly trained
and blooded Khmer Rouges are capable,
not only of going it alone but also prob-
ably of taking over the country by .
themselves now that the Government is
denied outside support.
In Laos the situation is not much
better. General Vang Pao and his guer-
rillas, a couple of battalions of Thai
artillery and the American Central
Intelligence Agency have helped to
maintain some sort of balance at least
in areas not regarded by Hanoi as too
sensitive.
"What do you hope of the Amen-
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31 january 1973
CARL T. ROWAN
Ws No Time
With the fighting stopped
and American GIs and pris-
oners coming home, Ameri-
cans will rejoice for a long
time about the diplomatic
achievements regarding Viet-
nam.
And well they should. The
Nixon administration has
squeezed out of Hanoi just
about the best agreement
possible, given the obvious
reality that the American
public long ago lost the will
to wage that war.
But there are two dangers
that we ought to avoid:
1. While the joy and euphor-
ia last, we might be foolish
enough to take seriously all
the 'peace with honor" tallk
and the other rhetoric that
is little more than sugar-
coating to make the Alfieri-
can public think a bitter pill
is a lemon drop.
2. When the happiness and
giddiness fade, a lot of people
will start asking what ?we
really got for over 45,000
dead, 300,000 wounded and
$150 billion washed away in
the swamps and paddies.
There could be a foolish orgy
of recriminations.
We can avoid both these
pitfalls if we simply remem-
ber that for at least 28 years
NO top American official has
always been right, or meant
everything he said, about
Vietnam. There is no reason
to assume that anything has
changed yet.
It was in February 1945
that Franklin D. Roosevelt
told Joseph Stalin that "the
Indochinese are people of
small stature ... and are not
warlike."
From that gem of American
sagacity, things went steadily
downhill.
Five years later Philip C.
Jessup, a U.S. ambassador-
at-large, declared that "Ho
Chi Minh is a Communist
agent trained in Moscow ...
He is not representative of
r:e7rt ir:25efievEllui the Verb sit
the nationalistic aspirations
of Vietnam."
With that made perfectly
clear, it surely was not
strange that John Foster Dul-
les would say, in December
1953, that the Vietnam war
"might be successfully con-
cluded in the next calendar
year."
But, during that calendar
year, 1954, a new generation
of American voices w a s
heard.
In April, Sen. John F. Ken-
nedy, D-Mass., asserted that
"no amount of American mil-
itary assistance in Indochina
can conquer an enemy which
is everywhere and nowhere,
'an enemy of the people'
which has the sympathy and
covert support of the people."
Ten days later Vice Pres-
ident Richard M. Nixon
would say: "There is no rea-
son why the French forces
should not remain in Indo-
china and win. They have
greater manpower, and a
tremendous advantage over
their adversaries, particular-
ly air power."
Less than a month later the
Vietminh clobbered the
French at Dienbienphu.
A few years later Kennedy,
as president, was committing
at least 16,000 U.S. troops
plus "military advisers" to
South Vietnam. And on Feb.
18, 1962, his brother Robert
was in Saigon saying: "We
are going to win in Vietnam.
We will remain here until we
do win."
If FDR thought the Viet-
namese were small of stature
and "not warlike," President
Lyndon Johnson and his ad-
visers seemed to think they
were small of heart. Secre-
tary of State Dean Rusk
believed that if the U.S.
"bloodied their noses" the
North Vietnamese would
"leave their neighbors alone."
And there was Johnson
himself in 1996 saying that "a
cans if they pull out?" I asked a leading
Laotian Cabinet Minister not long ago.
"If they take everything else, I
hope they leave the C.I.A.," he
replied.
With the departure of the C.I.A. and
the Thais there will not be much left.
It would take half a million men to
police the ceasefire here. In effect we
may expect to see Laos and Cambodia
become outer provinces of North Viet-
nam, and with no bombers to interdict
use of the Ho Chi Minh trail South
Vietnam will be outflanked and vulner-
able not only militarily if the North
Vietnamese decide to " cheat " but also
politically whether they cheat or not.
Peace now is an extension of the
war and further war will, if necessary,
be an extension of the peace. It is not
yet game, set and match for Hanoi, but
it is scarcely "peace with honour" for
South Vietnam either.
0 0
Communist takeover is no
longer just improbable ... it
is impossible." And Nixon
saying a year later that "the
defeat of the Communist
forces in South Vietnam is
inevitable." And the U.S.
commander in Vietnam, Gen.
William Westmoreland, say-
ing still a year later that "the
enemy has been defeated at
every turn."
Well, it has taken the enemy
five years to wake up to his
defeat. In fact, the silly fel-
low is crying, "Victory, vic-
tory," as he waves his peace
papers.
The horrible truth is that
neither the U.S. nor Hanoi
has "won" yet; the war is
far from over insofar as the
contest for control of South
Vietnam is concerned. But in
case you're inclined to rely
too heavily on the rosy rhet-
oric emanating from the
White House, here is a samp-
ling of Nixon's previous track
record:
Jan. 26, 1965?"We are los-
Ing the war in Vietnam."
22
Sept. 12, 1965?"It will take!
two or three more years of:
intensive activity to win
mili-
tary victory over the Viet- ,
Cong."
April 17, 1967?"The defeat
of the Communist forces in
South Vietnam is inevitable.;
The only question is, how
soon?"
It was two decades ago, in
Hanoi of all places, that Nix-
on said, "It is impossible to.
lay down arms until victory
is completely won."
All of which proves that,
in arranging the present ?
cease-fire, Nixon knows that
it is sometimes right to be
wrong.
Certainly enough of us
Americans have been wrong,
about those "small ... not:
warlike" Vietnamese for us
to tolerate a little more hy-
perbole, excuse a few more ?
mistakes by others?and most -
decidedly to believe only a
little bit of what we see and.
damned near nothing of what
we hear.
NEW YORK TIMES
24 January 1973
Strike by Pilots for the C.I.A.
In Loos Is Reportedly Averted
Special to The New York Times
VIENTIANE, Laos, Jan. 23?
A strike by airline pilots in
Laos that would have severely
impaired support of anti-Corn-
mun,ist forces fighting there has
apparently beer averted.
The dispute involves Air
America, a quasimilitary airline
used by the United States
Central Intelligence Agency, in
Laos to supply irregular troops,
many of whom depend on
parachuted or airlifted supplies.
A company spokesman said
tonight that the pilots involved
in Laotian eperations had been
ordered by their union or-
ganizer to call off the walkout,
that had been scheduled to
begin tonight at midnight.
-The dispute apparently re-
mained unsettled, but the local
chapter of the Airline Pilots
Association reportedly decided
against a walkout at this time.
The spokesman said he did
not know whether the strike
would go into effect in the
other area's of Asia where Air
America operates,. such as
Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, Oki-
nawa and South Vietnam.
In Laos, Air America oper-
ates 31 planes and 35 helicop-
ters. It has 112 pilots stationed
here, nearly all of them Ameri-
can citizens under contradt to
the company.
The pilots are seeking higher
salaries and other benefits.
The airline ? also has six
planes based at the nearby
Udon Thani base in Thailand,
including two C-130 transports,
that are sometimes used in
Laotian operations.
The United States 'withdrew
direct military air and advisory
support from Laos after the
Geneva agreement of 1962,
which theoretically ended the
war here and neutralized the
country.
But as the war expanded.
the C.I.A. took over many of
the functions normally assigned
to military units, ,including, in
some cases, the direct com-
mand of Laotian irregular units.
Laos is sparsely populated,
mountainous, and has few roads
or navigable waterways.. Dur-
ing the fighting in, the interior,
especially near the Plaine des
Jarres and toward 'the North
Vietnamese frontier, units can
be supplied only by air.
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CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
19 January 1973
THE ECONOMIST JANUARY 27, ?973
Men against.
machines
ST OUR OEFENCE CORRESPONDENT
Vietnam has been a war of profligates.
The North Vietnamese have been
prodigal in the use of men, the
Americahs in the use of machines.
General Giap flung troops away at
Dak To in the autumn of 1967, at
Saigon and Hue in the Tet offensive
,in 1968 and; once again, in the attacks
around' Quang Tri last spring. He bled
? the youth of his country white and
destroyed 'many of the , Vietcong
cadres as well.
The 'Americans always sought to
keep their own casualties low (though
they did not always succeed in this)
even when they had as many as 500,000
troops in South Vietnam, as they did
in 1968 when General WestMoreland
asked for more. He did not get them.
By that time the Americans were
, firmly hooked on? a doctrine' of their
i own choice and . making. ?To save
American lives, they had come to rely
on massive ' tactical 'concentrations of
firepower. Often' these i concentrations
of fire took the form of heavy, sus-
tained bombing attacks from the air,
sometimes of artillery barrages and
occasionally of 'sudden raids 'by
helicopter-borne troops.' : ' President
Nixon brought the soldiers home but
the bombers carried on.,
Throughout the war,_ the popular
impression Was that the key factor was
the use of air power. And so it was.
Air supremacy of a kind so 'total not
pen the Israelis would dare dream of
it gave. the Americans an, ability to
concentrate their fire i practically
where they liked when they liked. But
, however much they bombed Indochina
the Americans failed to knoCk the
? North Vietnamese out of the war.
Decisive success through the use of
, machines eluded them just as it elucled
. General Giap through ,the use Of men.
What air power failed,' to I do in
Vietnam was to destroy the guerriflas!
?as long as they operated iri small,
, dispersed bands, emerging briefly, imt
of hiding to spring ari' a.mbtith,,.:
to intimidate a vilhge or to lauli:di .ii
mortar or rocket attack. il,itral giO?ri;
rilla operations, phase two of i.:enetal.
Giap's concept of revolutionai f Vilin?
fare, could not, it was distove ?ed,`be
defeated by attack's from tic air.
Bombs save the blood of itlio!;e who
drop them ; but they da not, I.;,eat
guerrillas. Similarly, raids!, by . hell,-
copter-bOrne troops had Only ? a,
temporary effect. They droye-' the,
guerrillas deeper :into cover. But, once
the helicopters and their ski, FavallY,
had been withdrawn, the Iguerrilias!
were soon at work again..
.,,
What the bombing attacks' did
achieve however, was, first; to impose
a persistent strain on North Vietnath's
. primitive industrial tconomY and,
: second, to impede but never t.4 check
' completely the flow of reinfordements
A Eiwar group FON, Tr
roge r.f Vial peace canes
ii
By Trudy Rubin
Staff writer of
The Christian Science Monitor
Boston
While U.S. antiwar activists, skeptical
about the prospects of a cease-fire, continue
with plans for counter-inaugural demonstra-
tions this weekend, in the capital, they are
also beginning to plan what they will do if
such an agreement is signed.
Discussions have centered on ways of
pressuring Congress to ensure that the
United States does not "break the peace";
publicizing any continuing U.S. presence in
Indo-China; pressing for release of political
prisoners in Saigon jails; and broadening
current campaigns to replace bomb-de-
stroyed facilities like the Bach Mai hospital
In Hanoi into full-scale American reconstruc-
tion brigades, a postwar idea which activists
say has the approval of Hanoi.
Spokesmen for all of the various antiwar
organizations remain skeptical about the
reality of a cease-fire. "For many years
there has been such a desire for war to end
that people have prematurely tried to believe
' it," says Tom Hayden, a founder of Students
for a Democratic Society in 1962 and co-
founder with actress Jane Fonda of a new
antiwar group, the Indo-China Peace Cam-
paign. The IPC is working on educational
programs on Indo-China in nine industrial
states and on encouraging local pressures on
Congress to end the war.
But should the cease-fire be genuine, Mr.
Hayden believes the way in which the war
ends "will determine the future of radi-
calism. How the Korean war was ended
determined the '50's. If the war ends with the
peace movement in jail and disintegrated
and Vietnam in ashes, that's one thing. But if
It is ended with the conscious participation of
the American people, that will cause a
tremendous upsurge of hope."
Mr. Hayden's group, echoing themes
brought up by other activists, hopes to
publicize "the role the U.S. continues to play"
In Indo-China. This includes, according" to
Mr. Hayden, "working on getting congres-
sional hearings on the thousands of political
prisoners in South Vietnam."
The IPC also hopes to focus on reconstruc-
tion in Vietnam, and how the funds provided
for North Vietnam in the original draft peace
agreement are administered. It and other
groups would like to broaden the Bach Mai
efforts into "more general reconstruction
brigades," according to Ira Arlook, a Boston
organizer of the IPC.
"This would be important in trying to build '
ties between individuals in this country and
North Vietnam," he says, "and it would
make it harder for the government to
reestablish hostilities." Representatiqs of
Medical Aid for Indo-China, the group spon-
soring the Bach Mai appeal, say the North
Vietnamese have expressed interestAn this
idea, but only after hostilities have ceased.
The focus on Congress may take other
tacks as well, Prof. Sidney Peck, coordinator
of the People's Coalition for Po.ace and
Justice, one of the two co-sponsors ts." Satur-
day's counter-inaugural march, says o ctiv-
ists will try to push Congress to marain
some kind of watchdog committee to obSe..,-1
the administration of cease-fire agreements.'.
He adds that activists will try to get such a
committee of their own, composed of promi-
nent Americans "like Telford Taylor or
Ramsey Clark."
Dr. Peck says also that he would like to see
activists move "on the whole issue of war
crimes. The (Sen. Edward M.) Kennedy
subcommittee ori refugees should get out the
data theY have on war crimes ,:ommitted by
the United States."'
Antiwar leaders, just beginning to think
through post-cease-fire plans, admit are
uncertain about forms of future protestt;
public response.
"Obviously there will be greater difficulty
in maintaining sustained interest in Indo-
China after a cease-fire, just as there was
after the draft ended and large troop with-
drawals went on," says Dr. Peck. But he
adds, "We feel there is a mood about this war
which runs very deep. Any event which
challenges the administration's credibility in
seeking peace will arouse a response."
This skepticism was echoed by most an-
tiwar leaders who insisted that a renewal of
the war might yet once again call forth
protests.
"We think there's not going to be a moment
of stability in South Vietnam, even if, an
agreement is signed," said Jerry Gordon,
coordinator of the National Peace Action
Coalition which has staged the biggest mass
marches in the capital and is co-sponsoring
the current one.
"The U.S. Government has repeatedly said
it will go back in if it thinks there has been a
violation of the treaty. People won't be
inclined to go out in the streets after a cease-
fire, but then, things could blow up at any
time."
and supplies to the south. Ind 0d, the and the Quang 'Fri offensives an out
build-up of forces the North Viet.; of ? steam. Moreover, it was ex. c tly at
namese were' able' to achieve both in the point where the North 'Vic namese
1968 and 1972 'was impressi c. But
'the effects of .the bombing rai s were
sufficient to ensure that any major
assaults by the North Vie namese
.against troops . or Cities 'in South
!Vietnam . were comparatively short-
lived. The initial punch was she, 'but
. the North Vietnamese lack $d the
'logistic breath .to . keep the fight gOing
for very long: ? .
After a fair beginning, both he Tet
23
grouped their forces together at
?mitted them to open siege or
the third anti decisive phase of
Giap's concept ,of war,' that b
d con4!
battle,'
;eneral
mibing
attacks by the Americans ,wcre tactict
?ally : most effective. Because theI Amer,
'leans ruled the skies, QcneraI ; Gap'
.could . not repeat his ;1954 success
against the French : at Dien Bin Phu
and snatch victory !? :',fron the
r
America ns. I
The use of air nowcr in Virtikarn liaS
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TIMES Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP77-00432R000100080001-8
NEW YOliIC
27 January 1973,
For- the Vietnamese, No Cessation of Pain]
?
By MALCOLM W. BROWNE
Special to the New York Times
? SAIGON, South Vietnam?
ince of Kien Hoa, and her 35-
year-old daughter-in-law, a
slightly built woman named
For most of the people of South Lang.
Vietnam the end' of the war?if, Abroad, people receive news
it is the end of their war?is, reports on the ending of war
coming far too late for rejoicing. in Indochina, but neither Mrs.'
!
Few Vietnamese can even re-
T. nor Lang took any interest
call without a kw moments'
reflection when the war began.
Most have spent the largest
part of their lives at war.
For many Vietnamese the
three decades of strife have
worn away, the old passions of
nationalism, political hatred,
revenge and even sorrow. There
remains only a feeling of numb
resignation . to whatever, the
future may bring and a strong
urge to escape into the tradi-
tional Vietnamese diversions of
chess, gambling with cards and
drinking baxide, a powerful rice
liquor.
With probably around a mil-
lion Vietnamese killed just in
the time since 1959,?when war
began anew, there is scarcely
a family that has. not lost at
least one member. Many more
have 'been Injured or. maimed:
Nor will the killing and
maiming cease with the end of
hostilities. .Despite the passing
of a generation, farmers are
still killed on Okinawa and
. , secure. Vietnam had a wealth of
other battlegrounds of World food and has a warm climate,
War II by old mines and bombs. so that in the old days at least
Vietnam has been seeded with it was spared the suffering that
, far more of these lethal lega- has afflicted much of the rest
cies than any other land. of Asia.
The shock of change, which
has been continuing ever since,
'first hit Mrs. T., along with mil-
lions of other Vietnamese, when
the Japanese arrived at the be-
ginning of World War II.
"The real surprise," an old
Vietnamese said, "was not so
much that a .foreign army was
invading us but that it was
systematically locking up the
French authorities who many of
us had taken for granted would
be the masters of Vietnam for-
ever."
In North Vietnam the Japa-
in such things. When they are
not busy preparing meals on a
kerosene stove for the many
children living with them, they
pass the time in silence, gam-
bling with the tiny cards,
marked with lacquered Chinese
characters, that are universally
used in Vietnam.
The big occasions of the year,
even the normally joyous sea-
son of Tet, the lunar New Year,
are mostly associated now with
rites that must be performed
at the cemeteries where their
men are buried.
It is the same for most of the
other families in the crowded
middle-class Saigon neighbor-
hood of Tan Dinh, where, Mrs.
T. lives. !
In common with many older
Vietnamese, she looks back
with warm nostalgia to the
days of the French colony be-
fore World War II. There were
political stirrings in the nine-
teen-thirties. But they had lit-
tle. impact on the lives of. most
Vietnamese.
The rigid patterns of tradi-
tional family life kept existence
for most people unexciting but
The main victims of the war
have been men, and in many
ways SoUth Vietnam now
seems to be a 'nation , dominat-
ed by hard-minded, lonely and
sometimes ;bitter .women, for
whom idealism ? and even per-
sonal feeling appear to have
been largely extinguished..
Two such women,' both war
widows,' are Mrs. T., a 64-Year-
old former teacher originally
from the Mekong Delta prov-
been decisive, but in a nego tivd, rather!,
than a positive sense. It has not j)rc+1
vented the communists from running
a guerrilla campaign for as long as
they chose. But it has denied them the
opportunity of inflicting an irrevers-
ible defeat on their opponent in the
open field of battle. And, unless that.
happens, by General Giap's own
analysis ?f revolutionary war, military
victory has not 'been achieved. Long
after the ceasefire, air power will go
on having a potent influence on mili-
tary and political calculations in
Vietnam. The Americans will continue
to station bombers in Thailand , and
aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
They will remind General Giap how
difficult .it is to move from phase II
to phase III in a "people's war" to
secure a "people's victory."
24
nese occupation is remembered
as harsh, although Vietnamese
.have never forgotten that Japan
gave Ho Chi Minh his first
chance to govern. In the South
the Japanese yoke was com-
paratively mild. Mrs. T.'s chil-
dren remember. friendly Japa-
nese soldiers, sharing their
lunches with them.
Opening Path to Independence
The important thing about
the Japanese occupation, in the.
eyes of many Vietnamese, was
that it raised the possibility of
throwing off Western colonial
rule for good.
While Vietnam, though under
the Japanese yoke, was free
of French colonial administra-
tion for the first time in a cen-
tury, the Vietminh came into
being, with stirring songs of
independence, a red flag with
golden star and, incidentally,
Communist ideology. Even Viet-
namese officials who had spent
their lives working in the
French civil service were deep-
ly stirred.
Mrs. T.'s husband- was such
an official, working as an ad-
ministrator under a French
province chief before the. war.
Mr. T. chose not to join the
Vietminh because his sus-
picions had been aroused by
the overbearing ways of some
of the local leaders, but he.'
stronglysupported the cause of
independence.
A family living in the house
next door?a house smaller
than that of the T. family?,
embraced the Vietminh com-
pletely. It happened that the
head of this family; Mr. N.,
was an enemy of Mr. T. be-
cause of quarrels over property
boundaries, an old financial
dispute and a certain amount
of jealousy.
Such quarrels between neigh-
bors, taken for ' granted in
peaceful nations, have tended
to become blood feuds in Viet-
nam, spurred ?to violence by
civil war.
After World War H the Viet-
minh ruled the Mekong Delta
until the French finally came
back in strength to drive them
underground again. Before the
French returned, Mr. .T.'s hos-
tile neighbor suddenly emerged
as a provincial commissar, with
the power of life and death.
Among his first acts was to
denounce Mr. T. before a ses-
sion of. the provincial people's
tribunal as a French stooge and
spy. Vietminh soldiers arrested
Mr. T., released him some
weeks later and then rearrested
him.. His family never saw him
again and has assumed that
he was among the thousands of
civil servants executed by the
Communists.
The family?mother, two
daughters and five sons?
dedicated itself to the lifelong
cause of destroying Com-
munists, although none had a
clear idea then of what Com-
munism was supposed to be.
The following years, parti-
rularly the early nineteen-
fifties, were hard for both the
T. family and its enemy, the
N. family, which . had, gone
underground.
Mrs. T. had received a
modest pension from the
French, paid in opium, which at
the time was regarded as a
much more stable medium of
exchange than paper currency.
Using the opium she purchased
a few acres of rice land in An
delta and sent several of her
older children to France, where
they subsequently worked their'
way to college degrees.
? A Nation Polarized
Mr. N., for his part, h4d,
taken his sons into the under4
ground to join the growing
corps of guerrillas dedicated
the destruction of "foreign in
perialism."
- The war for independence
was on, and the nation was
becoming polarized, not only
'by political ideologies but' by
blood debts and the hatred they
ent!Pntlered. Most Vietnarnese.
accepted the need to gamble
their lives on a struggle to
throw out the French, whose
army was equipped with the
latest American weapons.
The first Indochina war prob-
ably cost the Vietnamese peo-
ple a million lives, but it ended
in victory in 1954. With peace
and the division of Vietnam
along the 17th Parallel, the
people had to decide whether
to cast their futures with the
Communist-led North or the
anti-Communist South.
In Saigon a new Government
came to power under Ngo Dinh
Diem, a Roman Catholic, who
was installed through United
States influence largely because
of his strongly anti-Communist
convictions.
His Government became pre-
dominantly Catholic in an over-
whelmingly Buddhist country.
Because of the new influence
of Catholics?an influence that
often discriminated against
non-Catholics in assigning con-
tracts and jobs?there was a
wave of nominal conversions to
Catholicism.
' I
The conversions deeply split
the T. family. Buddhists
charged their Catholic brothers
with being mercenary traitors
to their faith; to this daY the
family remains divided.
No such division affected the
N. family, which had dedicated
itself to the Communist-led ap-
paratus that succeeded the
Vietminh in South Vietnam. Mr.
N., head of the family, died of
tuberculosis, but he had ex-
tracted pledges from his sons
and daughters to continue the
fight. Among the children too
young to participate in the
pledge was Lang, who ended
up on the other side.
Some North, Some South
Some of the N. family went
north, to join the new Hanoi
Government. Some remained in
the South to join the clandes-
tine organization called Mat
Tran Giai Phong, or National
Liberation Front. Later, when
the Saigon Government came
to realize the gravity of the
threat posed by the front, it
devised the supposedly insult-1
ing sobriquet Vietcong to de-
scribe it.
Under the 1954 Geneva ac-
cords ending the Indochina
war?both the United States
and the Diem Government re-
fused to sign them ? Vietnam
was to be unified and to hold
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? Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP77-00432R000100080001-8
VIETCONG ACTIONS AGAINST CIVILIANS
IN SOUTH VIETNAM
(Civilians killed En or abducted
since Ms. source: U.S Defense Department)
13,000-
12,000
11,000 ?
10,000
9,000 ?
8,600
7,000 ?
6,000
5,000 ?
4,000
3,000 ?
2,000
1,000
?
1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972
Totals: 31,463 civilians killed, 49,000 abducted
12,000
SAIGON GOVERNMENT'S ACTIONS
AGAINST CIVILIAN VIETCONG
('Those killed J, jailed Ea or induced to back
Saigon aunder U.S.-supporterPhoenix program.
Source: U.S. Agency for International Development)
11,000 ?
10,000
9,000 ?
.13,000
7,000 ?
6,000
5,000 ?
4,000
3,000 ?
2,000 ?
1,000 ? f
0
7
1968 1969 1970 1971
(through May)
Totals: 20,587 killed, 28,978 jailed and 17,717 induced to back Saigon
The New York Times/Jan. 27, 1973
general elections within two
years. After President Diem re-
fused to participate in such
elections, the second Indochina
war began.
Among the first moves by the
Vietcong was to carry out a
sweeping land-reform program
in the Mekong Delta, effective-
ly blocking the half-hearted re-
form attempted later by the
Diem Government. The land
seized by National Liberation
Front guerrillas included Mrs.
T.'s plot, which she has never
been able to visit since. De-
spite that, the Saigon Govern-
ment continued collecting land
taxes from her on pain of crim-
inal prosecution.
Initially the war involved po-
litical underground work on the
part of the Vietcong. Members
of the T. family were constant-
ly being stopped at roadblocks
and asked to listen to lectures
or to give small donations.
In the villages, the Vietcong
(sometimes employed terror but
,generally sought to ingratiate
themselves by being helpful
with farming chores, health andi
education. The guerrillas also;
'sometimes sought to protect
villages against the excesses of
the Saigon Government's mili-
tia, which often acted like shtt-
ple bandits.
Meanwhile, the war began to
become more noticeable as mili-
tary cemeteries filled and ter-
rorists' bombs exploded not
only in the provincial towns but
in Saigon.
Great Flood of Americans
Then the Americans began
coming, almost imperceptibly at
first.but later in a great flood.
With . themcame post ex-
changes, the black market, tele-
vision (for the Vietnamese as
well as the foreigners) hundreds
of thousands of jobs, more
money than anyone had known
existed and the demon of rising
expectations.
For. the most dedicated na-
tionalists, non-Communist as
well as Communist, things be-
gan to look too much like colo-
nial times. In the cities Vietiaa-
mese could no longer persuada
taxi drivers to stop since the,
Americans were able to pny
more. There were too many
"big nose" soldiers walking
around with too many Vietna-
mese girls.
Most South Vietnamese ac-
cepted the American presence,
although few of them really
Eked it.
In 1963 the whole nation
passed through the worst crisis
since independence, when the
non-Communist opposition to
Mr. Diem's increasingly repres-
sive Government suddenly co-
alesced behind the leadership
of a group of Buddhist monks,
several of whom had commit-
ted suicide by immolating
themselves.
In many parts of the country
the Vietcong were achieving
smashing victories, and it
seemed that the country was
dissolving. In the midst of it
all, a group of generals led by
Duong Van Minh united to
stage a coup d'etat, overthrow-
ing and murdering Mr. Diem
and his brother and close ad-
viser, Ngo Dinh Nhu.
The unstable mix of religion
and politics was in turmoil
again, splitting Mrs. T.'s family
into Catholic and Buddhist fac-
tions.
But the heaviest blow to Mrs.
T. that year was the announce-
ment from her favorite son that
he intended to marry his child-
hood ncighbor, Lang?daughter
of the man who had ordered his
father's death. ?
Spectacular Attacks Staged
By Tet in February a 1965 it
seemed apparent that the Viet-
cong would win in a matter of
weeks. A spectacular series of
Communist attacks on Feb. 7
prompted the first landing of
American combat troops and
the first sustained bombing cam-
paign against North Vietnam. "
The American presence rose
to over half a million men over
the next four years and North
and South Vietnam were car-
peted by the heaviest rain of
bombs the world had ever seen.
As the Vietnamese were mo-
bilized, all of Mrs. T's sons
were finally drafted,, most as
officers because they held col-
lege degrees. The loss of the
civilian jobs they had held,
coupled with growing families,
imposed desperately heavy fi-
nancial strains on all of them.
For the first time in their re-
cent history the Vietnamese
were no longer growing enough
rice to feed themselves and
were 'dependent on American
charity. The price of every-
thing. including rice, rose rap-
idly while soldier pay remained'
small.
On the other side of the war,
the late Mr. N's family was
fighting hard. His sister had
lost a leg in an American air
raid, but as late as July, 1972,
she was still believed to be:
leading a Vietcong district com-
bat unit in action in the delta.
Some, of Mr. N.'s sons were
also active in the Vietcong, one
serving as a field doctor.
The new soldier-husband of
their sister Lang was assigned
by the Siagon Government in
1966 to fight in exactly that
part of the Mekong Delta'
where his brothers-in-law were
on the other side. He was killed
25
---AF3priffifed-FOY Releate-20171108/07-:-CM-L-RDP77410432R000100080001-8-- ?
a few weeks after Tet. '
The conflict wore on. Presi-
dent Nixon changed the U.S.. '
stance and the Americans be-
gan to leave in large numbers.
They will be remembered among
other things, for the window
they provided on the world.
The military forces and civilian
contractors built tens of thou-
sands of miles of roads and
made it possible for many Viet-
namese to see their country
for the first time?at least for
a while. .
American and Vietnamese
economists decided in the late
nineteen-sixties that there w4s,
. too much money floatipg
around in the superheated wai--
time economy. To soak somei`of
. it up Saigon agreed to r ax '
the import duty on mo r-
cycles. The result was a flood
of Japanese-built vehicles that,
have changed the social struc- ,
ture. .
Even the peasant families of'
poor soldiers could often afford
the new Hondas and Yamahas,
and a family too poor to afford
one was subjected to a certain
amount of snobbery and even
? derision. ,
, Those who could not afford
, them took to stealing them:
f The police attached little seri-
ous interest to the resulting
? crime wave, devoting most of
their energies to political ae-
? rests.
? Another aspect of the Arneri-'
can impact was television, at
*first broadcast from airplanes
that circled major cities for
hours at a time. It has also
given the Vietnamese a broader
view of the world, in addition
to strong social pressure to
own television sets.
"Our Vietnamese women are
among the greatest materialists
in the world," a Saigon sociolo-
gist said. "Vietnam has always
had a semimatriarchal society,
and now, with so many men
dead or economically disabled.
by being in the army, the
women have all' the real power, '
and when a woman demands
that her husband get a televi-
sion set or Honda, he is under '
the heaviest pressure to do so.
"In my opinion, this is one
of the chief reasons for the in-
credible amount of corruption
and theft we have in Vietnam
at every level of existence. We
are to blame, but you Ameri-
cans certainly have not
helped."
Now the city jobs are drying
up, and the easy money has
'ceased to flow. To go on living
the .South Vietnamese will have
to return to the rice fields.
Thenr is general agreement it
will Le a traumatic experience.
As for tl?e Communists, their
approach it.. communities occu- '
pied since their spring offen-
sive has been to confiscate
most of the new American
fradgets, especially the motor-
cycles.
In the course of the long war,
1 and particularly since 1965; the
population has been turned up-
side down. Since April alone,
:there have been roughly a mil-
lion refugees. Entire provinces.
Quang Tri among them, have
been stripped of population.
Cities have grown to the
bursting point with refugees or
.people interested in making.
more money than they could as
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP77-00432R000100080001-8
NEW YORK TIMES.
26 January 1973
farmers. The population of.
Saigon, never exactly known,
probably doubled to about three
million.
. Centuries of family tradition,
often associated with the grave-
yards of ancestors, has been
shattered. At least one of the
mountain tribes of the central
plateau has ceased to exist as
a distinct ethnic group. The
Government moved its people
hundreds of miles from their
?homes and forced them to con-
form to the tribal patterns of
another, larger group speaking
ia different language.
? The dislocation of life will
have such staggering effects
that some political experts, be-
lieve only the Communists will
be able to,impose order harshly
enough to rebuild the nation.
Mrs. T's family, in common.
with most South Vietnamese,
will stay, come what may.
"At this stage the Commu-
nists cannot hurt us," she said.
"We are just small -people: Be-
sides, where else could we go?"
? Mrs.,-T. and Lang picked up
their cards.' Neither has any
political views about anything:
any more, and the blood: feud
between their families IS.:
longer important. Life must go
on.
NEW .yoRK. TIMES
? 23 January 1973
.Saigon Draws a Blank
On Truce-Talk Photo
SAIGON, South Vietnam,
Jan. 22 (UP1)?South Viet-
namese newspapers are for-
bidden by Government order.
to publish the names or the
pictures of North Vietnamese
leaders.
So today when they placed
the picture of the North Viet-
namese and American dele-
gations meeting in Paris on-
the first page, most cut the
picture in half and printed,
only the half showing' the
Americans.
Dai Dan Toe, a pro-Gov-
ernment newspaper, ran the
entire picture on Page 1 but
-blanked out the pictures of
the North Vietnamese with
white ink. As a result the
Americans ?seemed to be sit-
ting down to the negotiating
table with a collection of
ghosts in while sheets.
Saigon Is Over - Equipped in Planes
By JOSEPH B. TREASTER
SprolAl'to The New York Times
SAIGON, South Vietnam,
Jan. 25?Racing against the
time when a cease-fire goes
into effect, the United States
has 'swamped the South Viet-
namese Air Force with hun-
dreds of warplanes it can neith-
er fly nor maintain.
The new planes and thou-
sands of tons of supplies and
equipment started flowing into
South Vietnam late last year
after American military officers
learned that the draft cease-
fire agreement stipulated that
the replacement of war ma-
teriel after a formal cessation
of combat would be on an
item-for-item basis. '
Anticipating that the final
agreement would contain the
same stipulation?and it does
?the United States has sent
South Vietnam 350 new fighter-
bombers and transport planes.
Most of the new aircraft
are in storage hangars, and
some South Vietnamese offi-
.cers say that it may take' as-
long as two years to recruit
and train enough pilots and
ground technicians to put all
of the planes into full opera-
tion.
Expansion Accelerated
The United States had ac-,
celeratcd its program to ex-
pand the South Vietnamess Air
Force as American troops were
being rapidly sent home in
1971 and 1972.
By the end of last summer
the air force had reached the
size that the United States had.
expected it to be by 1974.
The air force had 50,000 men
and 1,000 to 1,200 aircraft?a
combination of propeller and
jet bombers, propeller and jet-
assisted transports and roughly.
500 helicopters.
One well-placed South Viet-?
namese officer said that in or-
der to handle the latest aircraft
and supplies?as well as some
additional planes that are ex-
pected to be turned over by
departing American units?the
air force will need a 30 per
cent increase in personnel?to
about 65,000 men.
The' officer said that
1,000 pilots were needed im-
mediately and that several thou-
sand men must. undergo basic
and advanced training in main-
tenance and supply-handling
techniques.
Most of the training is noW
done in the United States It
takes a minimum of 14 months
for the basic jet fighter pro-
gram for pilots and nine to 10
imonths to learn to fly a hell-
c-opter. Technicians and me-
chanics must spend nearly a
year in school.
There are only a couple of
hundred South Vietnamese air-
men training in the United
IStates now. Training programs
in South Vietnam are being
,stepped up, but even so, the
already greatly overextended air
force seems unlikely to meet
its immediate manpower needs.
To fill the gap, American
civilian technicians have been
hired by the United States Gov-
ernment and groups of about
500 are believed to have been
assigned to the principal bases
in South Vietnam..
Some of the civilians are run-
ning classes in aircraft main-
tenance while others are carry-
ing out complicated repairs
themselves and also assem-
bling the new aircraft that
Ihave recently arrived.
Other American civilians
have been teaching Vietna-
mese airmen who have expe-
rience in transport plane's how
to fly the larger C-130 cargo
aircraft that arrived toward
the end of last year.
Since the late nineteen-six-
ties, when the air force began
growing at a spectacular rate
?in 1967 it had 16,000 men
and 400 aircraft?the biggest
problems for the service have
been getting 'spare parts and
equipment to where they 'Were
!needed and keeping the planes
lin flying condition.
Even, with the help of the
American civilians, the air
force has been unable to keep
up with the maintenance re-
quired for its aircraft.
A spot check one day this
week showed that in about
half of the squadrons in the
air force only about 50 per cent
of the planes assigned' to the
unit were operational. With a
few exceptions, where as many
as 75 per cent of the planes
were available for use, the rest
of the units reported that far
fewer than half their planes
were operational.
In one transport unit with
15 planes only two were' fit
to fly. A helicopter unit with
32 planes assigned also had
only two aircraft that were op-
erational. Another helicopter
unit with the same' number of
aircraft assigned had four that
could be used. In a fighter
squadron of 20 planes, four
were in safe working order.
The standard in the United
States Air Force is that at least
71 per cent of the aircraft in a
Unit be ready for service.
"We have just been growing
too fast," one South Vietnam-
26
iese maintenance officer said.
"It's just not possible for us
to do as you Americans. We
do not have the manpower and
we lack many skills."
One high-ranking American
Air Force officer said that the
problems confronting the South
Vietnamese should not be a:
surprise to anyone.
"We ate really forcing upon
them in a very short period,
things that took us years ti):
work out," he said. "For thk?
South Vietnamese to have'
adapted as well as they havkl
has been a fantastic phenome!?
non. But they've got a hell, or,
a long way to go."
The South Vietnamese Air
Force is a volunteer service*.
and generally gets better echt,:,
cated men than the army. 131.4t
even so the standards are much'
lower than in the United States::
where enlisted mechanics must,
have high school diplomas and"
the pilots are college graduates.
Enlisted men in the South Vida
namese Air Force must have at
least nine ? years of schooling:
and officer candidates are re
quired to have the equivalent
of a high school education.,
With the ? exception of the:
Chinook and Huey helicopters
,and the C-130 transport, the
United States has- given the'
South Vietnamese some of the
most basic and easy-to-main-
'tamn aircraft in its inventory
In the latest shipments, the
South Vietnamese reportedly
have received about 200 F-5!
Freedom fighters and about 9,0"
Cessna A-37's. Both 'are tiny,
compared with the American
main fighter-bomber?the FA,
Phantom?or the principal So
viet attack plane that the North:
Vietnamese have in small num'''.
bers?the MIG-21. The F-5 and
the A-37 are also much slovid.'
er than the F-4 and the MIG;
21, and they have no tracking',
radar or other complicated'.
electronic equipment.
Many South Vietnamese pP'.
lots complain that they hal,*
been given second-rate planes;
to fight with, but all acknowl-,
edge that the ground crews'
could not cope with the
The main military reason for
providing the F-5, American`,
officers say, is that it was de-:
signed primarily as an air-de--
fense plane. The thinking
American strategists strategists is that af,;'
ter a cease-fire the South Viet;.*
namese would be better served
with a plane that could coun-`
ter an enemy attack than by
one that could carry a heavier:
bomb load for an offensive,
strike.
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LONDON OBSERVER
28 January 1973
THE IMMEDIATE beneficiaries of
? the ceasefire in Vietnam are most of
' the Vietnamese people, as well as the
remaining American and other foreign
soldiers directly involved in the war.
A. terrible burden is lifted from Ahem
all.
But the end of the war and the kind
of peace to which it may lead will
inevitably have repercussions far be-
yond the borders of Indo-China. For,
? internationally, Vietnam has become,
in however confusing a way, a symbol
of ideas and ideologies in conflict. The
war has also been an obstacle to con-
tinuing the attempts to build a more
rational world system based on peace-
ful co-existence in which rival ideologies
and interests may 'compete without
., military conflict.
, Domestically,' in the United States
the war diverted thought, energy and
resources away from internal problems
of race, poverty and modern, urban
distress. It burned up ?the .radical
minority and broke the hearts of the
. silent majority.' It weakened' Ameri-
ca's reputation among her allies in
'Europe?but those in Asia may have
.been encouraged by America's prodigal
fulfilment of her commitments to
Saigon..
In a world in which colonialism,
'.militant Communism and Great Power
.conflict-7-which provide the mixed
.origins of the Vietnam conflict?were
.elsewhere all apparently on the wane,
the continuation of the war began to
appear increasingly as a horrible night-
mare. Yet because of its complex
.origins the war was for long one which
honest men on both sides could consider
as being fought in a good cause. For
.the war developed as a tragic conflict
between two right ideas, which local
conditions and the timing of history
turned into half-truths.
On the one side was. a Vietnamese
struggle to free their land of foreign
,.control, perhaps the most heroic episode
in the great twentieth-century revolu-
tion against colonialism and imperial-
ism. On the other side was the resolve
, of the US to apply another great'
twentieth-century lesson : that the
prevention of world war depends on the
readiness of nations to organise and
operate' collective security against
aggression. It was the failure to do
just this in the twenties and thirties,
first in Manchuria, then Abyssinia, the
Rhineland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and
Albania, that led directly to the colossal
tragedy of the Second World War. This
was the principle that the US applied
in placing obstacles to further Soviet
advance in Europe; they applied it
? Successfully in Korea; they believed
they were applying in Vietnam..
What turned sound principles into
shaky half-truths in Vietnam was the -
accidental confusion of nationalism'.
and anti-imperialism with Communism ?
in this case. The main leadership of ?
the Vietnamese independence struggle
against the French was Cornmithist.' ,
'This not only split the' Vietnamese
nationalist movement along ideological
lines. It also later encouraged 'the' '
. US to identify the Vietnamese
Communist - nationalists with , .what
most European and Asian States-saw
as an expanding ? militarist
ment directed from Moscow. , This ?
movement had been held at bay half-
way across Europe, with notable diffi-
culty 'at Berlin. It had already shown
in Korea that it was prepared for war
where it thought it could win,- just as
in Hungary and Czechoslovakia it was ?
to demonstrate its readiness to crush
?any nationalist revolution in its own
. imperial orbit, by force where neces-
sary.. .
So, ..eventually, the. Vietnam war, con-
tained three elements: a drive' for
national liberation from foreign con-
trol; a conflict between the Vietnamese ?
themselves about the kind of regime
they wanted; and the American pursuit
of the Korea-like aim Of holding the
frontier of a threatened State (South
Vietnam) against aggression (the North
Vietnamese troops sent into the South
to help the 'Vietcong being regarded
as aggressors).
Any peace settlement 'thus had to
fulfil three conditions. It had to lead'
to the withdrawal of foreign troops. It
had to produce some agreement among
the people of South Vietnam, divided .
between Communists, anti-Communists
and those in between, about what kind
of regime they would live under?even
if they could only agree on different
areas coming under different regimes,
so that South Vietnam was for a time a
motley confusion with two Govern- '
ments. It had finally to promote nego-
tiations between North and South Viet-
nam, even though' the North wants a
.united Vietnam and the bon-
Communists in the South do not. The
framework for this kind of prolonged
Vietnamese argument had to' be the
neutrality of all the Indo-China Stptes,
which means a commitment of non-
interference by the Great Powers.
The ceasefire agreement signed
'yesterday, settles at least' one point.
The American troops and bases will be
withdrawn, and for the first time for
over a century Vietnam will be without
foreign forces'. 'There is agreement on
non-interference in Vietnam's internal
affairs. . The proposed international
conference, to be held within the next
month, will presumably endorse the
principle of a neutral Indo-China. The
very first article of the ceasefire docu-
27
ment. , proclaims ' the principle of a
united Vietnam, and later articles pro-
vide fOr reunification to be negotiated
between North and South by stages.
?
But all this really turns on the ability
of the rival parties within South
Vietnam , to work out ? some kind of
political arrangement between :them-
- selves. Here?is the hard core pf the
problem. The prospects are notivight
and the temptations to resort :tb arms
:again Will be greai., For as Le Ltini Tho,
,?the North Vietnam.?.3e negotiatOr, said,
?it cannot be denied ti', there now exist
in South Vietnam administra-
tions, two armies, two of control
? and three political forces.. ? settle-
ment will depend' now' on thL,'\''ility
of these Vietnamese factions to a
way of living together. The
forces of the chief rivals are roughb
similar. ,This could incite them to re-
sort to more .fighting or it' could deter
them from doing so. One new factor
which might encourage them not to
fight immediately is that all the major
Powers closely concerned?America,
Russia and China?clearly want peace.
What lessons can , be learned from.
the Vietnam tragedy ? , This will be
argued for years. One as. certainly, the
importance of appreciating the ten-
acious fOrce of national liberation
movements. Another may be the grow-
ing diversity of. Communist ? move-
ments. There will be other opportuni-
ties for repeating?or avoiding?the
mistaken analysis of Vietnam. There
are already other, national liberaiion
movements, fighting or preparing
fight, for instance in Southern Africa.
And it is more than likely that Com-
munists of one sort or other will be
involved in their leadership. They may
also turn to Russia and China for help.
What should we do? Certainly not
repeat the same mistake. .
But another and equally important
conclusion must be drawn. America's
mistake in Vietnam does not invalidate
the vital principle that countries
invaded by their neighbours should be
assured of international help. The more
certain it can be made that such help
will be instantly forthcoming, the less
likely is it that recognised frontiers will
be crossed. Successive American .Presi-
dents thought that in Vietnam they were
upholding this basic principle of world
order. The United States has now
withdrawn from the disastrous conse-
quences of making a political misjudg-
ment. It would be an even greater
disaster if the US were now to con-
clude that the principle itself was fool-
ish. For without American active
participation there can be no solution
to the greatest political problem of all:
how to build an effective system for
keeping.world peace.
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CLARE HOLLINGWORTII reports from Saigon
grim post-cease-fire problems, administrative
rptiE Cease-fire due to begin early
I. next Sunday morning through-
out North and -South Vietnam .
may provide the respite which- is.
essential to enable these war-
weary countries to negotiate a
lasting ,peace. But the .omens ate.
not auspicious, and, according to
local tradition throughout Eastern
Asia, the year which opens at Tet,
(Feb. 3)* passes in the mood of its
beginning.
The mood nere now is generally
one of bitterness and pessimism in
which few people believe that the
peace 'will endure for more than
a year or two at ,rilOSti.
Fifteen North Vietnamese and
two Viet Cong Communist divisions
could ?physically .stay within. South
Vietnam. It is, however, certain.
that Gen. Giap, the North Vietna-
mese Minister of Defence, will need
to bring some troops home for
militar.V reasons?the morale. of the
population?as well, as to assist
with the work of reconstruction
,-
Yet it is reasonable. to assume that
the. majority, say ...areund. 80,000
soldiers from the North,' will. be
deployed indefinitely in the South:
And the long-term 'objectives of
this force will be not only to re-
unite Vietnam but to _establish a
Communist regime throughout the.
country.
During the next 24 .hours these
" main " North Vietnamese forces
are expected to make attempts to
improve their positions and extend ?
their terrain. tut when the cease-
fire comes Into. force it will be
observed, except on the village and
hamlet level where old political and
military scores are likely to be
paid , off during the 60,day period
while .the Americans and the two
Korean divisions- are withdrawn
and prisoners of .war .returned.
Unwelcome to both..
But the workings of the: "two-
party joint 'Military Commission"
described in the agreement On end-
ing the. war are unlikely, to be
smooth. According to one general.
it would be. like trying to ? arrange
for the administration of the Mid-
lands from .London all the motor-
ways were open .during daylight.
but subjected to harassment from
villages on either side .which were
frequently in enemy hands and'
supported from large enemy bases
in the Welsh mountains, Malvern
Hills and 'the ANorfolk_:Broads.
Further, the four-party Joint
Military International. Commission.
of ?control and supervision of the
cease-fire, composed of 1,160'
Canadians, Poles, Indonesians and
Hungarians, will not be effective
in the eyes of the Saigon Govern-
ment and all neutral' military ex-
perts. Certainly they Will be tin- -
welcome on both sides:
The, Control Commission \Yin be
hampered by a rapidly increasing
anti-foreign atmosphere in South
Vietnam throughout- urban areas
but especially in the Forces. Basi-
cally it arises from a belief that
the Americans have let them down,
but 'the, antipathy has grown to
include Japanese and other Asians.
ObViously the Control Commis-
on the
and political
rr -1111
ne e
n6r),Ip.
tna,m now:
sion which was established after
the 1954 Geneva conference which
terminated the war between France
and the Viet Minh?which is still
in theory in existence?set failure
as avrecedent,
Saigon recognises the "South
Vietnamese Provisional lievolution-
ary Government," of which Mine
I3inh is Foreign Secretary, only as
the National Liberation Front ?
just another political party in South
Vietnam,
President Thieu is willing to
negotiate with the N L,F, which
controls two well-trained divisions
as well as hundreds of ,small units
on a regional and. village level, for,
among other major issues, the re-
lease of prisoners, The Communists
claim the Saigon Government is
holding around 150,000 political,
military, and guerrilla prisoners,
but the real figure is likely to be
just under 100,000. The Viet Cong
hold 108 Americans and unknown
nuinbers of Vietnamese. . ?
In the past, President Thieu has
said the. only elections. he would.
allow were for a new .President.
But now .his Government is willing
to consider. "village" and "legis-
lative" elections if 'they can be
negotiated with the N L F. Al-
though .few observers believe elec-
tions as. envisaged in the agree-
ment 'Will take place in three
months, President Thieu is
vigorously preparing for them;
.It is not quite true that. he in-.
Sias an. a one-party State for. he
will, after all, be negotiating with
the Communists in the N L F:. But.
ho does not want to see the for-
mation 'of a second non-Commu-
nist party. which .?could rival his
own DeMOCratiC .party.
Further, ? it, is becoming. more
necessary to ? join Thieu's Demo-
cratic. party not onlylor men who
want to s advance In Government
service but for those who merely
wish to . retain a modest job, in
the Civil Service, Thus-, as in Com-
munist and. other .semi-dictatorial
countries,' the party as well as the.
administration ?controls the masses
and hands out the favours. In view.
of the truly immense amounts of
aid.' in.' cash and kind.:' which are
expected here ? for reconstruction
work in the, immediate future,
there is -every incentive for Viet-
namese to join the Democratic
party. -
The three milliOn Roman Cathe4
lies fear Communism. but are un-
able to satisfy the requirements'
demanded by the present. GoVertIA
merit to form.a recognised political
party.
President ?Thiett is. far ITIOr0
secure in his position than he
would appear from outside South
Vietnam. Although he has deeply
disappointed many American dip.
28
lemats arid soldiers biy turning,
from the path of true democracy,
he has the vital support of the.
Forces, The desertion rate is hig
but this is largely because me
feel the war is over and they wan
to go back to the paddy field
There is no general or young
colonel preparing for a coup d'eta
The South Vietnamese officer
class will be useful on internal.
security duties whether or not they
are transferred to the police.
Outside pressure?
Despite the obvious problems of
maintaining a cease-fire under pre-
sent military conditions in Vietnam,
there are some reasons for slight
optimism that a peace treaty may
eventually be negotiated. The
Chinese Government wants the war
to end and is doubtless putting
pressure on the Politburo in
Hanoi; -
Further, once the fighting has
endelt, the Northern Communists
?other than the military units who
remain in the Southwill be wholly.
occupied for the next year or two
in rebuilding their ruined towns
and restoring the ravaged coun-
tryside. Hanoi, like Saigon, expects
massive economic aid?and finan-
cial problems which may well cause
a dramatic drop in the value of the
currency (a factor' more important
in capitalist Saigon than the Com-
munist North).
Even ? Communist children' will
rebel at having their lessonsifl
dug-outs when the fighting is over,
and the pressure to rebuild houses,
hospitals, bridges and roads will
be difficult to resist.
The burning question of the rival;
'South Vietnamese Governments?
that of President Thieu and the
N 1,F?remains the most difficult
to overcome. ?
Optimistic officials suggest .that
the vague wording of the agree-
ment, which has already been in-
terpreted di.fferently by Saigon and
Hanoi Radio, may provide flexibility
as well as difficulties.
President Thieu has demonstra-
ted that he alone can lead the
country to an election, He is de-
termined to survive longer.
Despite the American protests
that they will not interfere on the
ground that they are providing
economic aid, the men around
Thieti fear future . Washington
pressure, Indeed, after a briefing
at the Foreign Office here on the
agreenient, those few diplomats
who came out believing la a peace
that will last for several years
were those who. though t that, at
the international conference which
is envisaged, China would
pressurise Hanoi arid Washington
Saigon,
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BALTIMORE SUN
30 January 1973
Intemaggcnag pawky
on truce hr7q.
SCOTT SULLIVAN
_Paris Bureau of The Sun
Paris?Among the vaguest
clauses in a Vietnam cease-fire
agreement shot through with
intentional ambiguities is Arti-
cle 19, which calls for "the
convening of an international
conference within 30 days of
the signing of this agreement."
The purposes of the confer-
ence, the article says, are:
"To acknowledge the signed
agreements, to guarantee the
ending of the war, the mainte-
nance of peace in Vietnam, the
respect of the Vietnamese peo-
ple's fundamental national
rights, and the South Vietnam-
ese people's right to self-deter-
mination, and to contribute to
and guarantee peace in Indo-
china."
Conference members
The agreement names the
conference members as: North
and South Vietnam, the Viet
Cong, the United States, Brit-
ain, France, the Soviet Union,
China, Hungary, Poland, Can-'
ada and Indonesia (the last
four being members of the
postwar peace-keeping com-
mission) and Kurt Waldheim,
secretary general of the United
Nations.
The conference is mentioned
?significantly, if only appar-
ently in passing?in Article 18.
This is the context:
"Until the international con-
ference ... makes definitive
arrangements, the Interna-
tional Commission of Control
and Supervision will report to
the four parties [in some in-
stances, to the two South Viet-
namese parties in other cases)
on matters concerning the con-
trol and supervision of the im-
plementation of ... provisions
of this agreement."
Beyond these few lines, the
agreement itself remains,
mute. Thus, any prediction of
the real weight and importance
of the coming conference can
be based only on the previous
statements of both sides, ob-
servation and inference.
? Taken extremely seriously
One inference is extremely
easy to draw?that the,interna-
,tional conference, and the
guarantees it will produce, are
taken extremely seriously by
all parties to the agreement.
Provisions for such a confer-
ence?usually described as
covering. Cambodia and Laos
as well as Vietnam?appeared
in virtually identical language
in One peace plan after another
from both sides of the bargain-
ing table.
g7,
-Wh a teve r?. else it may have Vietnamese parties?the Sai-
been, the Vietnam conflict was go a government and the Viet
incontestably an arena of Cong?acting ultimately as the
proxy combat between the real guarantors of the peace.
U.S., on the one hand, and The international conference
China and the Soviet Union, on will examine this machinery,
the other. I and may revise it, creating a
permanent body With interna-
tional status to rule on treaty
violations. Even if such a
move is blocked by one or both
of the South Vietnamese par-
ties, the conference will at
least give international sane-
tions to the machinery that
exists.
Tentative detente
Without the colossal contri-
bution of arms, supplies and
men provided by the super-
powers to their allies or
clients, neither the Saigon gov-
ernment nor, the "liberation
forces" could conceivably have
carried on the conflict on the
scale to which it ultimately
developed.
And, as in 1954, it would be
inconceivable to expect , the
conflict to die out without the
agreement, implicit or explicit,
of those same competing
giants.
No serious observer contests
the theory that the chances for
peace suddenly developed after
President Nixon achieved . his
tentative detente with Moscow
and Peking, nor that the deci-
sion by the two Communist
? superpowers to liquidate the
mar contributed directly to the
'willingness of Hanoi and the
Viet Cong to accept a less-
than-victorious cease-fire.
, The primary goal of the in-
ternational conference -then
-will be for the major world
Powers, together with Britain
and France, to stand up pub-
licly and pledge themselves to
do what they can tO avoid a
new outbreak of the war on an
international scale.
What form those pledges will
take is not now clear, but they
will no doubt follow generally
the lines of similar engage-
ments taken by the powers in
the 1954 Geneva accords which
ended French colonial rule in
Indochina.
? . Tighter language .
American officials hope the
language will be even tighter
than 1954, with specific pledges
to limit aid to the two Viet-
nams to purely economic sup-
port and to the strict replace-
ment or wornout war material
as outlined in the terms of the
agreement. ,
, The second chief goal of the
, conference will be to "cap"
, the complicated peace-keeping
machinery that already in-
volves the four-nation interna-
tional commission, the two-
party military commission and
the four-party military com-
mission.
Under the terms of the
cease-fire agreement, these
groups, in effect, report to one
another, with the two South
Coordinate economic aid
A third objective of the con-
ference, alluded to in the
agreement itself, will be to
mobilize and coordinate eco-
nomic aid to the two halves of
the country.
The model for the whole af-
fair is clearly the Geneva Con-
ferences of 1954 and 1962,
which sought to settle the af-
fairs of Vietnam and Laos.
But there will be some sig-
nificant differences with the
1954 model?not least of all,
the sincere hope that 1973 will
prove more effective than its
two predecessors.
The coming conference will
be more limited in scope.
Though the agreement speaks
of guaranteeing "peace in In-
dochina," Le Due Tho, the
chief North Vietnamese archi-
tect of the cease-fire, stated
categorically last Wednesday
that it will deal exclusively
with the Vietnam situation.
American officials obviously
hope that cease-fires will inter-
vene in Laos and cambodia
before the 30-day period for
the conference's convocation
29
is up, so that the Powers
.may at least take the situation
in those countries into account.
Vietnamese Communist off i-
eials, in public as in private,
have expressed considerable
Skepticism on this point.
The new conference is also
expected to be considerably
shorter than the 1954 affair,
which lasted from May 8 to
July 21. In 1954, it was the
conference itself that worked
out the peace terms after an-
other long and complicatqd
war.
Vienna or Paris
A final question mark hoveis
over the conference site.
Although observers had long
assumed that Paris would be
the city chosen for the confer-
ence, as it had been for the
negotiations, very high French
diplomatic officials told news-
men Tuesday that the parties
had decided on Vienna instead.
The U.S. had opposed Paris
from the first, feeling that
French policy leaned st me-
what in favor of the Con
fist side. side. North Vietnam ,,lso
developed some strong z
French sentiment in Decembc
when President Georges Porn-
pidou did not speak out pub-
licly against the American
bombing of Hanoi and I-Tai-
phong.
Since Tuesday, however, the
Parisian candidacy seems' to
have re-emerged. ,
Both Mr. 'Tho and Henry,L,
Kissinger, his American nego-
tiating partner, said Wedges-
day that a site has not been
set. Meantime, Maurice Schu-
mann, the French foreign min-
ister, has held meetings -With
representatives of all the infer=
ested parties and has reflect::
edly argued strongly the case'
for the French capital. - -
WASHINGTON POST
5 February, 1973
Maneuvers Hit
TOKYO?Radio ' Pyon-
gyang reported the North
Korean government has
called on the United States
and South Korea to cancel
their combined maneuvers
scheduled off the coasts of
the Korean peninsula later
this month. North Korea
branded the maneuvers
"bellicose and i mperia lis-
tic."
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NEW YORK TIMES
24 January 1973
-War Leaves
By JAMES RESTON
Special to The 'Sew York Times
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23?
America is moving out of Viet-
nam after the longest and most
divisive conflict since the War,
Between the States. But Viet-
nam is not moving
out of America, for
the impact of thej
war there is likely1
to influence Amer-
can life for many years to
come. Though it is probably too
early to distinguish between the
temporary and the enduring
consequences, one thing is fair-
ly clear: There has been a sharp
decline in respect for authority
in the United States as a re-
sult of the. war?a decline in
respect not only for the civil
authority of government but
also for the moral authority of
the schools, the universities, the
press, the church and even the
family.
There was no cease-fire on
this front. Vietnam did not
start the challenge to authority,
but it weakened respect for the
ekftutives who got the nation
inyolved in the war in the first
place, for the Congress that let
it go on for more than a decade
and for the democratic process
of debate, which failed to influ-
ence the course of battle for
years and which finally de-
clined into physical combat and
sporadic anarchy. "
Even after a cease-fire, there
will still be considerable con-
tention in the country over
whether the challenges to au-
thority are good or bad.
Many Americans have main-
tained that it was precisely the
dissent and the defiance that
forced social reform at home
and a settlement abroad.
Others have argued that the
war produced a whole new rev-
olutionary climate in America,
which encouraged the Cornmu-
nists to prolong_ the conflict
and disrupted the nation's unity
and the. previously ? accepted
attitudes, standards and re-
straints in American public and
private conduct. But few Amer-
icans challenge the proposition
that for good or bad, something
has happened to American life
?something not yet understood
or agreed upon, something that
is different, important and
probably enduring.
Even at the' moment of the
Vietnani compromise, for exam-
ple, there was a rash of teacher
strikes in several of the great
cities of the nation; one-timo
members of the Central Intelli-
News
Analysis
gence Agency, some
former White House
ants, were confessing
of them.
consult-
in court
Deco Mark on U.S.
that they had been involved in deer) involvement in Vietnam,
a conspiracy to spy on the
Democratic party and its lead-
ers during the 1972 Presidential
election canipaign; and there
was a coritroversy at Madison'
Square Garden over the playing
of the national anthem before
major sports events.
. The direct costs of the war
to the United States are easier
to estimate than the indirect.
Vietnam cost 46,000 American
lives and, at a minimum, $110-
billion. That does not take into
account long-range obligations
to veterans, which may add up
to $50-billion more, nor does it
include the costs of the fighting
in Laos and Cambodia and the
continuing military 'establish-
ment in Thailand.
Nor does it take into account
the cost to the peoples of
Indochina in dead, wounded,
,maimed and homeless, and in
the destruction of their lands,
which are almost beyond accu-
rate calculation.
Significant Imponderables
The imponderables ? the
changes in attitudes and as-
sumptions, for example, and
the decline in truthfulness and
self-confidence?promised to be
even more significant for the
future than the financial strain.
Among other things, Vietnam
changed the nation's way of
looking at itself and the world,
reduced its willingness to get
involved in distant continental
land wars for ambiguous rea-
sons, and envenomed the rela-
tions between the political par-
ties and between the president
and Congress.
The American people seem
less confident about many
things they took for granted.
They are not so sure, for ex-
ample, that the United States
always prevails in foreign con-
flicts, that big guys always lick
little %guys, that money and
machines are decisive in war,
and that small states would
rather? surrender than risk
American military might.
Even the two World Wars of
this century did not have quite
the same effect on American
society. They divided Western
civilization, destroyed its old
empires, broke its domination
over world politics, and
changed the lives of Britain and
Germany, but they did not
challenge quite so many as-
sumptions of American life as
the long struggle in Vietnam.
An 1937 Munich became a
symbol of appeasement and the
dangers of nonintervention,
dangers that, in turn, encour-
aged more overseas commit-
ments by the United States
than by any other nation. In
the nineteen-seventies, on the
other hand, Vietnam became a
symbol of the dangers of inter-
vention and led to American
withdrawal and even to fears
of American isolation.
The tone of President John
F. Kennedy's inaugural address
in 1961 at the beginning of the
land the tone of President
!Nixon's second inaugural dur-
ing the last phase of the cease-
'fire negotiations illustrate the
change in the American mood
and commitment.
Prudent Pledge by Nixon
"Let every nation know,
whether it wishes us well or
ill," Mr. Kennedy ,said in his
oft-quoted promise, "that we
shall pay any price, bear any
burden, meet any hardship, sup-
port any friend, oppose any foe,
to assure the survival and the
success of liberty. This much
we pledge?and more."
After the disappointments.
and disillusions of the ensuing
12 years, President Nixon was
more prudent and modest in
pledging what the American
people would do.
"We shall do our share in de-
fending peace and freedom in
the world," he said. "But we
shall expect others to do their
share. The time has passed
when America will make every
other nation's conflict our own,
or make every other nation's
future our responsibility, or
presume to tell other nations
how to manage their own af-
fairs."
Moreover, the disillusion-
ments of Vietnam not only led
to a more modest estimate of
what the United States could
or should do to help maintain
freedom and order in the world,
but they also seemed to encour-
age a downward reappraisal of
what government could do to
'maintain the health and wel-
fare of the poor at home.
. Yesterday, when former Pres-
ident Lyndon B. Johnson died,
with the Vietnam peace agree-
ment near completion in Paris,
the heroic themes of his Admin-
istration ? his Great Society,
his war on poverty, his bills
on civil rights and voting rights
?were very much in the news.
But by this time the emphasis
if not the direction of Ameri-
can policy at home was under-
going a marked change.
"A person can be expected
to act responsibly only if he
has responsibility," President
Nixon said at his gecond inau-
gural. "So let us encourage in-
dividuals at home and nations
abroad to do more for them-
selves. - Let us measure what
we will do for others by what
they will do for themselves."
In short, after Vietnam the
emphasis is not on what gov-
ernment can do but on what it
cannot and should not do; not
on welfare but on work; not
on a compassionate society but
on a competitive society in
which the comfortable major-
ity will pay less in taxes and
everyone will rely mere - on
himself and less onthe Federal
. .
Government..
Perhaps these are Merely
changes in style and rhetoric,
due more, to Mr. Nixon's
philosophy than . to the ex-
periences of Vietnam; but par-
ticularly in the field of
.foreign affairs America after
'Vietnam is likely to regard the
world as a much more com-
plicated and diver;. place than
it did in the fifties and
sixties.
For most of the last decade
this country has been preoc-
cupied with Vietnam on the
assumption that the 2 per cent
of Asia's population that live
there were critical to the
worldwide struggle between
the irreconcilable forces of
darkness and light. This and
many other illusions have been:
modified if not rejected.
It was widely believed, for
example, that Communism was
a monolithic force working on
a vast and centrally controlled
strategy to change the balance
of power in the world and
;threaten the vital security 4nd
!commercial interests of the
'United States.
? Reshaping Foreign Poll
, The Communist threat' to
Greece and Turkey in the late
forties, the invasion of South
Korea by North Korea, ' the
blare of Communist pronounce-
ments and the expansion of
Soviet and Chinese influence all
encouraged the belief?which
persisted even after the
Chinese-Soviet split?that the
United States was confronted
by a vast conspiracy that could
be turned back only by its
power and countermeasures.
Furthermore it was widely
believed in the fifties and
sixties that the system of col-
lective-security alliances thatl
had helped preserve and re-
construct the advanced ndus-
trial nations of Western Europe
could be adapted to primitive
societies lacking in industral
and poltical tradition. Part of
this popular belief was that if
American commitments were
not met in one place?say,
Vietnam?they could be re-
garded as worthless in other
critical areas?say, Europe?
and that if Vietnam fell other
nations would fall?"like dom-
inoes," as the popular saying
of the day went.
Even' before the cease-fire
agreement drew near, Presi-
dent Nixon had begun to; ques-
tion those assumptions and
shape foreign nelicy to the
changing situation. The split
between Moscow and Peking
and the need in both China and
the Soviet Union for surplus
grain and modern technology
gave him the opportunity to
renew diplomatic contact with
'Peking, and, despite Vietnam,'
to negotiate new agreements i
with Moscow on trade and
arms control.
The likelihood' is that the
trend toward limited coopera-
tion between the maior powers
will be even more marked with
the final withdrawal of the
United States from Vietnam.
Thus the United States, the
Soviet Union and China all
seem to have learned sonic of
the.lessons of the Vietnam war,
limited their use of power and
avoided a direct military con,
frontation.
1 Role of Public Opinion
A major question here is
whether the Russians will
again be tempted to assist in
another "war of national lib-
eration" in the belief that Viet-
nam was so painful for the
United States that no President
of the Vietnam generation
30
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would be tempted to intervene.
The experts in Washington
are divided on the question,
but a majority seem to believe
that for the foreseeable future
Peking and Moscow will de-
cide that they have more to
gain by, cooperating with the
United States than in risking
another Confrontation.
It is less clear ?that the les-
sons of the war have been
learned in Washington. Presi-
dent Nixon has clearly reduced
overseas commitments and
tempered the cold-war rhetorie,
but the habit of centralizing
foreign-policy decisions in the
White House, where so many
of the Vietnam blunders were
made, is persisting, as is the
heavy influence of the military
on foreign policy.
Charles W. Yost, one of the
naton's most experienced diplo-
mats, observes in his book "The
Conduct and Misconduct of
Foreign Affairs" (Random
House, 1972) that in the first
three years of the Vietnam war
American public opinion did not
exercise either a stimulating or
an inhibiting effect on United
States leaders, but that Mr.
Kennedy, Mr. Johnson and, at
first, Mr. Nixon were so afraid
of what public opinion might
do if they "lost" the war that
they misjudged both the prob-
lem in Vietnam and attitudes
at home. .
."There are many depressing
examples of international con-
flicts,' he writes, "in which
leaders have first aroused their
own people against a neighbor'
and then discovered to their
chagrin that even when they
judged the time had come to
move toward peace, they were
prisoners of the popular pas-
sions they had stimulated."
President Nixon's argument
that the United States had to
keep following his policy or
look like "a pitiful, ? helpless
giant" is' only one of many
illustrations to be found in Viet-
nam policy; but the chances are
that this sort of thing will not
be heard again for some time.
Meanwhile, Mr. Nixon. does
have to deal with the conse-
quences of the war at home:
with .a kind of spiritual ma-
laise, with the continuing op-
position to his theme that the
end of the war will not release
additional funds for social
;reconstruction at home; with
;the resentment of policies
'reached in secret and not ex-
plained to Congress or the
people; with the dangers of re-
turning soldiers facing unem-
ployment and exhortations to
be self-reliant; and with an
American conscience troubled
over the bloodshed and sorrow.
The guess here is that it will
take some time to restore the
self-confidence of the pre-Viet-
nam years, but it may be that
the destruction of, many popu-
lar misconceptions in Vietnam
will produce a more mature, if
sadder, nation.
NEW YORK TIMES
31 January 1973
?
, .
011S irlieA.
By David E. Lilienthal
PRINCETON, N. J.?Perhaps for the
very first time after any major war
the factual and technical groundwork
for an immediate start on the task of
reconstruction and development has
already been prepared in advance of
the end of a war. In published form,
the study is known as "The Postwar
Development of the Republic of Viet-
nam." (1970)
The decision to proceed with a post-
war development strategy Was ? made,
in the very midst of hostilities. In,
1966, President Johnson, with the
Premier of Vietnam, directed ' the
writer and his calleagues of Develop-
ment and Resources Corporation?an
American private . company?jointly
with a large group of nongovernmental
Vietnamese, to spend three years pro-,
paring for the day of reconstruction
and development, now at hand. It was
the late President's hope that this
might avoid a repetition of the chaos
and confusion of the postwar period.
in Korea, in Europe and in Japan.
The report ranges ,from fiscal policy
and taxation to an over-all proposed
growth pattern for the postwar eco-
nomy. ?
Neither the fantastic bombing since
1970 nor the use of defoliants has
permanently impaired the potential of
the land for the growing of crops; in
a tropical country nature soon heals
such scars. '
In sum, .the physical destruction and
tragic human suffering since the pub-
lication of the report in 1970 do not
materially change the basic economic
premise: that though very hard' days
lie immediately ahead, in a decade or
less South Vietnam can be economi-
cally stable and self-supporting.
The fundamental question is
Whether as a people we feel a strong
sense of responsibility to ourselves,
a recommitment to our histbric and,
I believe, unimpaired traditions of
compassion to those who suffer the
consequences of war, and a concern
for those who suffer the wretchedness
of poverty,. homelessness, sickness and
despair. ?
Many, specific questions for Ameri-
can decision are raised by the report
which I delivered to President Nixon
and to President Thieu. How, much '?
should nations other than the United
States?,-especially Japan?contribute?
Should North Vietnam be included in
the design?as President Nixon has,
suggested and as-I believe?
Who will administer the program?
Since the World Bank is under some
handicaps for such, a' task, should a
special reconstruction and develop- ?
inent corporation be organized, on an
international basis, but one free of the
incredible bureaucratic inertia of the
United Nations Organization? Or
should the enterprise be operated by a '
Japanese-oriented Asian development
bank? Or should there be created an
31
ii y s
international consortium of distin-
guished public-spirited private citizens?
What should be the first things un-
dertaken? Should it be the relief of
the refugees, the immediate repair of
war damage, or restoration of com-
munication and mail between South
and North Vietnam?
The greatest single, specific op-
portunity 'is development of the
majestic Mekong River. Its more than
2,000-mile course flows through sev-
eral nations; its source is in the
mountain gorges of the People's Re-
public of China. Of the hydrology
'of this great stream, the Development.
and Resources Corporation's technical
staff developed new knowledge and,
concepts. But more than hydrology is
involved: Can the Mekong be made
to serve as a, unifying political mecha-.
nism for gradual political and joint
action in that region?
But all questions are subordinate to
the main one for Americans: Why?
Why support reconstruction Of a part
of the world that' has already cost
? us such agonies? What possible mo-
tivation have we? ?
I suggeSt that we participate and
contribute to reconstruction and
rehabilitation because we are a mbral
'and humanitarian people. I believe the
American people will respond to this
impulse so deeply ingrained in our his-
tory' and traditions to heal, to rebuild,,
to develop, after the end of this war. ,
I Say this even of a War about which
there has been and still is such bitter
division, such an outpouring of almost
hysterical self-denigration of America,,
such mutual_ enmity and' vilification
of Americans by Americans--even of
two Presidents of the Republic and
some of the most dedicated public
servants of our time. Before we con-.
tinue mutual recrimination over Viet-
nam we should be Warned by the
sordid story of Civil War reconstruc-
tion days, when for many years
America punished and vilified and
penalize fellow Americans of. the
South to. the injury of the whole na-
tion's values.
In the great task of reconstruction
that lies immediately ahead there is
an opportunity to join all Americans
in. a common task of mercy, creative,
effort,.an opportunity not for revenge'
and fault-finding of those with whom
we have differed, but for reconciliation.
This could serve as an example and an
inspiration for the Vietnamese, North'
and South. And without their recon-
ciliation "the end of the, war" in which ,
we now rejoice might well turn out
to be fragile ; and temporary, a peace
that is no peace.
David E. Lilienthal is chairman and:
president of the Ddvelopment and Re-
sources Corporation, forMerly chair-,
mart of the Tennessee Valley .1uthority
and of the Atomic Energy Commis-
sion.
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WASHINGTON POST
28 JANUARY 1973
Miss FitsGerald's beak on the Vietnam war,
year.
ir AST WEDNESDAY Dr. Henry Kiss-
inger took two hours on national
television to explain the document
'known at the "Paris Agreement on
Ending the War and Restoring the
Peace in Vietnam." In those two hours
of explication, clarification and de-
tailed textual analysis, two questions
remained unasked and unanswered: Is
the Vietnam war over, and if so, who
has won it?
The qUestions were perhaps too dan-
gerous. For as Kissinger spoke, it be-
came evident that the changes that
he ' had negotiated between October
and January had all been designed
for the purpose of avoiding a U.S.
commitment on the central issue of,
the war. The "clarifications" he sought
and obtained were in fact more per-
fect ambiguities?phrases cut and
polished to complete opacity.
If the agreement is meant to end the
war, then the great victory of the
United States is to have denied all
responsibility for its outcome. The'
United States will have left the war'
as it entered it, closing the' circle of
deception around its stated aim of
,"self-determination for the Viet-
namese." If the administration wants
peace, It will slowly allow that phrase
to become the truth. Meanwhile, it is
impossible to tell what the United
States will do, for the intentions of
the administration remain, buried with-
in the deception.
In principle, at least, the Paris
agreement opens up a wide and clear
path to peace. The first sentence
reads: "The United States and, all
other countries respect the independ-
ence, sovereignty, unity and terri-
torial integrity of Vietnam." Subse-
quent articles state that the "South
Vietnamese people shall' decide them-
selves the political future of South
Vietnam through genuinely free and
democratic general elections," and
that the reunification. of Vietnam
shall be carried out step by step
through. peaceful negotiations between
North and South.
By Frances FitiGerald
"Fire in the Lake," WO published last
This article was written for Newsday.
These sentences would seem to indi-
cate that the United States had agreed
to the main principles of the Geneva
agreement that it refused to sign in
1954?thus repudiating two decades of
U.S. policy in Vietnam and removing
the major cause of the war. The ac-
cords, however, do not guarantee this.
According to the text, the principal
signatories undertake responsibility.
only for the military aspect of the
settlement; the United States and
North Vietnam. agree merely to cease
hostilities and to implement A cease-
fire in place between two nameless
"South Vietnamese parties."
A Brief, Fragile Truce
HILE THE AGREEMENT repre-
sents an advance over the at-
tempt of both sides to obliterate each
other, it is a truce rather than a peace..
And, as was not the case in Korea, it
is a truce that by its very nature
must be both fragile and short-lived.
,In strict military terms it is almost
impossible to maintain a cease-fire
along lines as numerous and as com-
plicated as those drawn across the
face of Vietnam. Then, in a war that
is at base a political struggle, even
.a cease-fire does not constitute a
standstill, for life?like politics?con-
tinues even though the killing stops.
As a result, the truce in Vietnam
cannot last more than ,a few months:
It must end either with the renewal of
hostilities or with the beginning of a
political contest that, grounded in the
realities of Vietnamese politics, can
eventually lead to peace.
The choice would seem clear enough.
But it is not. For in order to maintain
the deception of the U.S. role, the
Nixon administration has managed to
make the second path as difficult as
possible for the Vietnamese.
The accord it has negotiated leaves
the resPonsibility for working out a po-
litical settlement in the South to two
parties, neither of which recognizes
the existence of the other and only
32
ne of which can possibly benefit
rorn it.
Looked at in the abstract, the text of
the accord would indicate that there
are two South Vietnamese parties Of;
relatively equal stature. But that is not.
.the case. The "parties" differ in size;
Jut more important, they do not even
belong to a single class, like apples and
aranges. They are qualitatively differ-,
ant, like apples and theorems. One Of,
*them, the PRG (Provisional Revolutioni
ary Government), i a political pa.4
pith a relatively small military forcl,'
even including the North Vietnamee
troops, but with strong roots in tille
iountryside of the South. The other Is
a product of the American pacifica4n'
of Vietnam, a vast military administra-'.
;ion containing most of the draft-age
rnen without a political direction except
the vague negative of anti-comnitinisin.
Drawing all of its support from the
United States, the Saigon regime has
no responsibility to its own people and
no coherent interest except in main-
taining the flow of American aid. It
occupies the country rather than gow,
erns it. And since the success of this
occupation depends largely on the use
of its great weaponry to keep the Popu-
lation concentrated in a few places
and locked in a state of economic de-
pendency on the United States, any
reduction in the use of force must
serve only to erode it?and by com-
parison, at least, to strengthen the
PRG.
Fighting to Survive
INCE THE announcement of the
Li draft accord in October, the Thieu
regime has done nothing but resist
any language that would fall short of
giving it complete sovereignty over
South Vietnam. In the future it can be
counted on to resist any .and all steps
that would lead the country toward a
permanent end to the fighting. With the-
three months of grace that President
Nixon allowed him, Thiett has already
promulgated new laws that in effect
suspend the American-style constitu-
tion. of the regime and with it most
of its civil liberties?including the right
to buy pieces of blue cloth that might
be sewn into the flag of the PRG.
Saigon has made an extensive series
of arrests, filling its already crowded
jails with people who might be ex-
pected to take an independent political,
stance. Once the cease-fire is declared,
its energies will be concentrated on:
preventing the mass of refugees from
returning to their land in the PRG-
controlled zones, so long made un-
livable by the bombing. Its efforts will
also go into discovering, provoking or
inventing cease-fire violations by the
other side in an attempt to bring the
United States back into the war.
Unless pressured by the United
States, Saigon will refuse to make any
form of political agreement that gives
the PRG or any other group a share of
power; it will resist the demobilization'
of its troops, and it will oppose every
single provision for the achievement
of "national reconciliation" contained
in the accord. And it will do so not for
100080001-
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mysterious Oriental reasons?not ir-
rationally?but because its very survi-
val depends on maintaining the state
of hostility. Without that one unifying
principle, the regime would burst open
like a ripe fruit, releasing people of
every political group from Catholics to
Cao Daists to Buddhists?but mainly a
mass of uncommitted people who might
.provide recruits to the PRG.
No Quick Takeover
rflHE PRG CAN BE expected to take
11- the opposite stance for similarly
actical reasons. Its line?already an-
nounced to the Vietnamese?is that it
favors reconciliation and concord, that
it has worked for peace (alongside
North Vietnam) while the Thieu gov-
ernment has resisted it. In the next
three months it will certainly press for
a restitution of all those freedoms
spelled out in the accord, most particu-
larly freedom of movement from zone
to. zone and freedom for political pris-
oners (the vast majority of whom are
held by the Saigon regime). It will
press for demobilization and the hold-
:.ing of elections within the framework
of a Council of National Reconciliation
and Concord.
Contrary to the fears expressed by
U.S. officials, both the PRG and Hanoi
will do their best to prevent truce vio-
lations by their own forces. In fact,
since the United States can blame any
truce violation on them in the expecta-
tion of credence by the American pub-
lic, they will attempt even to obscure
minor violations by the troops of the
Saigon government. The PRO will do
so because, as a political organization
BALTIMORE SUN
25 January 1973
with a relatively small military force,
the transition from a military to a po-
litical conflict can only favor their
cause, even if it means confusion and
the emergence of new political parties
in the short run.
In the near future?that is, for the
next several years?the aim of the PRG
is not, as Americans and Saigonese of-
!idols claim, to replace the Thieu
?egime and take over the government
)f the South. As Pham Van Dong, the
gorth Vietnamese prime minister, said
n a recent interview: "The political
dtuation in the South is such that one
must have a government that reflects
:he realities. You must realize that
war in the South has meant that an
entire generation has known no other
way of life. There has been terrible
suffering in every family. No one has
been spared. Families are divided,
father on one side, son on the other.
Those are the realities. One must now
try to abolish those divisions and not
by imposing our will. That's why na-
tional reconciliation is paramount."
An Ungovernable Country
710 BELIEVE Pham Van Dong it is
not necessary to believe that the
"PRG and the North Vietnamese are
More humanitarian than any other
group in their country. It is merely
to believe that they understand their
country. After 13 years of a major war,
South Vietnam has become ungovern-
; able?a mass of refugees, an ecological
disaster and a catalog of social and
economic ills. Those who pushed?or
are pushed?into taking responsibility
for this anarchy are bound to be repu-
diated in the long run, be they as wise
and well-intentioned as the angel
Gabriel. At the moment, therefore, the
PRG wishes merely to call into ques-
tion the dominance of the Thieu re-
gime and to set into motion the politi-
cal process which, as Marxists, they,
are confident will end with the victory
of their particular revolution.
Since Hanoi will back the PRG in
this endeavor, there remains only on
party to the accord whose intentions
are not entirely predictable, and that
is the United States government. What
does Mr. Nixon want?
The answer to that question 'May
not be known for certain, for sqypral
months. If Mr. Nixon wants a."con-
tinuation of the war, that is !'4sy:
He need only accuse the PRG or ganoi
of a violation of the accords and re-
sume the American bombardment of
Vietnam?a move that no Internation-
al Control Commission in this world
can prevent. Alternatively, he has the
option to declare the "truce violations"
a Matter for settlement betworp:, the
two "South Vietnamese partfDs" and
continue to fuel the conflict with
American aid while disassociating him-
self from the results of the struggle.
But if Mr. Nixon wants peace?
peace with honor or peace with mus-
tard or just plain peace?he has to
force the Thieu regime step by step ,
all the way down the road toward its
own dissolution. For ()illy its disso-
lution will provide the condition for
a peaceful settlement and ? restore
meaning to that long ill-used phrase,
"self-determination for the South Viet-
namese." .
The Cease Fire ire Agreement
From Americans the cease-fire
agreement now ready for signature
In Paris on Saturday draws a sigh
of profound relief. It is not a feeling
of exaltation. This war has been
too long, and too mean, and too
dubious in its purposes, and too
wearing on mind and spirit, for its
end to arouse any such emotion.
And of course it is ending, for us,
as none of our wars has ever
ended before, not in jubilant vic-
tory but in cautious compromise.
But there remain, in American
terms, the great facts that this
country is to be no longer involved
In direct military action in Indo-
china, that American prisoners of
war are to be returned and that
those missing in action are to be
accounted for, when possible.
As President Nixon said, the
agreement is designed to create a
peace that heals, a peace, in Dr.
Kissinger's elaboration, which it
Is hoped will move the participating
parties from hostility to normaliza-
tion and from normalization to
reconciliation. They were talking of
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the broad scene, but still as to course the purpose of each was to
America we in this country need a
special healing of the domestic
wounds the Indochina war has in-
flicted on our body politic, a clos-
ing of the divisive schisms it has
created and a repair of the doubts
it has raised about our very na-
tional character.
That is as to America alone; but
except as we chose to make it so
the Indochina war has not been an
American war. Physically, in death
and devastation, our sufferings
have been as nothing beside the
sufferings of the people of Indo-
china itself. Then too, our actual
sentiments of hostility have been
mild in comparison with those of
the antagonists in the region. Amer-
icans can, perhaps, forgive and for-
get?though to forget the real les-,
sons of our part in this fantastic
war would be to leave us open for
similar error later, and with worse
results?but the Indochinese cannot
forgive so easily. ,
The cease-fire agreement, if ad-
hered to by the Vietnamese signers
on both sides, may help, though of
gain as much advantage as pos-
sible for the period after the firing
ceased. Both did gain some points.
',South Vietnam, with the assistance
of the United States, firmed up its
status as in fact a country, for
now. And, North Vietnam secured
'the long-term designation of Viet- ,
nam as united, and to press home
its definition of unity managed to
prevent a stipulation that North
Vietnamese troops in the South be
withdrawn. This may well be what
Le Due Tho is talking about when
he calls the agreement "a great.
victory for the Vietnamese people." \
Much depends, for Vietnam's
future, on how the agreement'
works out there, on the scene; how
firmly the cease-fire holds, how
well the erstwhile combatants .on
the joint committee to 'arrange
elections cooperate, and how di-
rectly developments in Indochina
lead toward the projected Inter-
national conference. It is all extra- 33
ordinarily chancy.
Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP77-00432R000100080001-8
THE, GUARDIAN MANCHESTER
26 January 1973
1'i --(-;-
)'t
?
Tv't1
II_ ?
1 j ,
t-11 len
Ncxt weck Pri!icc, Sihanouk of C;.,mboelia publishes a hook giving his side of the evPnts th,t led to
his overthrow by a military coup in 1970. Wilfred Burchett, co-author of the book?' My War
with the CIA,' Micn Lane, ?1.60?has had close contacts with Sihanouk before and after his .
flight to Peking. Here, he puts the ncw Vietnam peace treaty into the context of the continuing'
Canbodian civil war?as sceri from Sihanouk's camp.
WHERE DOES a Vietnam peace agree-
ment leave Cambodia ? .They are
' unrelated questions at least ? as far as
,a ceasefire in South Vietnam applying
to Cambodia is concerned?according
to Prince Norodom Sihanouk,. who
'heads the Peking wing of the Royal
'Government of National Union. This
was set up six weeks after Sihanouk
-was depOsed as Head of State, in
? March 1970.
Together with the National United
.Front which he heads it directs the
-resistance struggle against the Phnom
Penh regime of Marshal Lon No!.?
"Armed ?'struggle will continue,"
Sihanouk told me recently, "until the
Lon Nol .regime and ? whatever is left'
of its armed forces have been.
'completely - crushed. There is no
question of a ceasefire or negotiations
rwith them. If President Nixon :insists
'ort saving Lon Nol and, the handful of
itraitors who still support him, then he
.can send a plane and fly them into
exile. If they fall into our hands, they
will suffer the ? fate of the Quislings
and Lavals after World War II."
Sihanouk claims that the resistance
,forces now control 90 per cent of the
'territory and over 5 million of Cam-
bodia's seven million inhabitants and
,that, were it not for US air strikes and
the continued presence of Saigon
'tritons, the-Lon Nol regime would have
been crushed long ago. Any attempt
to equate the activities of Saigon
troops and the US air force with the
presence of North Vietnamese troops
Is vigorously denied by Sihanouk and
the leaders of the resistance strUggle
inside the country. Apart from instruc-
tors sent by North Vietnamese at the
personal 'request of Sihanouk to
Premier Pham Van Dong and General
?Giap, the only North Vietnamese
troops in 'Cambodia have been in the
remote and !sparsely-populated North-
-eastern border areas where the "Ho
'Chi Minh Trail " enters South Viet-
'ham from Laos, according to Sihanouk,
who says that the instructors were all
Withdrawn within one year, by which
time their training rele was completed
and the resistance forces were organ-
ised into a regular army of battalion-
sized units 'plus regional troops and
village self-defence guerrillas. This
three-layer 'structure is identical with,
that adopted by the Vietcong across the
border in South Vietnam.
Sihanouk puts the strength of his.
regular army at 72,000, supplemented
by several hundred thousand irregular
troops of both sexes on the regional
and guerrilla units. The latter repre-
sent a virtually inexhaustible reserve
for the regular units with a constant
movement upwards from guerrillas to.
regional units to the regular forces.
The B52s are the best recruiting agents
for the self-defence guerrillas, accord-
ing to Sihanouk. Every time they cut
a swathe through the rural areas, there
are hundreds of angry volunteers
who demand gunS and a chance for
revenge. ?
Opposed to these are the US-financed
troops of Lon. Nol. Officially they
amount to. 200,000, but Sihanouk's
Staff officers say this is .a payroll figure
a. more accurate estimate would be
iiouL 160,000. The dollar paychecks
for the 40,000 " phantoms" are said
to go into the pockets of a Sew divi-
sional commanders and bureaucrats at
headquarters. The Lon Nol troops are
well-equipped but have notoriously low
morale and would be utterly useless
.without massive US air support. They
have not, in fact, won a single battle
since the ? fighting started but have.
seored up some notable defeats.
No-one denies that there are many
Vietnamese in the ranks of the resis-
tance forces, but these have been
recruited from the approximately
600,000-strong Vietnamese residents in
Cambodia?most of them there for
several generations. By his savage
massacres and persecution of the Viet-
namese, in the first days after seising
power, Lon Nol left them with little
choice. Either wait to 'be shot down
in cold blood or be deported as cannon-
fodder for the Saigon army?or take to
the 'rjungle and join the resistance
',forces.
If the B525 were the best recruiting'
agents for the Cambodian peasants,
Lon Nol and his even more bloody-
minded younger 'brother, Colonel Lon
Non, were the best recruiting agents
for the Vietnamese community.
Upwards of 90 per cent of them sym-
pathised with the Vietcong in any case
and front the' start Of the fighting in
South Vietnam, there was a steady
flow of volunteers for the resistance
forces from the' Vietnamese minority
in Cambodia.. After the Lon Not coup
and massacres, many of them had what
they term " blood debts" to settle
with the Phnom Penh regime and very
'quickly developed the lighting quali-
ties that have earned their compatriots
in South Vietnam the reputation of the
world's finest guerrilla fighters.
As to how the resistance forces so
quicklY became an effective fighting
organisation with modern weapons at
their disposal, there were several
reasons. For years prior to the Lon
Nol coup, embryo resistance bases had
been set up in half a dozen strategic?
areas in Cambodia's jungles and
mountains.. More correctly, old resist-
ance bases, set up during the resistance
war against the French were reacti-
vated. As far back as 1963, but
especially from 1966 onwards there
had been a steady trickle of young
people, , mostly intellectuals at odds
with the regime, moving out of Phnom
Penh and aher cities, to these bases.
Immediately after the Lon Nol coup on
March 18. 1970 and Sihanouk's appeal
for armed resistance five days later, it
was assumed by the NFL that there,
would be a drive by the US-Saigon
forces in cooperation with Lon Nol's
army into the frontier areas to wipe
out the NFL base's there. So there
started a massive distribution of arms
to the rapidly-developing Cambodian
resistance forces from the huge stocks
in the frontier bases. By the time the
Americans arrived six weeks later -the
cupboard was bare." ?
"We got away to a good start,"
Sihanouk told me later. "Unlike.our
Vietnamese brothers who had to use
hoes and clubs to wrest arms from the
enemy when they started their resist-
ance struggle, we had ample quantities
of modern arms from. the beginning
?not to mention the example and
experience of the Vietnamese and the
magnificent instructors that Glop sent
34
us." ?
As the armed forces expanded,
Chinese arms began to arrive, the
Vietnamese diverting supplies intended
for them from the "Ho Chi Minh Trail"
pipeline. Many American weapons were.
captured from the Lon Nol and Saigon
troops. Another vital source of supply'
was revealed by Sihanouk to a recent '?,`
visitor. to his Peking headquarters with ;
his characteristic candour, namely the
.purchase of arms on the spot. The
Chinese provided $2 millions for
this purpose .in 1970 and 1971, 10
million in 1972, and Sihanouk said he
expected about $15 millions for 1973.
"Apart from helicopters?forrn the
time being?we can supply you with
'anything you Want, for cash in dollars,''
Sihanouk quoted one of his main arms
.suppliers iin Phnom Penh as saying:
some months ago. Sihanouk added :
"And he insisted that 'for the time
being ' was the operative phrase 'as
far ? as helicopters were concerned.
Obviously it is a great relief to the
transport system to provide dollars on ,
the spot rather than to send quantities.
of arms down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
And for the American arms we buy, we.
have vast quantities of captured
ammunition."
This original type of military logis--
tics was not new to Sihanouk. In the
years prior to the Lon Nol ?coup, had?
been supplying -large quantities of rice
and medical supplies to the Vietcong,
paid for at world market prices, in
dollars, by the Chinese !
The situation 'in the regions con-
trolled bylSihanouk's partisans is quite
different ?to that of the areas con-
trolled by the NLF in South Vietnam.
Vast areas to the north and north-east
of the capital, well over half the terri-
tory of Cambodia, are completely in
the hands of the resistance
forces,
including the provincial and district
'capitals. In these areas there .is no
trace of the ? Lon Nol administration.
in other provinces Lon Nol holds the
provincial capitals, the rest including
the district centres are 'held by
,Sihanouk's forces.. Phnom Penh itself '
is surrounded, with each .o f the seven
highways and the railway into the,
capital either firmly controlled by the
resistance forces or, as is the case of
Highway No. 1, leading to Saigon, cut-
table at Will. Sufficient food supplies
are allowed into the capital to avoid
undue hardships for the popul?ation,
swollen by ?almost three times by
refugees from the bonabings.
The resistance government is orga-
nised in a highly original form. For
every Minister in Peking, there is a
Vice-Minister in the jungle head-
quarters; for every Minister in' the
jungle headquarters there is a Vice-
Minister in Peking. For the three key
Ministries of Defence, Internal Affairs,
and Information, the Ministers are on
the spot, directing the resistance
struggle. Khieu Samphan as Minister
?
for Defence, Hu Nim and Hou Youn?
for, the other two Ministries, are
French-educated left-wing intellectuals
?the only left-wingers elected at the
legislative elections in 1966, the last to
be held under Sihanouk. They were
among those who left for the restatonee
bases in the 1966-7 period.
These three, together with Ieng Sary,
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Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RbP77-00432R0001000800014
who had left for the embryo resistance'
bases as early as 1963, and who now
serves as a liaison between the jungle
bases and, Sihanouk at the Peking
headquarters, form the hard core of
the resistance leadership. They are
among those with whom Sihanouk had
his .differences in the past, but who
never wavered in their belief that
Sihanouk was a true patriot devoted
to preserving the independence of his
.country.
They supported his foreign policy of
neutrality as the best means of keeping
the war in South Vietnam front over-
flowing into Cambodia and his general
line of riendship with the Socialist
world and support for the resistance
struggle in South Vietnam. When
Sihanouk appealed for the formation
of a National United Front and armed
resistance to the Lon Nol regime five
days after his overthrow, differences
on internal policies were buried and a
remarkable form of national unity from
peasantry to the. monarchy was very
.rapidly forged.
Sihanouk has explained this as largely
due to the fact that .historically,
Cambodia has had to unite and struggle
to survive as a nation, jammed in, as
is, between two more powerfusl
nations and traditional enemies?Viet-
nam and Thailand. Cambodia's history
ha S mainly been a fight .for survival,
with princes and Buddhist monks at
various times directing armed struggle
supported by the peasantry. Sihanouk
claims there is plenty of evidence to
prove that US plans for Cambodia
include dividing the country up, with
Thailand taking everything to the west'
of the Mekong river, South Vietnam
everything to the east, and that- had
the Cambodian people not launched a
vigorous and successful armed struggle
this would already have taken place.
Ideological questions are of infinitely
less importance to him than the ques-
?tion of national survival. This is the
meeting of ?the minds between what
are roughly known' as the "Khmers
Rouges" (Red Cambodians) and the
Sihanoukists. Sihanouk is very Philo-
sophical about this.
In a recent interview with Irwin
Silber, executive editor of. the Ameri-
can Guardian (a small radical New
York weekly) he said : "Some Western
friends who came here to sec me asked
me why in my Government I have so
few Sihanoukists and so many Marxist
Cambodians?so many Reds and so few
Sihanoukists. For instance, among the
11 members of .my Government inside
Cambodia in the liberated zone there
are 10 Communists and one Sihanou-
kist, my cousin Prince Norodom
'Phouri'sara [for several years prior to
the March 1970 coup, Cambodia's
Foreign Minister]; "The. most dis-
tinguished Sihanoukists are Lon Nol
and Sink Matak, those who betrayed
me . . . I proposed that they be
neutralist, progressive, but they pre-
ferred to be reactionary and to be
pro-American, to be capitalist, to be
very bourgeois. They do not like
revolution. They do not like
progresSivism..
" The Cambodian Communists first,
are very patriotic. They are Cam-
bodians and they refuse to be named
' Communists. They say they are pro-
gressive, they are Marxists. They like
ithe theories of Karl Marx and want to
have a good socialism for the people
in order to wipe out social injustice,
to have a strong, independent economy.
Sihanouk for them means independ-
ence and .neutrality, non-alignment for
Cambodia. And they know that I have
always fought for the independence of
my country. I am a nationalist.
"The title of our state?republic or
kingdom?is not important. What is
important is the substance. The royal
regime in the liberated zones is very
democratic, very popular. In fact, no
prince rules the liberated zone, only
the people .rule."
This is a rare public statement of
what I know, ' from many
private conversations on the subject,,
to be Sihanouk's inner thinking on
his relations with the Left, Patriotism
for him is , everything. For many
years he identified support for the
monarchy with patriotism. If Lon Nol,
in charge or internal as well
as external security in the old days
could fabricate evidence that the Left
was turning against the monarchy, then
Sihanouk turned against the left. Now
he sees things differently.
"The future is not with ?me,n he
Once told me. ." It is certainly not with
Lon Nol and his clique of traitors
either. It is with our young Leftists.
They are pure and patriotic." He was
explaining at that time why be would
go into retirement after the victory of
the resistance struggle ---? a victory
of which he has remained absolutely
certain. For a? considerable period, 'he
-rejected that idea of remaining Head
of State. It was only when Ieng Sary
arrived from the jungle headquarters
late in 1971 and persuaded him that it
was the Unanimous desire of the resist-
ance leadership that he continue as
Head of State after victory that he
accepted.
? Contrasted to the degree of national
unity?rare for any country?achieved
within the resistance government is the
disunity in the ranks of the Lon Nol
?regime. No matter' what merits
apologists for Lon Nol find in his
regime, they cannot deny that it.has
been riven by dissensiong at the;top
from the first months of the seizure of
power. Sink Matak, who co-authored
the plot with Lon Not and became
Prime Minister, was soon dumped.
Cheng Heng, ? former governor of
Phnom Penh's central prison chosen by
Lon Nol to succeed Sihanouk as..Head
;of State is also in disgrace. SontNgoe
Thanh, head of the CIA-financed
"Khmer Serei " who provided the
shock troops for the March 18 coup
and who aspired to be Head of State,,
was east aside after a brief iperiod as
Prime Minister. In Tam who succeeded
Cheng 1-Teng as president of the
National Assembly, now in open oppo4
salon to the regime.. ? The heads of ;
WASHINGTON POST
6 February, 1973
Secrecy Shrouds
Laos Air War
United Press International;
A Pentagon spokesman
said yesterday new De-
fense Secretary Elliot L.
Richardson is still trying
to find out why the air
war in Laos should be kept
so secret.
? Spokesman Jerry W.
Friedheim said policy on
the air war in Laos trans-
rival clans have been at each other's
throats throughout the three years
since Sihanouk was overthrown.
The coup against Sihanouk was
ostensibly because he had allowed the
Vietcong to enter the frontier areas.
It was the main charge at the trial
" in absentia " at which the former
Head of State was sentenced to death,
But within' six weeks, Cambodia was
invaded by tens of thousands of Saigon
troo?ps, looting, raping," killing and
destroying in order to maintain Lon
.Nol in power. Sihanouk was accused
of having permitted the Vietcong or 71
Vietminh to entrench themselves in
bases along the frontier regions.
But Lon Nol has ceded, or at least.
not resisted the takeover, large areas
in Svey Rieng and Prey Vent, provinces
to the Saigon regime, which are nowi'
included in South Vietnam's postal disi
tricts. The South Vietnamese base at:
Neak Luong some 40 miles east of , ?
Phnom Penh is now known as Little
Saigon. No Cambodians can enter the
area.
It is with the certainty that he has
.the whole 'country behind him and
that the Lon Nol regime cannot sur-.
.vi?ve withotit foreign intervention that
Sihanouk rejects any proposals for a
ceasefire in Cambodia or negotiations
with Lon Nol.
In Section 7 of the Draft Agreement,
finalised between Dr Kissinger and Le
Due Tho on October 17, 1972, and
which presumably remains the basis.
for whatever new agreement has been
negotiated, it is stated that:
" Foreign countries will cease all
military .activities in .Laos and Cam-
bodia, will withdraw from these two
countries all their troops, their mili
tary advisers and military personnel,
all arms, munitions and war material
and will refrain from reintroducing
them. The internal affairs of Cambodia
and Laos will .be settled by their res-
pective peoples without foreign inter;
ference. The final agreement,
published on Wednesday, is in the
same terms.
If outside military aid for the Lon
Nol regime ends, it cannot survive.
nor (hes it deserve to? survive. The
Royal Government of National Union,.
on the other hand will not only survive
but will flourish once the not,
are -
halted and life in the rural areas
returns to .normal.- The fable that the
Khmer resistance movement is a "North
Vietnamese invasion force" will be
exposed for what ,it is worth. It is
because of this that President Thieu in
Saigon on Lon Nol's behalf has
protested so strongly at the provisions
of the Draft Agreement concerning
Laos and Cambodia. As Thieu knows
only too well, a regime propped up by,
foreign arms - and dollars, inevitably
falls once the supports are pulled out
.from under, ?
It is doubtful that an agreement
contains anything which can provide
much comfort for Lon Nol and his
collaborators at the top in Phnom
Penh.
cends this building," indi-
cating that the State De-
partment and the White
House are involved in the
matter.
Friedheim said B-52
bombers and tactical air-
craft have continued their
strikes in Laos every day
since the Vietnam cease-
fire Jan. 27. Day by day,
announcements of the
strike are all that the Pen-
tagon will make public.
35
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NEw, yom T.ms Approved For Release 2001/08/07 : CIA-RDP177-00432R000100080001-8
31 January 1973
ITIV-12c21- TT:Pr Has Meant tb Saibofi
By CHARLES MOHR
special to The New York Times
SAIGON, South Vietnam;
,Jan. 30?What did more than
a decade of war accomplish for
South Vietnam?
North Vietnam's Le Due Tho
has already called the Paris
"Agreement on Ending the War
and Restoring Peace in Viet-
nam" a victory.
President Nixon called it
peace with honor
and asserted that
News "the people of
Analysis South Vietnam
have been guar-
anteed the right
to determine their own future
without outside interference."
Whatever the ultimate ver-
dict of history, it seems evi-
dent that the prolonged con-
flict really changed very little
in Vietnam.
- The catalyst of war, of
course, did bring many subtle
changes and some major
changes to South Vietnam
and South Vietnamese society.
It is easy to cite just a few.
; Vast numbers of people
moved ? into Saigon and other
cities and towns. Large parts
of rural Vietnam became
sparsely populated and a
largely peasant society be-
came increasingly urban.
Armed Forces Multiply.
The South Vietnamese
armed forces grew vastly in
size until today about one in
every 17 South Vietnamese
carries a gun for the Govern-
ment?a staggering mobiliza-
tion of military manpower.
A whole generation of non-
Communist members of the
social elite entered Public life
or the army, were discredited
and discarded. Vietnam seems
to have more retired generals
and politicians Ter capita than
any other country.
The years also brought a
degradation of the quality of
the Vietcong opposition. Al-
though directed by. Hanoi and
ideologically loyal to it, the
early insurgents were almost
wholly indigenous to the South.
Although few in numbers, they
were impressively motivated,
well led and subtle.
Today the leadership is
heayily Northern, more brutal
?. and less effective politically,
many ,here believe.
Comparison of Assets
A scoreboard of tangible as-
sets enjoyed by the competing
Vietnamese factions is some-
what .difficult to make?and,
more important, tends to be
misleading.
South Vietnam's armed forces
now total about 1.1 million
then, including 525,000 regular
troops and 294,000 fairly well-
trained Regional Force units.
The United States estimates
that 145,000 regular North
Vietnamese troops arc in the
South, but Saigon says the
number is about 300,0(10. There
is a higher percentage of fight-
ing riflemen among the Com-
munist' forces.
?
In any case, one lesson of
the war was that numerical
superiority meant little. Neither
.side has been able 'to achieve
decisive results.
The Saigon army and 'para-
military' forces are much better
equipped than in the past. This
does not mean that they are
significantly better led or bet-
ter motivated. The collapse of
some large units during last
year's enemy offensive illustrat-
ed that old problems remain,
One thing that has seen as-
tonishingly little change is the
attitude of the South Vietna-
mese elite ? the upper middle
class that monopolizes power
and privilege.
Before his death last year, an
able American adviser, John
Paul Vann, remarked to a
friend, "The South Vietnamese
are paying a price for years of
stupidity. Some of them don't
seem to learn."
The bourgeoisie, after having
lived through years of "revolu-
tionary" or political warfare,
gives virtually no sign that it
has recognized the need to
make, or will make, any sig-
nificant social reforms.
A modest land-reform pro-
gram has been pushed, but one
reason for this is that urban
economic opportunity, war-
born, corruption and other priv-
ileges have made land less im-
portant to the ruling Clite.
Their attitudes toward edu-
cation, authority and privilege
seem unchanged. The old Amer-
ican advice to "win hearts and
minds" is hardly, even given lip
service anymore. South Viet-
nam remains what it was in
the late nineteen-fifties, an in-
equitable society that functions
poorly.
One weakness of the Ngo
Dinh Diem Government was
that it had no coherent ideol-
ogy except a Confucian attitude
that authority should be re-
spected and an impenetrably
complex philosophy called "per-
sonalism." which the public did
not understand.
All these years later, the
Government still does not have,
or even claim to have, any
ideology, except anti-Commu-
nism.
This will be a matter of ma-
jor importance in the political
struggle that will follow the
cease-fire.
It is widely believed that
non-Communists and anti-Com-
munists made up a large ma-
jority of the South Vietnamese
a decade ago and that this is
just as true today. However,
this seems to grow out of Viet-
namese attitudes toward prop-
erty, toward the intrusion of
coercive authority and a gen-
eral peasant conservatism.
That such attitudes can be
changed under the impact of
political indoctrination has
been shown in many Commu-
nist states, such as North Viet-
nam, and in parts of South
Vietnam as well.
One really major change in
South Vietnam during the war
has been the gravitation of a
large majority of the popula-
REFUGEES FROM INDOCHINA WAR ?
(Sources: U.S. Agency for International Development, for
figures on South Vietnam and Laos; Cambodian Government,
for Cambodian figures.) ,
NORTH VIETNAM.
No figures available
LAO
1964-130,000
1965-129,000
1966-128,000
1967-118,000
1968-137,000
1969-240,000
1970-270,000
1971-234,200
1972-268,400,;?
CAMBODIA
1970 (from April)
?1,000,000
1971-600,000
1972-400,000
.(through Oct..)
SOUTH VIETNAM
1964-66-2,400,000,
1967-463,000
1968 ? 2,144,000
1969? 590,000
1970-410,000
1971 ----136,000
1972 ?1,288,800
In camps as 1973
Cumulative Total: began-641,000
South.Vietnam? More than 6.5 million officially listed
by U.S. Agency for International Development since 1964.
U.S. Subcommittee on Refugees and Escapees says 2 million
more should be added to this. ?
Cambodia?More than 2 million (a "very conservative" figure,
says Senate subcommittee)
Laos? More than 1 million.
tion into areas of "relative
security" under some measure
of Government control. ,
If the terms of the cease-fire
are honored, the Vietcong side
will have a small population
under its direct influence and
;will have to resort to clandes-
tine activity in areas prepon-
derantly controlled by the Gov-
ernment to achieve political
conversions.
There is a great question,
however, whether the South
Vietnamese Government will?be
able to exploit its advantages.
It has never shown an ability
? or a recognition of the
need?to respond to poptilq
aspirations.
Like the late Prenident Vern,
?President Nguyen ?Van Tblett
36.
Tho Now York Times/Jan. 31,1973
has placed a premium that
lamounts to a priority on loyalty
to the presidential palace 'Pin
'selecting military and civil i4
,ministrators. (Many of the?proL
vincial administrators are' Mili-
tary anyway.) This has led .t
great attrition among official
but not to any notable improve-
ment in the quality of govern,
ment. The Vietcong political
structure also does not seem
to function well and has .lost
much of its old elan.
As an informed American
said some years ago, "This is
not a service Government?it
doesn't sec its role as ,doing
;things for people."
I South Vietnam's enemies
have not done well either; in
tho lilfit deCt14.41,
nists won a great psychological
victory in their 1968 offensive,'
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NEW YORK TIMES
26 January 1973
serlotisly eroding American
support for the war. But they
have never won a single stra-
tegic military victory, and rel-
atively few tactical ones. One
of their worst failures was that
they could not prevent the slow
drift of population away from
lamas they held. That many
people moved out of fear, .,a
allied bombs and firepower was
true, but does not reduce. the
Communists' problem. ?,--i'r.
The amount of territory
?"held" by either side has gone
up and down like a fever chart.
Right now the amount,, qf
countryside not under Govern-
ment control is quite large. A))
of this has a special relevance
because of the cease-fire, .iird;-
visions, which essentially ?for-
bid further seizures of land
The relevance of control., is
limited, however, becanse,,,?f
factors that much of ..the
world's public has never clearly
understood.
There has always been?a
necessity durino, the war . for
troops to pull into tight defen-
sive perimeters at night.. They
cannot occupy a "line" as?in
wars with fronts. There: has
also been a need in many in-,-..
secure areas to patrol or move
in large units. The result is?that
In large areas "control" has a
limited definition.
? If the cease-fire provision
:prohibiting all armed patrolling;
is honored, it will make it difm
ficult to detect, much.- less,,
deter, clandestine movements.
The most significant part of
the agreement is the provision 1
that the two South Vietnamese
parties should agree to general
elections to be conducted ,byfa.
National Council for Natiorlal
Reconciliation and Concord:7.
There are so many dangers
in this procedure for both sides
that it seems difficult to believe
that such an agreement.. wilk.
ever be reached.
As long as the elections can.
be delayed, the Government's
police forces may well be strong'
enough to prevent serious polit.
ical gains and subversion by the
Communists. But the Govern,
ment's position seems to' p9'7,.'
litical observers less strong' if
the elections are scheduled'.`
Presumably, no agreement
would be made by the Vietcong.
unless the agreement abolished&
those restrictions written, int%
South Vietnamese election laws,
that tightly limit competition:.
among South Vietnamese'-
factions. :I i
In a free atmosphere, .the.-
Communists would stand unitedz
and the non-Communists would.
probably split into many relai?
tively weak parties. And, if ther
elections are intolerably do,
layed or evaded, the North Viet::
namese and Vietcong would.
have an excuse to resort ' te''.
war again. ? ,,,,...
After a long war, Sotith
Vietnam is in some ways
stronger than it was in late:
1961 when American advisers.
and helicopters began arriving::
Despite great losses and arcl
suiting loss in the quality , of
personnel, the Vietcong have,
been heavily reinforced- ., by,
North Vietnam, and are :also.
strong. .,
The second Indochina wan;
1 therefore, cost much blood ? and
suffering but settled altnest;
nothing. . .1 .2.!
The South Vietnamese Economy:
epression and Joblessness Ahead
' By CRAIG R. WHITNEY
Special to The New York Times
SAIGON, South Vietnam,
Jan. 25 ?The peace agree-
ment between North Vietnam
and the United States has one
provision that stood out as im-
probable when the Communists
oroadcast it in October. "Peace
and national independence
must be closely linked with the
exercise of broad democratic
freedoms," the Hanoi radio-said,
"including guarantees for the
right to private ownership and
for freedom of enterprise, as
provided for in the said agree-
ment."
Communist broadcasts do not
often include such thoughts.
Thus the economy of South
Vietnam will apparently be al-
lowed to function in peace as
it has been during the war ?
a concession that, on closer
examination, seems as full of
pitfalls as the peace agreement
itself.
For most of the last decade,
South Vietnam has been on a
war economy. This has not
meant price controls, con-
straints and shortages for any-
one except the poor and prop-
ertyless, for, buoyed by large
amounts of American aid, mili-
ary spending and free-wheel-
ing currency inflation, South
Vietnamese and American en-
trepreneurs have made a great
deal of money.
U.S. Money Withdrawn
As American troops and
American money have been
withdrawn over the years, how-
ever, the Government has been
hard put to find new sources of
money for investment or indus-
trial development, and the pros-
pects for either of these will re-
main dim for at least as long as
South Vietnam's political future
is doubtful.
The economy was dealt a
severe blow when the North
Vietnamese offensive began last
April. Since then, despite a
number of economic reforms
begun in the last part of 1971,
local businessmen and invest-
ors have held onto their money,
done little building and laid off
large numbers of factory work-
ers while presumably waiting
to see how things turn out. A
million refugees, driven from
their homes by the fighting,
went on the dole.
Saigon is in what can only
be called a depression, with
many people out of work and
short of money.
Prices have continued to rise
at an annual rate of 23 per
.cent and most incomes
have not risen correspondingly.
The outlook is that the econ-
omy will remain rather un-
healthy, though not in danger
of collapse.
Defense Spending Is Heavy
Why is this? First and most
important, the national budget
is heavily weighted to defense
spending. Next year's budget of
436.5 billion piasters. or about
$1.6-billion, includes 324 billion
piasters for defense. according
to official Government figures.
According to South Viet-
namese officials, the Govern-
ment does not plan to scale
down its military establishment
until at least another year has
gone by. With 500,000 men in
the regular army and more
than a million carrying arms,
the effects of sudden demobil-
ization of large numbers of men
for whom there are no jobs
would be catastrophic.
A second reason for pessi-
mism about the economic future
is that, the budget deficit this
year, was $400-million and
Government economists figure
that it will be almost $600-mil-
lion, next year. American aid
has made up the difference in
the past and presumably will
have to continue to fill the gap
between the Government's tax
collections and its expendi-
tures.
In 1971, when there were
hundreds of thousands of
American soldiers here, they
spent $400-million at one time.
There were 140,000 Vietnamese
employed by Americans in jobs
from laundresses? and chauf-
feurs to interpreters, clerks,
and office managers. Now
about 50,000 are on American
payrolls.
Troop Withdrawal Continuing
The Vietnamese have been
adjusting to the gradual with-
drawals of the last three years,
however, and American offi-
cials here do not expect the
catastrophic results from the
withdrawal of the 23,700 Ameri-
can servicemen who are still in
Vietnam.
Until alternative sources 4of
income can be found, Ameri-
can aid will have to continue
to make up the difference, ac-
cording to officials here. "It is
the responsibility of the United
States Congress to do that
much if they vote to ratify
this settlement," said one,
speaking of the peace agree-
ment.
What about foreign invest-
ment? This has been courted
by the South Vietnamese Gov-
ernment for the last few years,
hut so far the biggest poten-
tial investor ? Japan ? has
not risked anything substantial.
The Japanese Honda motor-
cycles that clog Saigon's streets
were imported not by Japanese
entrepreneurs but by American
and Vietnamese economic of-
ficials who needed them to
soak up the floods of piasters
that were being printed by the
Government to finance the war
during, the peak years of the
late nineteen-sixties. Now no
Hondas are being imported.
Japanese newsmen and .Jap-.
Ianese Embassy officials here
'were agreed that their Govern-
ment would take a hand in
providing aid after a cease-fire,
37
but all doubt that businessmen
would join in with private in-
vestments until much later.
"The economy will follow,
not lead, political and military
events," one American official
said. "Businessmen will wait
and see, make a judgment on
(what's going to happen before
Ithey risk capital."
I Before the war, South Viet-
nam's principal exports used to
be rice and rubber. There is
little international market for
rice any more because other
.countries can grow enough of
their own. In any case, In-
,cause the war has driven', so
,many people from the country-
side into the cities, this coun-
try does not even produce
enough for itself now.
The rubber plantations have
been theaters of war this year
?notably around An Loc, about
80 miles north of here, which
used to be a rubber-processing
town and is now in ruins?
and in any case they provide
only $7-million to $8-million
In exports even before the war
expanded in 1972.
So the postwar economy of
South Vietnam is likely, for a
while, to be more or less what
it is now ? an economy of
subsistence, of small markets in
the towns, of transportation of
rice, vegetables, pork and fish;
from the rural hamlets into the
population centers, with a re-
turn flow of piasters and light
manufactured goods back to
the countryside.
Unforeseeable Factor
The unforeseeable factor in,
the future is this: With a cease-
fire in place, will the flow be
allowed to continue from, say,
Owns under Government con-
trol to villages under Commu-
nist control? This worries Gov-
ernment officers with respon-
sibility for economic matters.i
"What do we do about all
these 'leopard spots'?" one
Vietnamese economist asked.
"Even with the war this year,
anywhere a commercial truck
could go, the economy carried
on more or less normally. What
happens if the other side in-
stitutes its own currency in the
areas it controls?
"We've just begun to think
about things like that," he
added.
Probably even that would
not be insurmountable for the
Vietnamese, who have been
trading through currency bar-
riers for years along the Cam-
bodian border ? trading goods,
piasters and riels without any,
great difficulty.
"We hope to be ready, by
the time the cease-fire takes
effect," one Cabinet minister
said not long ago. "I doubt If
we'll make it."
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31 January 1973
SMITH HEMPS TONE
Tik. Peace of P Gins Is a Sec
Knocking the Peace of
.. Paris, which will extricate the
United States from Vietnam
and secure the release of the
American prisoners of war.
affords no pleasure.
And yet when one reads the
fine print in the agreement
and its four attached proto-
cols, and studies the tran-
script of Henry Kissinger's
marathon briefing of the
press, one can only come to
the conclusion that President
' Nixon and the good doctor
have produced a peace which
passeth all understanding,
that they are peddling a sec-
ond-hand Edsel as 'a Rolls-
Royce.
One understands Nixon's
predicament. He has said re-
peatedly that he will not be
the first American president to
"lose" a war, that he will not
settle for anything short of an
"honorable" peace. Therefore
it follows that any Nixon
peace is "honorable" by de-
finition, that the Vietnam war
has not been "lost."
? Yet the Peace of Paris of
LONDON TIKES
13 Jan. 1973
1973 bears an alarming re-
semblance to those earlier
protocols on Indochina, the
Geneva accords of 1954 and
1992, both of which were vio-
lated by the Communists
virtually before the ink of the
signatures was dry.
Aside from the unworkable
monstrosity called the Nation-
al Council for National Recon-
ciliation and Concord (in
which each side will have a
veto over the other and which
can confidently be expected to
produce neither reconciliation
nor. concord), there are two
aspects of the agreement that
really rankle.
One is the minor oversight
in which no mention is made
of the presence of 145,000
North Vietnamese regular
troops within South Viet-
nam and hence no require-
ment is made for their, with-
drawal. Kissinger shrugged
this off by saying that since
the presence of foreign troops
is forbidden in Laos and Cam-
bodia and military movement
across the Demilitarized Zone
between North and South Viet-'
nd-Han Edsel
nam is not allowed, "there is
no way North Vietnam can
live up to that agreement
without there being a reduc-
tion of the North Vietnamese
forces in South Vietnam."
Well and good. But who is
going to see to it that these
troops are not reinforced, re-
equipped and resupplied in
violation of the agreement?
There will be a grand total of
48 Canadians, Hungarians,
Poles and Indonesians to su-
pervise the thousands of miles
of the Ho Chi Minh trail
through Laos and Cambodia.
There will be another 12 to
oversee the DMZ. Hardly an
airtight arrangement, which
? perhaps is why Kissinger laid
such emphasis on "the spirit"
with which the provisions
must be implemented if they
are to be successful.
The truth is, of course, that
diplomacy can do more than
reflect conditions on the
ground. Since we and the
South Vietnamese were un-
able to force the North Viet-
namese out of South Vietnam
militarily, there was no way.
.Haeritan fuel Oil f u d ins
r peak.bOthibiiig
From Ian McDonald
Washington, Jan 12
One factor prompting Presi-
dent Nixon to halt the intensive
bombing of North ? Vietnam
t above the twentieth parallel, it
was learnt here today, was the
'strain the Offensive was throw- ,
ing on the .already severe short-
age of fuel oil. in the United
States.. ?
? The Administration bad est.:i-
inated? that it would be neces-
sary to make an initial purchase
of between four million and 43
million barrels of fuel for
the Air Force to maintain an
all-out offensive against North
Vietnam. To continue the
offensive until March, it was cal-
xulated, would require a total of
between seven million and 7.5
million barrels..
Because .of the already drastic
shortages of fuel oil, in ? the
United States. however, the Ad-
ministration found it could only
be assured of an initial supply
of some 800,000 barrels, less
than sufficient to keep the air
war at its peak 'level.
The strain that the Vietnam
?war has thrown on fuel reserves
in the United States has been
one of the less appreciated side-
effects' of . the ? conflict. It
reached. a peak this' winter
because a wave of unusually cold
weather has prevailed through.
'out much of the country, sending
the domestic demand for 'fuel
oil soaring.
fficient
N Vietaa
? In New York recently three
major airlines had to curtail
'operations because of shortages
of fuel and the Middle West has
been badly affected by restric-
tions on the supply of fuel oil for
homes. ?
President. Nixon's , forthcom-
ing message on energy resources
will it j8 reported, recommend
that' many of the nation's elec-
tric'poWer plants should be con-
verted from oil :to coal burning.
This, coupled with the "selec-
tive and temporary relaxation"
, of some air pollution standards,
? could result, in a saving of some
22 million barrels of oil ,a day
'by 1980. according to an estimate
of the Office of Emergency:Pre-
paredness. . _ -
Peter Haxeihurst ? writes from
? Saigon : 'After employing their
giant B52 bombers on raids over
?North Vietnam in recent weeks,
. the Americans have suddenly
-been forced to divert most Of
:them on to. targets 'only 30 miles
away from Saigon--
- A Spokesman for ? the United
States. Command announced to-
day that the majority of the
available B52 bomber force was
yesterday engaged in dropping
an estimated 1,260 tons of bombs
over communist advance posi-
tions in five square miles of
jungle 30 miles north-north-weft
of Saigon. Against these targets
in.Binh Duong province 14 mis-
sions were flown -from the B52
38
bases in Guam and Thailand. (A
mission consists of three ? B52s,
each capable of carrying 30 tons
,of boinbs.)
This announcement .coincides
with reports that the -South
Vietnamese expect a communist'
offensive in the area and from
:the adjoining province of Tay
Ninh before a 'ceasefire -comes
Into force. Both provinces ?
'adjoin the border of Cambodia:
? The spokesman said ?that the
remainder of the B52 force
available in 8outh-East Asia
flew 12 missions over targets in
North Vietnam -and another
seven over Other areas of 'South'
?Vietnam.,
Richard ? Wigg lirrittaS? ?? frOM
? Paris : Another marathon ses-
sion lasting six hours was held
today by Dr Henry Kissinger
'and Mr Le Due The, in *their
search for a ceasefire agreement
'in Vietnam.
The optimisin sensed after
yesterday's six hour meeting
was further encouraged today
by a visible welcome from
North-Vietnamese official when
Dr " Kissinger and -his team
'arrived for today's session. The
chief negotiators have now ne-
gotiated- -for more ? . than 27
hours since they' resumed con-
tacts' On Monday ? ? after the
American bombing of North
Vietnam. ? .
There ? will be no weekend
break and the two men are to
meet again tomorrow.
we could do it diplomatically.
But that doesn't mean their
presence increases tha.
chances of peace.
The second point upon'
which one gags is Article 21
of Chapter VIII: "In pursu-
ance of its traditional policy,
the United States will con-
tribute to healing the wounds
of war and to postwar!recon-
struction" of North Vietnam.-
This danegeld reportedly will
amount to $2.5 billion 'ever a
five-year period, although,
Kissinger maintains that "the
definition of any particular
sum', has not been arrived at.
' This means that pant of the,
federal income tax of Nay.
Lt. Everett Alvarez Jr., who
for more than eight years re-
fused to give the North Viet-
namese more than his name,
rank and serial number, will,
be earmarked for the rebuild-
ing of his captors' country,
a country against which 46,.
000 other Americans died
fighting.
The situation is not analo-
gous to those which obtain-
ed in post-World War II Ger-
many and Japan. These na-
tions had surrendered to us
unconditionally and we were
directly responsible for their
economic, social and political
well-being. For a parallel,
one has to go back in Amer-
ican history. to the years
1795-1801, when a weak and
newly independent United
States paid large sums of pro-
tection money to the Barbary
pirates in a vain effort to
safeguard our shipping in the
Mediterranean, a situation
which led an exasperated
Charles Pinckney to exclaim,
"Millions for defense, but not
a damned penny for tribute!"
The terms which Nixon and
Kissinger obtained probably
were the best that were to be
had, if only because the war
had been lost politically here
at home long ago, if not on ?
the battlefields of Indochina.
We can be grateful, then,
that our prisoners are com-
ing home and that America
is finally extricated from a
war she lacked the will to
win,
The Geneva accords of 1954
ended France's eight-year
struggle against communism
in Indochina. The Paris agree-
ment of 1973 ends the 10-year
American involvement. Now
the South Vietnamese are go-
ing to have to hack it them-
selves. But to pretend that
the Peace of Paris is "hon-
orable" or that it is likely to
end the fighting in Indo-
china is, well, stretching
things a bit.
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WASHINGTON POST
1 February, 1973
Victor Zorza
... And an iinb 1
? WITH VIETNAM out of the way, the
Nixon administration has embarked on
the slow and intricate task of building
the world balance of power that is to
preserve the peace "for a generation
and more," as Mr. Nixon hopes.
The balance, to be made up of the
world's five major powers?the United
States, Russia, China, Japan, and Eu-
rope?is, at best, an uncertain and
unstable thing and, at worst, in the
view of the administration's critics,
downright dangerous. The mutual in-
terdependence of the five powers
could, in the event of a breakdown iri
the balance between any two of them,
cause the trouble to spread throughout
the whole international system like
wildfire, more rapidly, More uncon-
trollably than ever.
Mr. Nixon's answer to "those who
scoff at balance of power diplomacy"
Is simple. "The only alternative to a
balance of power is an imbalance of
power, and history shows that nothing
so drastically escalates the danger of
war as such an imbalance." Speaking
with the end of the war in Vietnam in
sight, he explained recently that the
rare opportunity to create an interna-
tional system of stability and lasting
peace arose from "precisely the fact ?
that the elements of balance now ex-
ist."
But what are these elements? The
few remarks that ? Mr. Nixon and Dr.
Kissinger have allowed themselves to
make on the most important subject of
international politics are so brief, so
uninformative, as to defy intelligent
discussion. If serious students "scoff"
at the administration's grand notions,
it is because they are allowed to see
only the shadow and not the substance.
The secrecy which might have been
justifiable in the ease of Kissinger's
NEW YORK TIMES
26 January 1973
nee of Power?
trips to Peking and to Moscow, and in
the Paris negotiations, has been
stretched to cover the broad concepts
of foreign policy which ought to be, in
a democracy, open to public debate
and challenge. It is becoming almost
as difficult to analyze the administra-
tion's thinking ? as the Kremlin's?
which may be fun for Kremlinologists,
but is hardly conducive to. the shaping
of sound policies.
The "elements of balance" about
which Mr. Nixon is so reticent are to
be found in the belief of administra-
tion officials that the Vietnam settle-
"What the Nixon-Kissinger
diploniacy did ...Was not
to balance Russia and
China, but to,play them
off against each other."
meat was made possible by China's
fear of Russia. Kissinger's closest asso-
ciate in the Paris talks, Deputy Assist-
ant Secretary of State William H. Sul-
livan, believes that Peking promoted a
settlement because it feared that Indo-
china might come to be dominated by
Hanoi and susceptible to Moscow. He
omitted to add that Russia promoted a
settlement for precisely the opposite
reason, out of fear that China might
come to dominate the area.
What the Nixon-Kissinger diplomacy
did, with consummate skill, was not to
balance the two, but to play them off
against each other. Is this the pattern
for the "balance of power diplomacy"
in the world at large of which Mr:
Nixon speaks? Before his visits to Mos-
cow and Peking, he sought to reassure
Vietnam Aftermath
It's over. Or at least it is supposed to be tomorrow;
completion and announcement of agreementbetween the
United States and North Vietnam did not deter final,
senseless acts of combat just before the cease-fire is
to take effect.
The very notion of an end to the Vietnam war is
hard to comprehend in the abstract, so accustomed have
we all become to the outpouring of spirit, wealth and
manhood which the decade past has demanded of us.
This Republic has learned much about itself, about its
leaders, about the world and the meaning of power from
the ordeal it suffered in mountains and rice paddies half-
way around the globe. Not all the lessons are comforting
?in fact few of them are. ?
If Vietnam is to have any meaning at all, these lessons
must be defined and absorbed by a coming generation
just as the problems of the war dominated the sensi-
tivities of the generation now maturing. "No More Viet-
nams" has already become a sort of national battle cry.
It is now the country's great task to ensure that this
expression of hope will be turned into reality.
? Vietnam spanned the era of American foreign policy
after. World War II, from the epoch when the prime
objective was "containment" of international Com-
munism, to the present day when co-existence with Corn-
his hosts by declaring that he did not
want to set them at each other's
throats.
The fact remains that their mutual
hostility was the most important factor
in making both his visits a success.
The United States is hardly likely to
forego the opportunity to exploit their
enmity so long . as it continues. The
"structure of peace" between the Com-
munist powers and the United States
in the post-Vietnam world rests in the
shaky foundations of the Sino-Sovitt
quarrel. ? .
The balance betWeen the five gre-ot
powers is often viewed as a state Of '
equilibrium in which their previously
conflicting interests hate been brought
into correspondence. BLit. the classical
notion of the balance ce. nower in-
volves a dynamic relationshi; lietwen
three countries of varying ::',.ength.
Where one power strives for s. ?.!.em-
acy, and looks like achieving it ?`-vsr
the second power, the third play,'?
adds its own weight to that of the
weaker country, in order to prevent a
dangerous accumulation of strength in
the hands of the first This is, by its
very nature, a constantly changing and,
shifting relationship, which is made
much more changeable by the rapid
pace of economic and technological
growth in the modern world.
So the first condition for the manip-
ulation by the United States of the
world balance of power is the mainte-
nance of imbalance. This is what the
other ;four powers, including Japan
and Europe, will increasingly suspect,
with distrust rising to hostility, unless
the United States offers soon a de-
tailed explanation of its thinking in
support of its claims that such suspi-
cions are groundless.
1973 Victor Zora
munism is seen as possible, necessary and desirable?
for mutual benefit and survival. The Communist world,
too, has evolVed. The United States might not have gone
into Vietnam had the depth of schism between the Soviet
Union and China been clearly perceived; it could not
have come out safely if this schism had not become
the dominant' reality to both Moscow and Peking. Some
will argue that America's firmness in Vietnam has
hastened the growth of a less overtly menacing form
of national Communism; it certainly did not retard this
evolution, as pessimistic Americans feared it would.
When President Kennedy led the nation into what
became an open-ended military commitment to a strug-
gling small state, the United States Government was
confident in its own power and skill, and it enjoyed the
confidence of the American people. As President Nixon
succeeds finally in extracting the nation, poorer and
wiser, from the commitment, confidence is not a senti-
ment in surplus across the land.
Americans today have learned to distrust the notion.
of a war to end wars. Yet it is possible to retain a certain
faith. It may not be empty rhetoric to believe that the
scars of Vietnam can bring new strength as they heal,
strength gathered in a clearer definition of the priorities
for the use of national power. strength can come from
a more precise evaluation of the possibilities and limi-
tations inherent in that power. And strength can spring
from understanding, from tolerance and from humility.
39
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WASHINGTON STAR
1 February 1973
CROSBY S. NOYES
emocracy in Asia Conv:'llnues Pla SeId Dell7fiLe
Is it an inevitable part of the
American retreat from Asia
that democracy in that part of
the world is doomed?
There is evidence enough to
support the argument. Since
the proclamation of the Nixon
doctrine of limited commit-
ment, since the reduction of
American military power in
the Western Pacific area,
since the' withdrawal from
Vietnam and the end of Ameri-
can predominance in Asia, the
trend against democratic gov-
ernment has been impressive.
Not that there were so many
democracies to begin with. In
South Korea, democratic gov-
ernment under Syngman Rhee
and his successors always has
been a fragile flower and now,
under President Park Chung
Hee, apparently has been defi-
nitely discarded. No one could
ever have accused the Nation-
alist Chinese bastion of Tai-
wan, for all its achievements,
of respecting the rules of
self-government.
The ,philippines has had a go
at it, and it has been a misera-
ble failure. The proclamation
of martial law and the as-
sumption of one-man rule by
Philippine President Ferdi-
nand Marcos are hailed by
most of his countrymen as an
inevitable and desirable devel-
opment.
WASHINGTON STAR
26 January 1973
The same pattern applies to
the rest of Southeast Asia.
Anyone wile looks forward to
the development of the demo-
cratic ideal anywhere ? in In-
donesia, in Singapore, in Laos
and Cambodia, in Thailand
and Burma ? probably is
nourishing a dying illusion.
? Everywhere, it seems, the
move toward totalitarianism
as a defense against commu-
nism is the order of the day.
Oddly enough, the exception
so far among the Southeast
Asian states is South Vietnam.
Listening to American liber-
als, one could well come to the
conclusion that the Saigon re-
gime is the least democratic in
the area. But the fact is that
for a nationimminently
threatened in its existence, the
record of the Saigon regime
has been extraordinarily ? in
Asian terms ? liberal.
In the midst of mortal war,
constitutional conventions
have been held, elections orga-
nized, an opposition tolerated
in politics and the press. In
one of the very few instances
in history, the authority of a
government fighting for its life
has been severely circum-
scribed in the measures that it
has been able to take in its
own self-defense.
This, to be sure, may not
last much longer. The depar-
ture of the American presence
has been marked in Vietnam,
Philip ph 'Tragedy
The saddest thing about the death of
democracy in the Philippines is that
Ferdinand E. Marcos is probably right: A
very great majority of his countrymen
want him to run the country indefinitely
as an absolute dictator.
At any rate, he has accommodated
them with a vengeance. By proclama-
tion, Marcos has now extended a nation-
al state of martial law and abolished the
parliament indefinitely. Elections that
were scheduled for next November will
not be held. By his own order, he has
assumed the offices of both president
and prime minister which he proposes to
exercise for at least the next seven years
-- or until "normalcy" is restored in the
country:Martial law, says Marcos, will be
maintained "only as long as necessary,"
which, on the record, could mean for-
ever.
Many will say that the people of the
Philippines have asked for it ? Marcos,
for one. He is only bowing to what he
claims is the overwhelming mandate of
as elsewhere, by a move to-
ward authoritarian govern-
ment by those who are being
left on their own. It is fairly
predictable the government in
Saigon will become increasing-
ly. centralized ? and also quite
possibly increasingly repres-
sive ? in the months to come.
And, distressing as this may
be to the liberal community in
this country, it will appear as
elementary common sense to ,
the great majority of Vietnam-
ese.
There are exceptions, to be
sure. In South Vietnam, as in
the Philippines and Korea and
elsewhere, there , are some
who deplore the demise of
the demorca tic idea that
flourished for a brief peri-
od of American predominance
in the postwar era. There are
even some who believe that
the present trend toward total-
itarianism is not irreversible
and that the United States has
an opportunity and an obliga-
tion to do something about it.
I have a letter from Kim
Dae Jung, the young South Ko-
rean legislator who unsuccess-
fully opposed President ?Park
in the elections of 1971,,, bitter-
ly protesting Park's recent
seizure of dictatorial powers
and blaming American policy
to a large degree.
The problem, as Kim sees it,
is that Asian democracy is lit-
tle more than a byproduct of
the people, given him under, a govern-
ment-organized "opinion poll" in which
several million Filipinos expressed their
approval by a show of hands. More total
contempt for the democratic process
would be hard to imagine.
To be sure, the Philippines have nev-
er been the showplace of Asian democra-
cy that Americans havefl liked to think
their former colony represented. Corrup-
tion in politics and in the everyday life
of the country was rampant. Anarchy
was the order of the day and a total
disregard for the elements of law and
order was more or less taken for granted.
Marcos has provided a remedy ? of a
sort. By suppressing every element of the
press he may be able to assure effective
government and even possibly bring
about the new, reformed society that he
has been promising. Yet Marcos himself
is now the victim of the greatest corrup-
tion of all ? the corruption of absolute
power. And his countrymen, very surely,
will suffer for it.
40
American victory. in? World
War II and that the United
States has been highly undis:
criminating in backing any
government which proclaims
itself to be anti-Communist,
regardless of how dictatorial
it may be. As a result, "demo-
cratic forces in Asian cOun-
tries have been attacked by
communism on the left and by
dictatorship on the right And
were unable to take root." '
.The effort of the NixonCad,
ministration to normalize rela-
tions with Communist China
and the withdrawal of Ameri-
can power from Asia have ac-
celerated the trend toward au-
thoritarian government. In
Kim's view, this has "tended
to hasten 'democratic' leaders
of Asia to take drastic meas-
ures to consolidate their pow-
ers along the line of military,
dictatorship in dealing with
Communist leaders in the,
course of political Confronta- .
tion instead of developing the'
growth of democratic institu-
tions."
In the case of_South Korea,.
Kim is quite right. President
Park's seizure of power cer-
tainly was precipitated by the
uncertainties provoked by the
shifting American policy and
by developing contacts with
the Communist North which
pose a potential threat to polit-
ical stability in the South. To
some extent, it also is true of
the Philippines, Thailand and
South Vietnam, all of which
seem headed down the path cf
military dictatorship.
Kim remains mildly hopeful
that in time the combined influ-
ence of the United States and,
Japan may swing the pendit;
lum back toward a revival of
Asian democracy. The alterna-
tive, as he sees it, is that .la-,
pan itself will relapse into mil-
itaristic authoritarianism, with
consequences for Asia and,.
the rest of the world that can-
not be foreseen.
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WASHINGTON POST
31 JANUARY 1973
Robert II. Johnson
Will 'Peace With Honor'
Lead to Peace ith Bombs?
"I said . . . tliatI did not want to
speculate on North Vietnamese
motives; I have too much trouble
analyzing our own." ? Henry Kis-
singer at his January 24 press con-
ference.
From one point of view, the Vietnam
cease-fire agreement is a magnificent
achievement. Its bewildering array of
organizations, principles and processes
permits us to argue without fear of
contradiction that ? as the President
-
said in his speech to the nation ? the
U.S. has achieved "the goals that we.
considered essential for peace with
honor." At the same time, it allows
the Communists to claim victory be-
cause it removes the U.S. from the
ground in Indochina while leaving
Communist political and military ele-
ments in place and offering them ex-
cellent prospects for future success.
The agreement seeks ?to initiate a
series of processes leading eventually
The writer . is the Charles
Evans Hughes Professor of Gov-
ernment at Colgate University.
He was a member of the State
Department's Policy Planning
Council from. 1962-67.
to reconciliation and peace. But it is
upon cooperation between two anta-
gonists who refuse to recognize each
other's legitimacy. The prospects are
that disagreements will lead to the
stalling and rapid breakdown of the
various joint commissions and super-
visory bodies; no elections will be held;?
no agreed reports on cease-fire viola-
tions are likely, and so forth.
SAIGON MAY TAKE the initiative,
through assassinations and other ac-
tions against Communist elements, to
provoke Communist responses. The.
Communists, in turn, may revert to a,
program of assassinations of govern-
ment officials and other kinds of low-
level guerrilla activity. In this situa-
tion the temptation to raise the mili-
tary ante will be strong, especially for
Saigon which may believe that it has
a temporary military advantage.
In view of U.S. responsibility for the
situation in _ Indochina, no morally
sensitive American can contemplate
the likelihood of continued hostilities
with equanimity. But the key question
for most Americans will be whether
the cease-fire agreement will end our
military involvement in the struggle.
For an answer, we must examine the
issue Dr. Kissinger refused to? address
in his press conference ? the question
or the-motivations of North Vietnam
and the U.S.
WE CAN ASSERT with assurance',
on the basis of history and the state-
ments made by the North Vietnamese.
leaders since the announcement of the
agreement, that Hanoi will not give
up the. struggle. Moreover, it seems
genuinely to view the new context of
the struggle as one promising ultimate
victory for the Communist cause. Re-
ports indicate that Communist ele-
ments in the South have been directed
to lie low for the next two to five
months.
. That period evidently is judged to
be the interval required for the phy-
sical and the psychological disengage-
ment of the U.S. from the war. (On'
the same reasoning, the. Saigon govern-
ment may see the two-five months as
the period during which it must re-
assure itself of continuing U.S. support
by engaging in provocations to produce
Communist "violations" of the cease-
fire; violations which will be utilized ?
to stimulate U.S. reprisals.) .
As Dr. Kissinger's statement implies,,
there has been, and continues to be,
a great deal of ambiguity as to ultimate
U.S. purposes. Ever since the Nixon
administration first announced its
basic Vietnam policies in November
1969, there has been a serious question
as to whether President Nixon gives
priority to ending ALL U.S. involve-
ment in the war or priority to ensuring
the indefinite continuation of a, non-..
Communist regime in Saigon.'
IN THE U.S. government, this kind
of question is seldom answered in the
? abstract, at least in a meaningful sense.
Rather, policy-makers develop certain
predispositions which become evident
only when they confront concrete sit-
uations. One such concrete situation
was the conclusion of a tentative agree-
ment last October. That agreement,
like the final one, suggested, if taken
at face value, that the U.S. was giving
priority to ending its involvement
through a "soft" settlement. But it
was precisely this softness that appears
to have evoked the President's con-
cern and led to the devastation bomb-
ing of Hanoi-Haiphong. Kissinger ?
evidently had read the. President's.
motivations somewhat inaccurately.
Reading U.S. motivations as they
affect our future actions in Indochina
is a science that is little more advanced
than Kremlinology or the reading of
tea leaves. But during the months of
negotiations there have been some in-
dicators. All tend to suggest that we
take the agreement very seriously and?
that we can .be expected to react
strenuously to significant "violations"
of it. Some of these indicators are
these:
? One of the issues over which the
tentative agreement broke down was
the size and freedom of action of the
141
international supervisory force. The
President evidently sees that force as
a significant deterrent to violations
and as a mechanism that will provide.
the rationale for U.S. unilateral en-
forcement action should violations
occur.
? In the late fall, several hundred ,
.Foreign Service. Officers with prior ,
service in Vietnam were alerted for ,
return to Vietnam. They were to pro- '
vide the ? U.S. with a unilateral in-
spection force for the post cease-fire
period. Emplacing Foreign Service of-
ficeri in the countryside may make a
great deal of sense if you want to cite
the Communists for every violation
and intend to counter, or retaliate fog,
such violations. It makes no sense
all if you expect an ultimate col*:
munist takeover ,and hope it will prq-
ceed relatively quietly and unnoticed.;
? It was reported in the fall that
the U.S. would put its substantial mili-
tary advisory group into civilian cloth-
ing and leave it in Vietnam, thus by-
passing in a formal sense the require-
ment for removal of all U.S., military
personnel. This tactic has been em-
ployed in Laos and it offers the'same
prospect for continuing U.S.. engage-
ment. in Vietnam .as it did in Laos..
? It was reported last week that sub-' '-
stantial American air forces will be
retained in the Indochina area for the
indefinite future, thus assuring us the
means for military retaliation for
violations of the agreement.-
These actions suggest that the 'ase-
fire agreement is not intended X_ a
veil behind which we will quietly st,\1
away with our POW's, but as a
ously enforceable arrangement which
could ensure the peace of Indochina
and offer very substantial hope for
the survival of a non-Communist gov-
ernment in Saigon.
If this is an accurate conclusion?
and if, as it appears, Mr. Nixon
Is very sensitive to the possibility that
the adverse actions of others consti-'
tute personal and national challenges
of will?then the continuation of the
military and political conflict in the
three Indochinese states will mean a
'very high likelihood of .U.S. military
're-involvement. We shall be bombing
? do keep the peace.
It could be argued that the cease-
fire agreement and the rhetoric that
has accompanied its publication have
.shifted public opinion in a way that
.restricts presidential freedom of ac-
tion'. But can one be sure of a neg-
ative public response to a presi-
dential appeal that bombing or other
military action is essential' "to pre-
serve the peace" that the cease-fire,
agreement had supposedly achieved?
Perhaps the most powerful deterrent
to U.S. military re-involvement is the
certainty that renewed bombing would '
produce new American POW's whom
we would have to extricate through
new negotiations and new agreements.
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b-T ved
27 JANUARY 1973
"77
ytJ'i 11i
By Jonathan C. Randal
washington Po 3E Forcian Service .
PARTS, Jan. 26 ? Free
elections are supposed to
provide South Vietnam with
stable and lasting institu-
tions. But there is good rea-
son to believe that meaning-
ful elections of any kind
will not take. place for a
? long time, if ever.
The timing and type of .
elections are left up to the
two rival South Vietnames
administrations to settle by,
"unanimity."
? The body designated to or-
ganize elections, the Na-
tional Council of Reconcilia-
tion and Concord, is sup-
posed to indlude equal num-
bers of Saigon, Vietcong and
neutralist members. But,
? both South Vietnamese,
sides have reiterated their '
seem in gly irreconcilable
- views on what kinds of elec-
tions they want.
Presidential Vote
Saigon Foreign Minister
Tran Van Lam again this
week announced that his
government favors presi-
dential elections within three
months. This is a natural
enough option since Presi-
dent Thieu figures that the
Vietcong could not manage.
to win such a contest so
soon after the cease-fire.
Mrs. Nguyen Thi Binh,
the Provisional Revolution-
ary Government (Vietcong)
foreign minister said she '
favors elections for a con-
stituent assembly. That im-
plies 'lengthy haggling to
77.
(rYrf