PACIFICATION DOES NOT SPELL PEACE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R001200140001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 3, 2000
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 8, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

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Approved For Release 2001/07/27: CIA-RDP80-
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The reported start of a new phase of
the "pacification" program in South
Vietnam suggests one more dreary
round in Washington's policy there, a
policy which seems unable to learn any-
thing, or even see anything, from past
errors.
Top priority in what is called a new
program, but which actually sounds like
nothing more than a beefed-up effo t
to save the old one, is given to "neu-
tralization" of the Viet Cong political
apparatus, according to a report from
Washington. Yet this is what pacifica-
tion experts claimed, in Senate hearings
in February; 1970, they had just about
accomplished. The fact is that the
pacification program has been highly
controversial, even among Vietnamese,
since it began during the Johnson ad-
ministration, and in the 1970 hearings
some doubt was voiced by progra'n
leaders themselves about whether the
plan had, over-all, accomplished any
real good.
The worst aspects of the old plan are
all too conspicuous in the so-called new
one. The- emphasis on military sub-
jugation seams clear in projects such as
these: Expansion of a "people's intel-
ligence (or spy) network" to inform
military authorities of suspected enemy
activity; the setting up of a quota sys-
tem requiring "elimination" of 14,000
Viet Cong agents or suspected VC
agents this year; distribution of 700,000
more weapons to the People's Self-De-
fense Force and expansion of that force
to include women in combat units and
children over 7 in support units. (Why
not some Junior Spy units, too?)
Maybe the intentions are good. But
all the foregoing items smack to us of
the old body-count syndrome which can
lead to further brutalization of the
South Vietnamese populace, more up-
rooted families, and a tighter grip on
them by the Thieu-Ky junta. It could
also mean a flood of spiteful accusations
by one neighbor against another, all
ending in an extensive new dossier sys-
tem-which we presume stems from
that recently used by the Pentagon
against civilians in our own country.
Although the "new" pacification plan
includes sections on care of veterans
(who have been shamefully treated by
the Saigon regime), and orphans and
refugees, too, the whole operation still
is under the control of the U.S. military
and the CIA These are positively the
last two agencies in government which
should be handling social reconstruction
in South Vietnam. And we can see no
relief whatever in the idea of eventually
transferring this program to the hands
of the Saigon militarists.
The futility and wrong-headedness of
this approach are fairly reflected in
President Nixon's reported view of paci=
fication as a vital cog, dovetailing with
his so-called Vietnamization plan which
itself has been no howling. success.
Taken together, the two discredited
concepts, in the larger picture, can only
mean more Vietnamese killing more
Vietnamese with hardly any attention
given to national reconciliation or poli-
tical accommodation, both of which are
basic requirements for peace.
Approved For Release 2001/07/27 : CIA-RDP8O-01601ROO1200140001-6