DON'T LET THEM REWRITE HISTORY!

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000100700002-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 15, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: December 30, 1968
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/15: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100700002-8
30 December 1968
0
0
UGC Z Le'~ I illy
This seems to be the season for misrepresenta-
tions of the history of the Vietnam conflict. So
eager are the peace-at-any-price advocates to
consummate the final betrayal of South Vietnam
that no distortion, no lie, seems too gross for.
them. (We attempted to answer some of the these
distortions in last Thursday's editorial, "Why Ky
Is Adamant on VC," Union Leader, Dec. 26, 1968).
Included among the "facts we know that are
not so" is the bold assertion, by certain left-
leaning news commentators and newspaper col-
umnists, that South Vietnam allegedly violated
the Geneva accords when the Diem government
refused to hold re-unification elections in 1956.
The revival of this leftist line coincides, interest-
ingly enough, with Hanoi's insistence at the Paris
peace talks that the negotiations can progress
only if Washington gets rid of the current "ille-.
gal" government in Saigon.
As to the complete lack' of truth in the claim
that Saigon violated the Geneva accords, it should
be pointed out'that even major critics of the war
effort concede the falsity of the charge. Thus,
Vietnam war critic Hans Morgenthau pointed out,
in 1956, that "free elections are very subtle
instruments which require a dedication to certain
moral values and the existence of certain moral
conditions which are by no means prevalent in
either North or South Vietnam." The New York
Times, let it never be forgotten, also argued
against such elections in 1956 and 1957, and
President Kennedy, then (1956) a senator from
Ma:,sachusetts, pointed out:
,'Neither the United States nor free Vietnam
was a party to that (Geneva) agreement - and
:ioilher the United States nor f-. Vietnam is
ev. r going to he a party to an election obviously
stacked and subverted in advance, urged upon us
by inose who have already broken their own
pledges. under the agreement they now seek to
enforce."
On the other hand, President Eisenhower is
winciv q,ioted as having said that if free elections'
had hero held in 1956, 80 per cent of the people
would have voted for Ho Chi Minh as opposed to
No Dien Diem This, too, is an outright lie. What
Ik, ,air vas that 80 per cent would have voted
Ito rather than for the highly unpopular
i:mperor Bao Da..
Another false c-him is that Diem's refusal to
hold the reunification elections preceded any vio-
lations of the Gen..va agreement by Hanoi. The
truth of the matter is that North Vietnam had
refused to withdraw its troops from South. Viet-
nam, in accordance with the Geneva agreement,
and that under such conditions, truly free elec-
tions - free from terrorizing of the villagers -
were an impossibility.
These critics of Saigon also neglect to mention
that neither South Vietnam nor the United States
signed the Geneva accords; that in fact, South
Vietnam had attempted - unsucces::fully - to
place toe entire area under United Nations con-
trol unto the reestablishment of peace and occur
ity would permit really free general elections.
Diem stated the case clearly and concisely on
July 16, 1955: "We did not sign the Geneva
Agreement. We are not bound in any way by.
these agreements . . . We do not reject the
principle of elections as a peaceful and demo-
cratic means to achieve unity. But elections can
be one of the foundations of true democracy oily
on the condition that they are absolutely free.
And we shall be skeptical about the achieving of
the conditions of free elections in the North under
the regime of oppression carried on by the Viet
Minh."
Let's look at the practical politics of the situa-
tion in 1956: The North, under an iron dictator-
ship, outnumbered the population of the South by
2,000,000 people - even after the exodus to the
South of 1,000,000 refugees. The Communists Kid
an efficient underground apparatus in the South,
and the International Control Commission simply
lacked the manpower to assure that elections
would be conducted fairly in the South, let alone
in the North.
Critics of Saigon would also have you forget
that, immediately following the Geneva agree-
ment, Ho Chi Minh vowed publicly to bring about
the reunification of his state with South Vietnam.
Viet Minh cadres in the South organized an
"army of liberation" calling itself the "Patriotic
Front," and launched Campaigns of military fic-
tion, kidnaping and outright terrorism. This
"army of liberation" was publicly supported by
Ho Chi Minh in contravention of the Geneva
accords. Ho again violated the agreements by
preventing tens of thousands of northerners from
-moving to the South after they had petitioned to
do so.
Actually, Hanoi had expected the Sputh to fall
? before the creation of the "army of liberation."
-The new government in Saigon was being at-
tacked' by private armies and dissident sects such
as the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao, and by the Binh
.Xuyen river pirates who. had enjoyed monopolies
of gambling and prostitution tinder the French.
When the South didn't fall, Hanoi in 1958 stepped
up its campaign and Hanoi Radio broadcast
specific instructions to the Viet Minh and the
political cadres in the South which were moni
tored by the ICC. The latter, of course, Was
impotent to act, because - Hanoi wouldn't
permit free inspections and the ICC's Indian
chairman refused ito act unless he had the unani-
mous approval of his Polish and Canadian col-
leagues. Poland, of course, never voted for any
action that was not to the Communists' advan-
tage.
If the news media of the United States had (lone
its job of informing the American people concern-
ing these events, instead of pandering almost
exclusively to the get-out-of-Vietnam faction, the
leftists' attempts to rewrite the recent history of
Vietnam. would fall on deaf cars and the by
government would have the vocal support of the
American people for refusing to sell out at the
current Paris peace talks.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/15: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100700002-8