South Viet Nam: Reprise from the Pagodas

“It is better to have a political vacuum than have Huong in power,” said one of South Viet Nam’s most respected Buddhist leaders. “This government will have to go.” At week’s end Provisional Premier Tran Van Huong had not yet gone, but the bonzes were once again doing their beatific best to bring about a vacuum that sooner or later the Communists might fill.

Stage Set. During a week of chaos last August, the Buddhists had brought down General Nguyen Khanh, demand ing a civilian regime. Only a month ago, Huong, 61, the bicycle-riding ex-mayor of Saigon, took over supposedly to fill that bill. Now Huong was the target.

Why? Well, the Buddhists vaguely ex plained, Huong’s government, which is made up mostly of nonpolitical civil servants, is “not revolutionary” and contains “vestiges of the Diem regime.” Saigon’s draft-exempt students and microscopic “political parties,” with the Buddhists’ tacit approval, began holding meetings and demanded a government reshuffle. Huong refused, explaining: “They all want my job. If I had satisfied all their demands, my Cabinet would have numbered over a hundred.” Then he Buddhists’ appealed political to the bureau, head Thich of the Tarn Chau, and reported, “It was like talking to a deaf man.” The Buddhists always like to organize riots when the U.S. ambassador is out of town, and with General Maxwell Taylor on his way to Washington for consultations, the show began. For four days demonstrators, streaming out of the National Buddhist Center, again turned Saigon into a battleground, hurling barrages of rocks and clubbing out numbered policemen. After the rioters threw seven Viet Cong-type concussion grenades, a paratroop officer emptied his pistol into a mob, killing a 15-year-old boy. The Buddhists issued an ultimatum demanding that the army and police keep hands off the demonstrators, and that Huong be forced down.

Martial Law. Premier Huong was proving tougher than expected, at least for the moment. He pronounced some of the arrested rioters draft dodgers and inducted them into the army, slapped the capital under martial law and named burly General Pham Van Dong (“the Tiger of the Delta”) military governor of Saigon. Dong threw two battalions of troops around the Buddhist Center. Taking to,,, radio, Huong blamed the disorders on “irresponsible people who have either innocently or deliberately fallen in with the Communist plan.”

From his two-telephone desk in the Buddhist temple, which has the bustling air of a campaign headquarters, wispy Tam Chau complained that the Buddhists had been slandered. He added that to fight the Reds, the country must have “a government supported by the people”—an argument that might carry more weight if the Buddhists ever adopted an active role against the Viet Cong. He also announced a passive-resistance campaign against the government. But a lot of Vietnamese were apparently tiring of Buddhist intrigue.

There was more opportunity for trouble over the weekend at the 15-year-old martyr’s funeral, but so far Tam Chau had not received anything resembling mass support.