World: Toward a Sterner Life

The dull thump of bombs in the O.K. Corral was audible in Saigon, but the capital was not listening. Its attention was focused on the installation of yet another new government. Black limousines loaded with generals swept through the city escorted by Jeeps mounting .50-cal. machine guns. An honor guard stood tautly and interminably in the hot sun outside stately Dienhong Mansion as a brass band blared the national anthem. The scene was far too familiar, a piece of political theater played to a skeptical and somewhat jaundiced audience and by no means sure of a long run. Yet some of the script was new.

Reforms & Reprisals. South Viet Nam’s latest Premier is Air Force Commander Nguyen Cao Ky, 34, a hardbitten, mustachioed aviator who affects a black flight suit, a lavender ascot, and a pearl-handled revolver. But his flamboyance is outdone by his frankness. In his first speech, Ky (pronounced key) laid it on the line: The country, he said, was suffering from “internal decay, intellectual stagnation and inflation.” In many rural areas, the national administration has collapsed; indeed, the government announced that nothing but airmail could now be delivered to the five Communist-infested provinces of the Central Highlands. “I am just a pilot,” Ky continued, “and as a pilot I don’t like politics. But the generals have picked me because they have confidence in me. They picked me more to risk my life than as an honor.”

On that grim note, Ky proposed his remedy for South Viet Nam’s malaise: a program of reform, mobilization and austerity more radical and detailed than any offered by previous regimes. Ky promised to eliminate “speculators, profiteers and black-marketeers,” and threatened the top 28 rice dealers, who have been artificially hiking prices for profit, that lots would be drawn to decide which would be shot if they did not cut prices.

The new government would put stringent price controls on all basic consumer goods, demand “contributions” from the rich to help pay for the war effort, slap heavier taxes on luxury items. He also had an eye out for the troops. To bolster military morale, Ky planned substantial increases in soldiers’ pensions, a crackdown on draft dodgers, and the immediate recall of students taking courses abroad. All of this sounded absolutely horrifying to Saigon’s smart set, but it was a step toward a sterner life that was long overdue in the lackadaisical capital.

Caution & the Cabinet. Ky’s 16-man “War Cabinet,” which is responsible to the military-controlled National Leadership Committee headed by Major General Nguyen Van Thieu, is carefully balanced along religious and regional lines. Six members are holdovers from the civilian regime of Dr. Phan Huy Quat, who last week retired from politics to return to hospital work. Only three Cabinet members are military men.

Militant Catholics and Buddhists—the main threat to any Saigon regime —were skeptical about Ky’s chances of survival, but seemed willing to give him a chance. U.S. officials cautioned privately that Ky was too young and impulsive to endure for long in the volatile world of Saigon politics. Ky himself was aware of the dangers that plague anyone in that sphere. “I have told my wife to buy me a coffin,” he remarked to reporters. “But as soon as I fall, another member of the team will replace me. There is no question of the government’s falling apart as in the past.”