South Viet Nam: A Tale of Two Wars

Jumping from U.S. helicopters in a clearing, 1,000 troops of South Viet Nam’s crack “Red Lightning” division moved out against a battalion of 300 Communist Viet Cong guerrillas holed up in the village of Loc Ninh, deep in the Mekong Delta. Slogging through flooded paddyfields and reed swamps, rifles held high, the government soldiers advanced toward the tree line that marked the Viet Cong position. A pasting by napalm, rockets, bombs and machine-gun fire from T-28 fighter-bombers had failed to budge the guerrillas from their camouflaged foxholes. Guns cocked, the ragged Communists calmly held their fire until the first assault wave had advanced to within 300 yds. Then they opened up with machine guns, mortars, automatic rifles and pistols.

With no place to take cover, the attackers dropped like targets in a shooting gallery. One squad, splashing forward in desperation, nearly reached the tree line only to be wiped out to the last man. The South Vietnamese commander tried to rush up reinforcements, but soupy weather had closed in and helicopters could no longer get through. As night fell, many of the wounded, who could not be evacuated, died helplessly in the mud. The final government toll was 42 dead and 85 wounded, plus 13 American advisers wounded. Under cover of darkness, the Viet Cong abandoned Loc Ninh and slipped away aboard sampans down a river, leaving behind 30 dead.

Thus, six months after the Buddhist controversy erupted, South Viet Nam’s army, which is largely Buddhist itself, carries on its bitter battle against the Communists. A cautiously optimistic report on the war came last week from Brigadier General Frank A. Osmanski, a U.S. logistics expert in South Viet Nam, who estimated that government forces have stepped up their “intensity of operations” to 21 times what it was a year ago, now launch ten attacks to every one by the Viet Cong. Although the South Vietnamese are suffering more than 1,000 casualties a month, Osmanski added, they are still outkilling the Viet Cong 4 to 1.

What all the statistics add up to, according to the best estimates in Saigon, is that the South Vietnamese are holding their own—militarily. It remains to be seen how they will fare in South Viet Nam’s second war—the political war waged by the U.S. against the Diem government.

What the U.S. Wants. Washington has some fairly specific demands: it wants President Ngo Dinh Diem to redeploy his forces according to U.S. military advice, wants him to change the strategic-hamlet program, which the U.S. believes is going too fast to be sound, and wants him to be less autocratic, particularly in regard to the Buddhists. To pressure Diem into doing these things, the U.S. has begun withholding certain kinds of aid. For one thing, Washington has suspended part of a $350,000 monthly subsidy to the elite, 2,000-member Special Forces, who raided Buddhist pagodas last August, until all return to field duties. Actually, that cut is more symbolic than real, since Diem can always pay the Special Forces out of other funds.

Next, the U.S. is making no more commitments at present under its $12 million-a-month program of paying for imported U.S. foodstuffs and manufactured goods, which the government sells to help balance its war budget. The result of that move is also in doubt, since Diem has $168 million in gold reserves which can keep him going for perhaps a year. However, some effects were beginning to show last week. As fear of future food shortages spread, hoarding set in and prices jumped. Sugar, textiles, and tires vanished from shelves, and the piaster, normally worth 73 to the dollar, was being traded for as much as 160. All this produced a sullen mood on the part of Saigon’s people, sometimes directed at the Diem regime, sometimes against the Americans. On the eve of National Day, marking the eighth anniversary of the formation of South Viet Nam, rumors spread that mobs might try to storm the U.S. embassy and USIS offices, and marines broke out tear gas and masks for American personnel.

The U.S. and Diem are settling down to a long contest of wills. The U.S. seems determined to keep up the pressure, but obviously might have to lift the ban on aid if and when the whole South Vietnamese economy is pushed too close to chaos. Diem well knows this U.S. dilemma and so far has shown no sign whatever of giving in to U.S. demands.

Privileged Guests. In the midst of this psychological warfare between “allies,” a seven-nation U.N. delegation arrived in Saigon to look into Buddhist charges of persecution. The mission got a guided tour of two pagodas still under police surveillance, and avoided a third where a demonstration was feared. So far the visitors have met only government-approved monks, and none of those in jail. Facing a ticklish diplomatic problem, U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge decided that the fact finders could interview Buddhist Leader Thich Tri Quang, one of three monks who took refuge in the embassy—if the Diem government had no objection.

Meanwhile Buddhists from eleven Asian nations—some fellow travelers, but others apparently sincere monks—turned up in Peking for a three-day rally, listened to a Viet Cong delegate denounce South Viet Nam as “a hell on earth created by United States imperialism and its lackey, the Ngo Dinh Diem clique.” Ignoring Red China’s own subjugation of Buddhism, the meeting unanimously adopted a resolution accusing Diem of “atrocities.” By serving as a vehicle for Red Chinese propaganda, the Buddhists hardly strengthened their case.