South Viet Nam: Optimism at Honolulu, Problems in Saigon

In Admiral Harry Felt’s reinforced concrete command post high above Pearl Harbor, top U.S. officials last week gathered for the first exhaustive policy study of South Viet Nam since the coup that toppled the Diem regime.

For the nine-hour conference Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Maxwell Taylor had flown in from Washington; from Saigon came Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and General Paul Harkins. The Honolulu meeting exuded almost relentless optimism about the war, and the policymakers clung bravely to the line that things should be sufficiently in hand by 1965 to permit complete withdrawal of the 16,500 American troops.

Just in Time. One of the few concrete decisions leaked from the conference was a hardly surprising agreement to intensify anti-guerrilla operations in South Viet Nam’s rice bowl, a wedge-shaped section of the Mekong Delta from Saigon south, where one-third of the population is concentrated and the Viet Cong is strongest. Another decision: to revise the government’s strategichamlet program. All too often in the past, reluctant peasants were herded into bleak “fortified” villages that were in fact insufficiently protected because they were too hastily built. Meanwhile the Red guerrillas, who were supposed to be starving in the no man’s land outside the hamlets, managed to live well enough off the land. Henceforth, the plan is to see that all existing villages are really defensible and more pleasant to live in, with new schools and dispensaries.

As the conference adjourned, the war in South Viet Nam was proceeding fit fully. New, aggressive commanders reported several successful attacks against the guerrillas, but in the delta the Communists still seemed to have the initiative. Vietnamese officers and many of their U.S. advisers claim that because of Diem’s military mismanagement, the coup came just in time to keep the Communists from gaining complete control of two disputed provinces close to Saigon. This may or may not be true, but the argument offers a built-in chance to blame Diem later, in case things should go seriously wrong.

No More Siestas. In Saigon, Lieut General Duong Van (“Big”) Minh, the head of the ruling military junta, rode about almost unnoticed in a black Citroen (in contrast to Diem’s vast motorcades), visiting a few government offices and military units. He also opened promising negotiations with Vietnamese sects that had withdrawn sup port from Diem but were not ready to rally to the new regime. But while still clearly favored by the population, the new regime seemed oddly reluctant to assume political leadership. One of its few decisions: to abolish the siesta that has traditionally closed government offices for 21 hours each afternoon. Despite the mournful yawns of civil servants, the new decree enables peasants and rural officials to complete their business in the capital earlier and return home safely before dusk, when the Viet Cong start harassing traffic on all the roads radiating from Saigon.