NOVEMBER, 1967 VOL. IV, NO. 11

®

VIETNAM:

THE PAST by JOAN KENNEDY TAYLOR

J()AN KENNEDY TA YL()R, editor 50¢

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NOVEMBER, 1967 VOL. IV, NO.ll

Vietnam: The Past

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One ot the results of having a pragmatic approachto foreign policy is that, since the past is con­sidered irrelevant in determining hoy to handleexistent crises, people do not remember clearlywhat happened in the past. This is true, not merelyof the events of centuries ago that might shed lighton the events of the present; it is often true ofthe events of last year, or last month, or even lastweek. This lack of information became particularlyapparent to me in trying to sort out the mass ofmaterial on Vietnaa to answer the questions that arebeing constantly asked today: Hoy did we get in­volved in Vietnam? ShouLd we be in Vietnam? If thepeople want our help, why haven't we won?

This article won't try to answer these questions.It vill merely atteapt to present the reader withsome of the background material which may be omittedor even distorted by the newspaper, or newscast, ormagazine article that provides him daily with thenewest facts and opinions on the war in Vietnam.

The country now known as Vietnam. falls naturallyinto three geographical sections, which have oftenbeen politically separated. In the north, boundedby China, is Tonkin (sa-etimes called Tongking),containing a ring of mountains, and the delta plainof the Red River. Central 1s Annam, a chain ofmountains and a narrow coastal plain, leading toplateaus in the south. The most southern regionof all, Cochin China, contains the fertile deltaof the Mekong River. In prehistoric times, theVietnamese people inhabited Tonkin, the Chams werebased in Central and Southern Annam, and the Khmers(who also inhabited Cambodia) lived in the Mekongdelta.

The Vietnamese were under Chinese domination tramIII B.C. until 939 A.D. Tonk.in and northern Annam,

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under the collective name of Bam-viet, were partof the Chinese empire for that entire period. Viet­namese culture and political institutions becameheavily influenced by those of China, but theirpre-Chinese cultural roots were never completelylost, and early Vietnamese history is full of heroeswho led uprisings against the Chinese.

Gradually, the Vietnamese people expanded south.After the T'ang.dynasty fell in China, in 907,nationalist agitation smong t~e Vietnamese led tothe establishment of the independent kingdom ofDai-co-viet in 939. Dai-co-viet soon came intoconflict with the neighboring kingdom of Chsmpa,in the area later known &8 Annsm. The Vietnamesedefeated the Chams after a long struggle over severalcenturies. They then expanded even further.

"At the beginning of the Christian era they occu­pied Tongking and northern Annam only. They pushedsouthwards at the expense of the Chams, whose king­dom they conquered in the fifteenth century. Underthe leadership of the Nguyen of Hue the last re­maining independent Cham districts were absorbedduring the seventeenth century. In the same cen­tury the Vietnamese began to plant colonies in theMekong delta region in what vas then Cambodian terri­tory, and frail that time onwards their steady pene­tration into Cochin China has been continuous."(Hall, p. 169) Today, with the exception of betweenone and two million aboriginal hill tribesmen,several hundred thousand Chams and Khmers, and atleast as many Chinese, the Vietnamese inhabit allof Vietnam. It has an estimated total populationot 30 million.

The cities ot Hanoi and Hue developed early as im­portant centers of pover, orten as capitals forrival authorities. In the sixteenth and seventeenthceBturi.. , the oountry vas otten divided into fac-

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tiona, which fact encouraged Europeans to take ad­vantage of the situation. The Portuguese in Macaoestablished trade with both Annam and Tonkin. Itwas they who gave the Southernmost provinces thename of Cochin China. Spanish and French missionariesarrived and ramanized the Vietnamese written languagewith a system which is still in use.

From the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth cen­tury, the country was peaceably divided north of Hue,with one dynasty established at Hanoi, and anotherin the south. The Trinh dynasty in Hanoi institutedtax reforms, surveyed the land, ~proved the courtsystem and lessened the severity of punishments,and removed some of the feudal power that had beenin the hands of the mandarins. It also regulatedthe salt trade and the mines, printed books in theVietnamese language, and banned Chinese books. TheNguyen in the south instituted census and tax assess­ment methods and established a bureau of agricul-ture "which classified cultivated lands and encou­raged the cultivation of virgin soil." (Hall, p. 360)They put the army on a territorial basis, with thebasic platoons made up of men frClll the same village,and expanded their political control into the Mekongdelta. Both regions were run by mandarins recruitedby examinations in the classics, which was the Chinesemodel. "In 1675, Hien Vuong [a Nguyen leader] stroveto iMprove upon this by introducing a sort of prac­tical examination on the current situation." (Hall,p. 360)

This was the level of civilization in the countrywhen conflict broke out again, and a member of thesouthern Nguyen ~nasty, helped by a French mission­ary and some volunteer French troops, unified thethree regions ot the country and established him­selt as the Emperor G1a Long. Gia Long calledhis country Vietn8lll, and established his capital atHue, in Arm... He proclaimed himself Eaperor on

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June 1, 1802.

Gia Long reestablished the old administration wherewar had brought chaos, and his ties with the Frenchmeant that Christianity thrived. But after hisdeath in 1820, his successors turned on the Europeansand instituted ever-increasing persecution of Christ­ians. In 1858, a Franco-Spanish occupation forcearrived at Tourane, and although the Spanish with­drew with a promise of religious freedom, the Frenchwent on to capture Saigon in February, 1859. De­manding both religious freedom for Catholics andtrade opportunities for Frenchmen, the French ob­tained a draft treaty which ceded the three easternprovinces of Cochin China to France, granted reli­gious freedom, opened three ports to trade, and paidan indemnity. By November they were masters of alllower Cochin China. By 1863, unrest made the Frenchgovernor decide to also occupy the three westernprovinces of Cochin China.

Trade interests brought the French into variousconflicts with the local government in Hanoi. AFrench resident was established at Hu' by a secondtreaty signed in 1874, which also opened additionalports to French trade (with consuls in each), declaredthe Red River open to commerce, and provided forFrench officers to be appointed to the Vietnamesecustoms service.

However, hostilities began again in 1882, and anothertreaty was signed, making Vietnam a French protec­torate. After a brief undeclared war with China,French supremacy vas established at the Treaty ofTientsin in 1885.

In October, 1887, the Union Indochinoise was formedby a series ot decrees. "These placed the Protec­torates of Annam and Tongking in the hands of theMinister of Marine and Colonies in Parie, and brought

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together Cambodia, Cochin China, Annam and Tongkingto fo~ the Union Indochinoise, the higher adminis­tration of this vas entrusted to a civilian governor­general and was divided into five departments ••••Under the direct authority of the governor-generalCochin China had a lieutenant-governor, Annam andTongking combined a resident-general, and Cambodiaa resident-general. Each of these units maintainedan autonaaous organization and had its separate bud­get. t, (Hall, pp. 576-7) Cambodia had signed a treatyin 1863 which made it a French protectorate. In atreaty accepted by Siam on October 3, 1893, Franceclaimed that the territory of Laos should be grantedto her, because it had once been a protectorate ofVietnam in the seventeenth century. Laos was thenadded to the Indochinese Union.

Under the French occupation, Tonkin, although theo­retically a protectorate, was actUally a directlyadainistered colony. The French policy was not oneot colonial self-government, but of assimilation.The governor-general vas assisted by a purely ad­visory body, the Grand Council of Econanic andFinancial Interests, and most legislation was eitherpassed by the French parliament or merely decreedby the Minister of Colonies. Control of Annam,Cambodia, and Laos was looser--kings, courts, andmandarins continued to exist and fUnction, althoughthe power was with the French resident, his PrivyCouncil, and his Protectorate Council. But the ad­ainlstration in these areas was carried out by themandarins, although French guidance was never farremoved. Cochin China had & resident also; it wasunder direct French rule, with a French repre­sentative in the Chamber of Deputies in Paris.

What did the French bring to Vietnam? They broughtan increase in population through their work intropical diseases &s well &S the hospitals theybuilt and the sanitation proble.s they dealt with.

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They established scholarly centers in Hanoi andbuilt Saigon into a thriving commercial center.However, th~ brought a decline in the literacyrate: Robert Shaplen says that at the end of WorldWar II eighty percent of the Vietnamese were il11t­erate. and Marguerite Higgins says that by the endof the Indochinese War it was ninety percent. Bothagree that this illiteracy rate was Bubstantiallyhigher than in the early nineteenth century, beforeFrench colonialism was established. The Frenchachieved this decline through an attempt to intro­duce French culture by discouraging village schools,abolishing the old mandarin competitive examina­tions, and finally. in 1917, attempting to take overall primary education and make the study of Frenchuniversal--so few schools were actually built thatby 1926 a ruling was passed that villages which hadno schools were aZZowed to provide their own.

The French also brought the economic philosophy ofmercantilism which, as applied to colonies, isalso often referred to as economic imperialism.The purpose of a colony, so far as the French wereconcerned, was to supply raw materials that theFrench needed and to buy products that the Frenchwanted markets for. Under no c1rcUJIlstances was thecolony to produce products that competed v1t~ thoseof the mother country. It was vital to the Frenchthat their protectorate establish France as a ·"mOBtfavored nation" econamically. and that they have CCB­plete control over Indochina's custa.s and foreigntrade. Within the country there were economicregulations. Thus whatever enterprise there vas,was far from free t but vas a creature of gOTernmentmanipulation and government favor •.

The Vietnamese village had traditionally been taxednot only in money but also in yorkers for publicprojects. But this had been for projects near theworkers' village and from which the Ti~lage waa

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seen to benefit. Under the French, labor in publicworks vas still required, but the resultant works,such &8 highways and railroads, were tram the villager'spoint of view, for the benefit of the French and forthe encourageaent of foreign tourists. The Frenchadministration had a monopoly on salt, opium, andalcohol. "The _all salt yorker had to sell whathe produced to the French administration and thenbuy back what he needed for himself at higher prices;and salt vas iaportant to him, for he used it inpreparing the fish which was a vital part of theVietnamese diet. The French administration had asubstantial interest in spreading the use of opiumand alcohol becauae it profited directly from theirsale. It assigned each village a quota of alcoholwhich it va. required to consume•••• In France,the smoking ot opium was a criminal offense; inIndochina it vas one ot the financial props ofthe goverIDllent." (H8DIII1er, pp. 68-69)

Apart fram these three governmental monopolies, Frenchbusinessmen also were given grants of undevelopedland, and they controlled textile industries, mines,rubber plantations, and banking. In my research Ihave not been able to discover whether French mon­opolies in these areas vere established by law orby custCD--vhat seems clear is that they were un­broken.

The banking aonopoly vas especially 1IIlportant, be­cause 1t resulted in a change in the pattern of landdistribution. ETery village in Vietnam.. had tradi­tionally had scae comaunal lands &8 well as privatefields, and the cOIIIIlunal lands were cultivated bypeople without rice fields of their own. The Frenchencroached upon these CCIIIIIlunal lands, and a180 formedlarge estates fran ..all private holdil188 "throughthe purchase of forfeited land or land on whichloans at exorbitant interest rates had been made."

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(Hall, p. 655) In Cochin China under French rule,200,000 families which had once been independentlandholders were sharecropping for French landlords,and suffered greatly fram a slump in 1930 in whichmany large estates went under. Crucial in thefinancial situation was the French-owned Bank ofIndochina, which would lend money to the big land­owners who in turn lent it at exorbitant rates tothe small farmer.

Robert Shaplen described the situation as it stillexisted in 1950. "The French still own practicallyall of the real wealth of Indochina, and theirinvestment was close to two billion dollars; theyowned all the rubber plantations, which, de8pitethe war, were still operating--&s they are operatingtoday, in 1965--and they owned two-thirds of therice, all the mines, all the shipping, virtuallyall the industry, and nearly all the banks. • • •French fortunes were being made through the re­mittance machinery legally established for thetransfer of piastres into French francs, falselypegged at seventeen to the piastre; the franc hadremained relatively stable, but the piastre haddepreciated more than five times since the endof the Second World War." (Shaplen, pp. 80-81)

And there were still other inequities. Many plan­tation workers for the French rubber plantations inCochin China were recruited by a system which HoChi Minh, the Communist leader, was able plausiblyto refer to as conscription. They came reluctantlyfrom Tonkinese villages and were "sent south farfrom their hcmes to work under a semimilitary system.They were bound by three-year contracts which gavetheir employers the right to regulate their laborby force. They lived and worked under the mostmiserable conditions." (Hammer, p. 67)

Indoehinese also had to iaport goods fram France

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which they might have bought for less elsewhere,and were barred troll important jobs in the colony,such as the police or the customs. "There was littlefreedom of press or assembly. The Vietnamese werenot permitted to fo~ political parties or tradeunions, and could not travel among the three Viet­namese regions without permission; to go to France,they needed a police visa." (Hammer, p. 73) Add tothis the fact that the French were often repressiverulers, severe about suspected insurrection, andthat during World War I they did not add to theirpopularity "by forcibly recruiting no less than100,000 of them [the Vietnaaese] for war servicein Europe." (Hall, p. 646)

It 18 saall wonder that under these circumstancesa certain amount of clandestine political activityand even same abortive rebellions took place, andthat the Communist Party was particularly interestedin exploiting the situation.

The leader of Vietnsmese communism since its incep­tion has been Nguyen Ai Quoc, nov known as Ho ChiMinh. He Joined the CCDlunist Party in Francebefore World War I, and presented an appeal forV1etnsaese independence to the Versailles Treatyconference. He wrote for leftist political journalsin France and studied in Russia in 1923. In 1925he appeared in China, at Canton, and founded theAssociation of Revolutionary Annamite Youth, asupposedly non-Communist, but Marxist, organization.His program included "the reduction ot fiscal bur­dens, the redistribution of land among the peasantry,and the abolition of conscription of labourers andnative soldiers tor service abroad." (Hall, p. 648)

In 1929, the Association had a congress in Hong Kong,at which it vas suggested that the name be changed tothe Indochinese Communist Party. The resolution".. not passed, and the three members who had made

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the suggestion returned to Indochina and establiShedtheir own organization with that name. Soon therewere three separate Communist Parties within Indo­china, and an appeal was issued to Ho Chi Minh tosave the situation. He united all factions into theVietnam Communist Party, which in October, 1930,changed its name to the Indochinese Communist Party.By 1931, it was said to have 1,500 members and tocontrol 100,000 peasants through affiliated organ­izations. However, an uprising which started in1930 and was put down in 1931 killed thousands ofillegal strikers and caused the arrest of hundredsof Communists.

The Indochinese Communist Party recovered and re­formed itself slowly, and it was not until 1935 that itsent delegates to an international meeting at Macao,where it stated its allegiance to the Camintern.This was the period of the Popular Front.

Under instructions, the Indochinese Communists joinedwith other parties in a legal movement to presentVietnamese grievances to the French government.France itself was controlled by a Popular Frontgovernment, which, once in power, was no more quickthan any previous French government to turn thecolonies loose. In 1938, the French Popular Frontgovernment fell. The Indochinese equivalent wentunderground, which did not keep some of its Camnu­nist leaders from being jailed. Then World War IIbroke out.

In 1941, Ho Chi Minh met with key members of theIndochinese Communist Party in south China, andestablished an organization which they hoped wouldrally all Vietnamese. It was called the Viet N-.Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi (Viet Minh), which means theLeague for the Independence of Vietnam, and Ho CbiMinh was General Secretary. It was to be the onltY .really organized resistance movement in Indoehina

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against the Japanese.

So nov we have on stage a cohesive people with aproud history and an ancient culture based onvillage-oriented ideals of education and order;a mercantile colonial paver whose partisans willclaim later that its actions were dictated solelyby love of freedom; and a Russian-trained Communistwhose partisans viII claim that he is merely adedicated nationalist. There are two more men tointroduce: Fhperor Bao Dai and Ngo Dinh Diem.

In 1925 Bao Dai, a young descendant of Emperor GisLong succeeded to the throne of Annam. He was ed­ucated in France, and in 1933 returned to Indo­china to ascend the throne. The post of Prime Min­ister at the court of Hue had been abolished by theFrench, and his function assumed by the French res­ident, which meant that the highest post in BaaDai's cabinet vas that of Minister of the Interior.This post was given to a young, anti-Communistnationalist, who had already served as a provincechief in 1923. His name vas Ifgo Dinh Diem. Diemattempted to get the French to introduce a repre­sentative assembly, and resigned when they refused.This unwillingness to compromise was to be charac­teristic of his career, as we shall see later.

It vas not characteristic of the career of EmperorBao Dai, who reaained on the throne of Hue when theJapanese occupied the country in force in 1941 duringWorld War II. The Japanese were willing to leavea framework of French control, and to give verbalas8urances of French sovereignty, even to allow theFrench to aaintain their own army, as long as theirfight against the Allies could be based and suppliedin Indochina.

On March 9, 1945, the Japanese ousted the French

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in a coup d'etat and informed Bao Dai that hiscountry was free. The man who, according to EllenHammer, had not been permitted to go to Tonkinmore than once in twelve years, and whom the Frenchhad never permitted to visit Cochin China, announcedto his people that Vietnsm was independent (althoughunder Japanese protection) on March 11, 1945. EllenHammer says that he sent a telegram to Ngo Dinh Diemin Saigon, asking him to be Prime Minister, but thatthe Japanese feared Diem's independence and keptthe message from being delivered to him in Saigon.

The first action of the new government was to re­name the country Vietnam, instead of Annam, as ithad been known to the French. The functions ofgovernment in Tonkin were gradually turned over tothe new regime by the Japanese, but Cochin Chinaremained under Japanese milita~ control.

Power was still in the hands of the Japanese, andthe members of Bao Dai's cabinet had almost no ex­perience of politics. According to MargueriteHiggins, "In the process of the ensuing economicdisintegration and fRmine, more than a millionVietnamese died of hunger. Bao Dai's ministersfailed not only him but also the cause of FreeVietnam. For their failures played into the handsof both Ho Chi Minh's Communist forces and theFrench colonialists." (Higgins, p. 38)

Between March and August, the Viet Minh becamemore active in harrying the Japanese, and attackedBaa Dai' s government as a puppet regime. They"liberated" several provinces from the Japanese.

On August 6 an atomic bomb fell on Hirosh~a.

The Viet Minh called its troops the Vietnam Lib­eration Army, and called tor a general revolution;

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a congres8 unanimously elected Ho Chi Minh presi­ident on August 16. Large numbers of Vietnamesejoined the Viet Minh a~ies. Soldiers moved onHanoi.

On August 26, Bao Dai abdicated, calling on "allparties and groups, all classes of society as wellas the Royal Family to strengthen and support un­reservedly the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam inorder to consolidate our national indepeIldence."(quoted in H~er, p. 104)

On September 2, which was proclaimed IndependenceDay, Ho Chi Minh made his first public address.The speech was aimed at the victorious Allies, aswell as at the cheering crowds. "It took its firstparagraph from the stirring words of the AmericanDeclaration of Independence: 'We hold these truthsto be self-evident. That all men are created equal,that they are endowed by their Creator with certaininalienable rights, and that Rmong these are Life,Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.' It indictedthe French for 'deeds counter to the ideals of hu­manity and justice.'" (Hammer, p. 105)

Meanwhile, in Cochin China, things were not so smoothfor the Viet Minh. Other groups of nationalists,including two ~ed religious sects, the Cao Daiand the Hoa Hao, did not trust the Viet Minh andrefused to give up their weapons. On August 25 theViet Minh had set up a Committee of the South whichtook over power in Saigon. On September 2, duringthe Independence celebrations, five Frenchmen wereshot and French houses were looted, despite theattempts of the Communist Committee of the South tom.aintain order.

At the Potsdam Conference, the Allies had agreed ona plan for the liberation of Indochina. It was tobe partitioned at the 16th parallel, and the

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Nationalist Chinese were to occupy the north sectionof the country while the British occupied the south.

British and Indian troops arrived in Saigon onSeptember 12, bringing with them sane French troopsfrom Africa. Although British orders were only todisarm the Japanese and accept their surrender,these were interpreted to include restoring therepressive French colonial regime. The Britishcommander proclaimed martial law; imposed a curfew;and made newspapers, public meetings, and thecarrying of arms by any but Allied soldiers illegal.On September 23, French soldiers released from theirJapanese internment took over Saigon.

In Tonkin, on the other hand, the Chinese occupyingtroops allowed the Vietnamese to keep their weaponsand, rather than return the French to power, theysupported Ho Chi Minh's administration.

There is no need to discuss in detail the IndochinaWar that followed. The French were in a position toreassert their authority in the south; the VietMinh had authority in the north. The country wasdivided, and the bulk of the Vietnamese peoplewere caught in between. Even firmly anti-Communistnationalists, notably Ngo Dinh Diem, would notcriticize the Viet Minh openly, as they were theforces fighting for Vietnamese independence. ButDiem also refused to work with them.

The French made several abortive agreements withHo Chi Minh, while searching for a Vietnamese leaderthey could set up in opposition to him, who wouldsettle tor less than full independence. In 1949they persuaded Bao Dai to return and set up a govern­ment in Saigon under their auspices; Ngo Dinh Diemrefused to be associated with anything short otfull independence. On January 19, 1950, Ho ChiMinh, who still held most of Tonkin, was recogni~ed

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diplomatically as the legitimate ruler of Vietnamby the newly victorious Chinese Communist regime,followed shortly by Russia and the satellite nationsof Europe. On February 6, 1950, the United Statesand Great Britain recognized the Bao Dai regime.

By 1954, the French people were sick of the war inIndochina. When the Viet Minh won a major battleat Dienbienphu in Laos, the French were ready towithdraw. The Americans, considering that theVietnam crisis was closely involved with their re­cent battles in "Korea, were anxious to encourage theFrench to continue fighting. Marguerite Higginsquotes a letter that President Eisenhower sent toPrime Minister Winston Churchill on April 5, 1954,which said in part: "It is no solution to simplyurge the French to intensify their efforts. Andif they do not see it through and Indochina passesinto the hands of the Communists, the ultimate effecton our and your global strategic position with theconsequent shift in the power relations throughoutAsia and the Pacific could be disastrous, and Iknow unacceptable to you and me. • • • This has ledus urgently to take senou,9 and far-reaching decisions.• • • The preliminary lines of our thinking weresketched out by Foster [John Foster Dulles] in hisspeech last Monday night when he said that underthe conditions of today the imposition on SoutheastAsia of the political system of Communist Russiaand its Chinese Communist ally, by whatever means,would be a grave threat to the whole free community,and that in our view this possibility should be metby united action and not passively accepted••.• "After suggesting a new coalition of non-Communistnations 1n the area, Eisenhower went on to say, "Ido not envisage the need of any appreciabZe groundforces on your or our part•••• " (quoted in Higgins,p. 9. Italics hers.)

The French were ready to negotiate, and on May 7, 1954,

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the Geneva Conference opened. Those who took p~were the representatives of Cambodia, the DeBocr~ic

Republic of Vietnam (the Viet Minh governaent),France, Laos, the People's Republic of China (RedChina), the State of Vietnam (Bao Dai's government,which at last, with the promise ot real independence.persuaded Ngo Dinh Diem to take power on June 17.195-.as Prime Minister), the Union of Soviet SocialistRepublics, the United Kingdom (Great Britain), andthe United States of America.

So much as been said about the bindingness ot thefinal declaration of this conterence (with the op­ponents ot the current war saying, "We are violatingthe Geneva Conference," and advocates saying righ­teously, "We didn't sign it,") that one point shouldbe stressed. In the words of Jean Lacouture (aFrench journalist who was not sympathetic to Amer­ican policy), "It is noteworthy that what has gen­erally cane to be called 'the Geneva Agreement ot1954' is in tact a series at armistic agree-ent.made by the French a~ representatives and the VietMinh delegates •••• Nothing else vas 8~d, par­ticularly not the final declaration made at theconference. Saigon, which did not hide its dis­agreement with the final declaration, and Washine­ton, which shoved same reserve on that score, there­fore had no reason to refuse to apply their signa­tures to it. They did not consider theaselves C~mitted to these texts even though Gen. Bedell S.~th,

chief at the American delegation, had declared t~at

his country would do nothing to preTent their iaPle­mentation." (Lacouture, p. 11. Italics his.) Aacori-ing to Robert Shap1en, an American journalist vi"Uhmuch experienee in Asia, Diem "considered what hadhappened at Geneva a disgrace, and had Yi.e~ orderedDr. Tran Van Do, his representative there, to di8­associate South Vietnam trClll the agre_ents thatwere signed, thereby laying the legal sroundvork.for his 8ubeequeat refwtal to .&eide .._~-t-IMa. lie· oCOD-

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sidered the division of Vietnam a personal betr~al

and echoed Dr. Do's final Geneva declaration thatSouth Vietnam 'reserved to itself entire freedomof action to safeguard the sacred right of the Viet­namese people to territorial unity, national inde­pendence, and freedClll.'" (Shaplen, p. 113)

According to Lacouture, there were five principalclauses to the armistice agreements signed by theViet Minh and the French representatives. Theseincluded 1) partitioning of the country at the 17thparallel, 2) French forces to be evacuated duringOctober, 3) no military build-up in any part of thecountry, 4) establishment of an International ControlCommission of delegates fram India, Canada, andPoland, and 5) elections to unify the country tobe held before July 20, 1956. "It was further under­stood that neither of the two parties in Vietnam wasauthorized to make international military alliances,"finishes Mr. Lacouture. (Lacouture, p. 11) Mr. La­couture also tells us that the partitioning of thecountry vas suggested by the representatives of theViet Minh. "Suddenly, on June 8, the military dele­gation of Viet Minh offered to partition Vietnam,accepting control over only about half the terri­tory of which the revolutionary forces were alreadycontrolling three quarters." (Lacouture, p. 10)

The text of the final (unsigned) declaration itselftakes note of various agreements and, among others,makes the folloving points: There were "clausesin the agreement on the cessation of hostilities inViet-Bam prohibiting the introduction into Viet-Hamof foreign troops and military personnel as well asof all kinds of arms and aunitions." There were"clauses in the agreement on the cessation of hos­tilities in Viet-Ram to the effect that no militarybase under the control of a foreign state may beestablished in the regrouping zones of the tvo~1.8t the latter having the obligation to Bee

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that the zones allotted to them shall not consti­tute part of any military alliance and shall notbe utilized for the resumption of hostilities or inthe service of an aggressive policy. tt And perhapsmost often overlooked in arguments about the war:"The Conference recognizes that the essential pur­pose of the agreement relating to Viet-Ram is tosettle military questions with a view to endinghostilities and that the military demarcation lineis provisional and should not in any yay be interpret­ed as constituting a political or territorial bound­ary. The Conference expresses its conviction thatthe execution of the provisions set out in the presen­declaration and in the agreement on the cessationof hostilities creates the necessary basis tor theachievement in the near future of a political settle­ment in Viet-Nam." Everyone was to be allowed "todecide freely in which zone he wishes to live," andsupervised general elections were to be held inJuly, 1956; "Consultations will be held on thissubject between the competent representative author­ities of the two zones from 20 July 1955 onwards."(FinaZ Dec~aration of Gensva Conference, JuZy '1~

1954, reprinted in Raskin and Fall, p. 96ft.)

In September, 1954, after the Geneva Conferenceended, the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty(SEATO) vas signed by the United States, GreatBritain, France, Australia, Nev Zealand, Thailand,the Philippines, and Pakistan. It was ratifiedin February, 1955. This treaty has otten beenreferred to as a legal reason tor our being inVietnam, which will be discussed later. Suffice itto mention here that it vas signed after the con~

terence, and that Vietnam was not a signatory.

This is a condensed background of the founding otwhat was to be called the "Diem regime" in South

_ Vietnam, and perhaps the first question that weshould now address ourselTea to is the tollcviB«1"

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18 there any eTidence that this government had anypopular support among the Vietna.ese, or is it thecase that it could validly be called merely a rem­nant of French colonialism?

There is such evidence. First of all, there is theevidence of the movement of peoples between the twozones in accordance with the Geneva Conference.Viet Minh troops in the south were ordered north,and, according to Robert Shaplen, "SoDle fiftythousand troops and twenty thousand Vietminh sym­pathizers went north, but as they withdrew framareas they had controlled, it soon became evidentthat they had lett behind a strong network of cadresto car~ on covert political, psychological andultimately, paramilitary operations." (Shaplen,p. 114) How many refugees went south? MargueriteHiggins quotes Diem's brother, Counselor Ngo DinhNhu &8 s~1ng to the United Nations Mission toVietnaa in October, 1963: "President Diem asked theFrench how many refugees to expect. The French saidtwenty-five thousand. Instead, there were a million."(Higgins, p. 55) This figure is not documented--MissHiggins considers that the real figure might be clo­ser to two million; Robert Shaplen puts it at 860,000;Jean Lacouture says "nearly a million." In addition,the French decided to evacuate the Red River Deltaof Tonkin ~ediately, rather than supervise theevacuation of all the refugees that wished to leave."The cut-off date for the evacuation was May 18,1955," says Robert Shaplen, "and though Diem claimedlater that twice as many a8 860,000 would have fledthe north if they had been allowed to, realisticest~te. put the number of those who wanted to leavebut couldn't at no more than 400,000." (Shaplen, pp.114-15) The most conservative estimate, therefore,is that over 800,000 Vietnamese were so activelynon-sympathetic to caIIIlunima that they would ratherabandon their homes and rice fields than live undera ComBUDist goTernment. It has been said that

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"refugees are people that vote with their feet."So we see that many more people than were expectedwere willing to "vote" for Diem's untried gover~nt

at a period of unprecedented prestige tor Ho Chi Minh'.victorious Viet Minh.

Diem must have had administrative ability, becausethese refugees, a sizable number whichever estimateyou go by, were absorbed and resettled in SouthVietnam while he was still in the process of at­tempting to set up an administration.

In October, 1955, Diem held an election, variouslyreferred to as a plebescite ora referendum, inwhich he asked the people to choose between Bao Daias Chief of State or himself as President. Shaplenreports that Diem won "by the overwhelming marginof 5,722,000 votes for himself, with only 63,000for his opponent .•.• The Americans felt thatDiem's public image was hurt by the fact that Nhu hadrigged the huge vote for his brother, and that Diemwould have won easily anyway without any manipula­tion." (Shaplen, p. 129) In April, 1961, PresidentDiem was re-elected for another rive-year term,again with & large majority. Sir Robert Thanpson,a veteran of the successful counter-insurgency inMalaya, who headed the British Adviso~ Mission inVietnam from 1961 to 1963, makes an interestingpoint about elections during an insurgen~ in acountry with few democratic traditions. The conceptof a loyal opposition is unknown in such circum­stances, he says. "I have no doubt that PresidentDiem would still have got a majority, particular~y

frca. the rural population, which would have giyengreat satisfaction to any western President orPrime Minister. What could not be tolerated in thecirc\DIlstances of the country at the time was evidencein the Toting ot a large, if disunited t oppositionwhich sought not just the constitutional overthrowof the gO'Yenmlent but the a8~8SiBatiOllot'the PPe8-

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ident and his closest supporters." (Thompson, p. 67)

Jean Lacouture calls the first election "a plebisciteas orderly as possible in a country barely recoveredfrom the wounds of war and in the process of reunifi­cation." (Lacouture, p. 28)

So the young Saigon government had same distinguish­able local support, and expectations of support froman anti-Communist America whose administration wasconcerned about Communist expansion in the Far East.But already one can see that the situation mightbecame complex. Once one has asstmilated the rela­tively remote historical background, one can seethe kinds of arguments that would arise and the kindsof questions that would occur. Are there groundsfor an argument that the United States presence inVietnam is illegal? Have the South Vietnamese be­came more willing to cooperate with Communism since19541 And what caused the downfall of PresidentDiem? In a future article, these and other ques­tions will be examined and discussed.

-~oan Kennedy TayZor

Bibliography

Hall, D.G.E., A Histor-y of South-East Asia, St.Martin's Press Inc., New York, 1955.

Hammer, Ellen J., The Stpugg Ze for Indochina,Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1954.

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Higgins, Marguerit,e, Our Vietnam Nigh1:lnf:uae~

Harper & Row, New York, 1965.Lacouture, Jean, Vietnam: Between Two ~~

Random Hou.se, New York, 1966. ~

Raskin, Marcus G. and Fall, Bernard B., Ths Vi.t..Nam Reader, Random House, New York, 1965.

Shaplen, Robert, The Lost Revol,ution, Harper'Row, New York, 1965.

Thompson, Sir Robert, Defeating Cormnmist In­surgency, Frederick A. Praeger, New York,1966.

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