Dealing with Diem
HERE is news of daily clashes between the forces of the government of South Vietnam and the guerrillas of the National Liberation Front, and of a steady dribble of American casualties from that area. The southern half of Indo-China has become the scene of large-scale military operations which show no sign of diminishing. A partisan movement of the familiar pattern aided and encouraged by the Com- munist Government of North Vietnam is trying to overthrow the regime of President Diem, whose support has been seriously weakened by the corruption and dictatorial character of his administration. Now it looks as if a military effort on the Malayan scale will be necessary if America wishes to restore the situation of its Vietnamese ally. When we recall that there were anything up to sixty thousand soldiers in Malaya, it is Clear that this involves a very con- siderable task—greater, indeed, than anything since the Korean war.
The background to this impending crisis can be conveniently gathered from the symposium on Vietnam in the latest number of the China Quarterly (5s.). It makes interesting, if depres- sing, reading; for it is the story of lost oppor- tunities. The position in Vietnam is governed by the Geneva agreement of 1954 which divided the country at the 17th parallel, leaving the north to the Communist 'Democratic Republic' of Vietnam (DRV) and the south to what soon became the authoritarian rule of the anti-Com- munist President Diem and his family. The pro- vision made at Geneva for free elections in both zones by July, 1956, pending reunification was quickly shelved. Neither the American nor the South Vietnamese government was a party to the Geneva agreement, and they were unwilling to take what was plainly the considerable risk of the mere prospect of such elections dis- solving support for President Diem. This position was not perhaps heroic, but it was probably realistic—more especially as the DRV (which presumably realised where its interests lay) has continually pressed for the implementation of the Geneva agreement.
By 1957 the regime in South Viettim, which everyone had expected to collapse, appeared fairly well established; but it was from that year onwards that opposition to President Diem, which came into the open with the attempted coup d'etat of November, 1960, and the recent attack on the President's Saigon palace, began to make itself felt. The story is the usual one of opposition among the liberal intelligentsia and in the army, fanned by the brutality of the police and powerfully abetted by a failure to carry out agrarian reform and by the consequent, peasant discontent.
No doubt matters would not have come to the present pass, with large areas of the country outside the control of the Saigon Government, had it not been for Communist organisation and the aid and sympathy afforded from the north; but in any case the Diem regime would have had to face serious trouble. Quite apart from its internal administration, it is also in the un- fortunate position of having to offend Viet- namese national sentiment by its attitude to- wards reunification. This attitude was the result of fear of Viet-Minh strength in the period following Dien-Bien-Phu and the Geneva agree- ment, but it had the disadvantage of leaving the cause of national unity to the Communists.
The situation in South Vietnam conforms therefore to a fairly well-worn pattern. In its essentials it is that which the Americans had to cope with in South Korea, in Laos, and before that in China itself. Depending on a regime of the 'strong man' type to resist Com- munist pressure, American diplomacy now finds itself faced with the choice of supporting that regime with its corruption and inefficiency or else of undertaking the dangerous operation of changing horses in midstream.
In an interesting article M. Philippe Devillers maintains that the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front is not primarily a Communist organisation, but that it will become more so the longer it continues its struggle. Would not the American Government do better to withdraW its support of President Diem and come to some kind of terms with his democratic opponents? The policy of the DRV is directed towards a Laos-type solution: 'that is to say . . . to obtain, through military pressure, the overthrow of a reactionary dictatorship and its replacement by a democratic and neutralist government bene- volently disposed towards them.' For M. De- villers, the only counter to these tactics is 'the advent to power of a popular and democratic Nationalist regime resolved to have done . . . with the use of terror as an instrument of government and to follow an advanced economic and social policy.'
It is not hard to agree in the abstract that the American Government would be better of without President Diem as its principal ally in Vietnam. But the suggestion that he should be replaced has this in common with many similar suggestions: that it is easier said than done. A change of government now in South Vietnam would probably leave American policy without any means of action at all. President Kennedy has apparently decided (and it is hard to dis- agree with his decision) that the loss of South Vietnam would damage the American position in South-East Asia beyond repair. That being so, he has no choice for the moment but to give military aid to Saigon and then to try to exert American influence in the direction of a liberalisation of the regime. When the military situation looks a little better, then it will be time to insist on a change. Reform may actually be made easier by direct American supervision of military and social operations designed to dislodge the guerrillas from their positions of strength.
The task awaiting the United States in South Vietnam is paradoxical and difficult. Paradoxi- cal, because in Laos Mr. Harriman has just won his battle with the Pentagon and the State De- partment and is pressing a neutralist government on the Diems of Ventiane. Difficult, because the military problem in, itself is greater in scale than the Malayan one was, and has now been worsened by infiltration from North Vietnam through Laos. As well as the unreliability of local allies the American command has to face an almost total absence of personnel qualified to undertake intelligence and administrative work in the rice-fields of Vietnam.
The only favourable circumstance attending the operation is the weak position of the DRV, its inability to undertake active intervention. President Ho Chi-minh certainly realises that he, cannot fight a war with America, and China's rift with the Soviet Union has placed him in a difficult position. If the DRV had to choose between the Chinese and the Russian positions, that choice would be equivalent to risking a Chinese occupation or a peaceful absorption equally damaging to Vietnamese national senti- ment. As for China itself, the quarrel with Russia and the economic crisis through which it is passing will make it very difficult for Peking to undertake a trial of strength in Vietnam.
Thus President Kennedy's decision to stay in South Vietnam finds the diplomatic situation in South-East Asia more favourable than might have been expected, though the danger remains that by probing in an area affecting relations between China and Russia he may solidify the Communist bloc rather than dissolve it. Ulti- mately, however, the success of operations in South Vietnam will depend on two factors: the ability of the American army to evolve suitable techniques for dealing with guerrilla warfare and subversion—something which was achieved in Malaya under rather more favourable political circumstances—and the ability of American diplomacy to build up a healthier and more efficient regime in Saigon than at present exists.
Neither of these tasks can be accomplished without the other, and those who claim that the political operation would spare the US the necessity of a military effort are speaking too late in the day. At the moment there is no sub- stitute for a drastic restoration of the military position in South Vietnam, but this, in its turn, Will not be possible without the fixing of a clearly attainable political objective.
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