NOTES
1.
See T. D. Aliman, Far Eastern Economic Review,
(May 7, 1970).
2.
Charles Meyer, Derriere le sourire Khmer, Plon
(1971), p.405. Meyer, a long-time French resident of Cambodia and close to the
government, remained for a time after the March 1970 coup. Authors’
translation.
3.
Nixon Press Conference, November 12,1971, New
York Times (November 13,1971).
4.
The “aggression from the North” thesis of the
Johnson administration, for example, was devastated quickly by analyses of the
White Paper of 1965, two of the best being I. F. Stone, “A Reply to the White
Paper,” L P Stone’s Weekly (March 8,1965), and the editors of The New Republic,
“White Paper on Vietnam” (March 13,1965). None of these made a dent on the
typical editorial, news article, column, or presentation of Administration
handouts, however. Even after the Pentagon Papers release, which vindicated the
hardest of hard-line dove analyses of aggression (locating it firmly in
Washington, D. C.), the mythical truth held firm.
5.
Sir Robert Thomson, Op.-Ed., New York Times
(June 15, 1972); James Jones, “In the Shadow of Peace,” New York Times Magazine
June 10,1973).
6.
Sidney Hook, “The Knight of the Double
Standard,” The Humanist (January 1971). Earlier, Hook had de- nounced Bertrand
Russell for “play(ingl up as deliberate American atrocities the unfortunate
accidental loss of life incurred by the efforts of American Military forces to
help the South Vietnamese repel the incursions of North Viet- nam and its
partisans.” “Lord Russell and the War Crimes ‘Trial’,” New Leader (October
24,1966).
7.
In reviewing the impact of the war, Wendell S.
Merrick and James N. Wallace concede that “a great many Vietnamese suffered
terribly,” but note judiciously that “these effects of war would have occurred
with or without Americans being here.” U. £ News and World Report (April
2,1973).
8.
William F. Buckley, Jr., Boston Globe (April
23,1973). Buckley’s moralizing was provoked by the
reports of returning U.S. POWs. Even if we were to grant the precise accuracy
of their reports, they do not begin to compare in horror with the explicit and
detailed reports by American veterans of the treatment of Vietnamese prisoners
(not to speak of the civilian population) by the American armed forces.
Cf., Vietnam Veterans Against the War, eds., Winter Soldier Investigation,
Beacon Press (1972); The Dellums Committee Hearings on War Crimes in Vietnam,
Vintage (1972); James S. Kunen, Standard Operating Procedure, Avon (1971); D.
Thorne and C. Butler, eds., The New Soldier, Collier (197l). Foreign observers,
less circumspect, note that “The Nixon Administration has had nothing to say
about the atrocities which have been going on for many years in (Saigon)
prisons and which still go on, often under the direct supervision of former
American police officers” and note that the American POWs “who talked of
oriental tortures were all able to stand up and speak into microphones, showing
scars here and there” whereas the handful of prisoners released from the
American-run Saigon jails “were all incurably crippled while prolonged
malnutrition had turned them into grotesque parodies of humanity.” Far Eastern
Economic Review (March 26, 1973). On the prisons, see Holmes Brown and Don
Luce, Hostages of War, Indochina Mobile Education Project (1973).
9.
New York Times editorial (April 8,1973).
10.
Fiscal Year 1970 AID Report 10 the Ambassador,
p.35.
11.
New York Times (December 20,1967).
12.
To use the classic language of Ithiel Pool on
the requirements for the maintenance of order on a world-wide scale, in “The
Public and the Polity,” (by Pool, ed.), Contemporary Political Science: Toward
Empirical Theory, McCraw-Hill (1967), p.26.
13.
“Stability” is used almost invariably by U. S.
officials in an Orwellian sense, synonymous with a set of economic and
political arrangements satisfactory to American imperial interests. Thus for
the period 1949-69 Thai- land represented “stability,” China a source of
“instability.”
14.
In the case of Brazil, for example, “A hard
policy of domestic repression has apoliticized national life making it
practically impossible for the lower classes to become socially conscious of
their plight or to organize for change. Agostino Bono, “Unjolly Green Giant,”
Commonweal, February 2,1973, p.388-389. They need change desperately, however.
A 30 page document recently signed by three Archbishops and 10 Bishops of
Northeast Brazil claims that 20% of the population increased its share of the
national income from 54.4% to 64.1% over the last decade, and that the top 1%
earned more than the bottom 50%. Hunger is “epidemic” and the death rate in
Northeast Brazil is 47-I 1000 by age five. See “Torture, murder, hunger in
Brazil,” The Guardian (Manchester), May 19, 1973.
15.
On this matter, see Barrington Moore, Social
Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, Beacon (1966).
16.
Konrad Kellen, “1971 and Beyond: The View From
Hanoi,” Rand Corporation (June 1971), pp.14-15.
17.
The flavor of “our” South Vietnam may be
captured, however, in the finding by one former AID employee that “I have
personally witnessed poor urban people literally quaking with fear when I
questioned them about the activity of the secret police in a post election
campaign. One poor fisherman in Da Nang, animated and talkative in complaining
about economic conditions, clammed up in near terror when queried about the
policy...” Theodore Jacqueney, Hearings before Subcommittee of House Committee
on Government Operations, U.S. Assistance Pro- gramsin Vietnam (July/August
1971), p.251. Hereafter, U.S. Assistance Programs.
18.
This and the quotes that follow are from Jim
Hougan, “Greece: Illusion of Stability,” The Nation (March 12, 1973).
19.
“Reminders are everywhere in Athens and take one
form in the advertising war between Pepsi and Coca- Cola. Before the coup,
neither of these soda pops was available in Greece, their linportation being
forbidden in the interest of the small farmers and fruit growers who produce
the raw material for the country’s indigenous and delicious soft drinks. All
that changed when a Greco-American millionaire, Tom Pappas, negotiated the
Coca-Cola franchise with the junta in return for his commitment to build a
compensatory $20 million fruit processing plant.” Ibid., p.330.
20.
Quoted in Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War,
Random House (1970), p.214.
21.
Ibid., p.229.
22.
Ibid., p.230
23.
“Philippines: A government that needs U. S.
business,” Business Week (November 4,1972), p.42.
24.
“By American choice” in a very literal sense:
According to General Khanh, “On January 1964 Wilson (his U. S. advisor) told me
a coup d’etat was planned in Saigon and that I was to become President.... On 8
February 1964 I took over as Premier.” Interview with the German Magazine
Stern, reprinted in Los Angeles New Advocate (April 1-15,1972). It is
interesting to contrast the official disavowals of any “arrogant” attempts to
influence client governments, with the matter-of-fact assumption by U.S.
officials that they determine who rules in these client states, as disclosed in
internal governmental documents. General Taylor, in a briefing of November 27,
1964, for example, speaks with assurance about our “establishing some
reasonably satisfactory government” in South Vietnam; and that if not satisfied
with the way things are going, “we could try again with another civilian
government...: Another alternative would be to invite back a military
dictatorship on the model of that headed of late by General Khanh.”(Pentagon
Papers, Gravel Ed., III, p.669; emphasis added.) Taylor, in fact, expressed his
contempt for his Vietnamese puppets quite openly on the public record as well.
Thus, he describes Diem’s “unexpected resistance” to the American demand for
direct participation in civil administra- tion, and adds: “On the chance that
Diem might continue to be intransigent, the old search for a possible replace-
ment for him was resumed in State.” Later he speaks of “the impetuosity of Diem’s
American critics and our opposition to ousting him without a replacement in
sight.” When General Khanh began to lose his shaky political base, “the
question was: If not Khanh, who? This time there was again the possibility that
‘Big’ Minh might do. He had been behaving quite well.. .” Taylor’s attitudes
are perhaps no more astonishing than the fact that he is willing to voice them
in public. See Swords and Plowshares, W.W. Norton & Co., 1972, pp.248, 294,
322.
25.
New York Herald Tribune (February 3,1964).
26.
Daniel Kirk, “The Bold Words of Kim,” New York
Times Magazine (January 7,1973), p.56.
27.
See the discussion of the structural and class
incapacity of the U.S.-sponsored South Vietnamese elites to res- pond
constructively to rural grievances in Jeffrey Race’s War Comes to Long An,
University of California (1972), Chapter IV.
28.
“In the six weeks since Philippines President
Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, American businessmen have become
increasingly sanguine about their future... According to one U.S. oilman, ‘Marcos
says, “We’ll pass the laws you need-just tell us what you want.” ‘ Marcos badly
needs American business support. For one thing, ma- jor U.S. companies-such as
Jersey Standard, Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, and Colgate-Palmolive-have
invested nearly $2 billion. And Marcos is asking those companies to lobby for
substantial U.S. government aid and favorable treatment for Philippine exports.
More important, Marcos hopes that if he continues to treat U.S. business right,
U.S. bankers will continue to treat him right. The Philippines is burdened with
a $2 billion debt, most of which falls due within three years...”“ Philippines:
A Government that Needs U.S. Business,” Business Week (November 4,1972), p.42.
A recent article on the Saigon junta’s plans indicate that “To’ lure foreign
money they have worked up some of the most inviting investment laws of any
country in the region. ~. (and) South Vietnam (sic) is also keenly interested
in the development of postwar tourism with the help of foreign investors.’
“Saigon Baits Hook for Big Investors,” New York Times (January 21, 1973),
Section F, p. 49.
29.
Bernard Fall, Street without Joy, Rev. Ed.,
Stackpole (1967), p.373. Fall is often regarded as an opponent of the American
intervention in Vietnam. This is inaccurate. He was a bitter anti-Communist and
a strong supporter of the goals of the American intervention, though he was
later to be appalled at the methods used, and feared that Vietnam would not
survive this terroristic onslaught. The simple answer he gives in the text
fails to come to grips with why the West systematically gravitated to regimes
without popular support.
30.
Frank C. Darling, Thailand and the United
States, Public Affairs Press (1965), p.65. For some years, Darling was a CIA
analyst specializing in Southeast Asia, Thailand in particular.
31.
Ibid., p.169.
32.
Testimony of Leonard Unger, in Senate Foreign
Relations Committee Hearings on U.S. Security Agreements and Commitments
Abroad, Kingdom of Thailand (1969), p.613. Hereafter, Thailand.
33.
Darling, op cit., p. 111.
34.
Ibid., p.106.
35.
Ibid., p.138.
36.
Thailand, p.639.
37.
Ibid., p. 648.
38.
Ibid., p.611.
39.
Ibid., p. 613.
40.
Ibid.
41.
Myrdal, Asian Drama, Pantheon (1968), v.1,
p.486.
42.
Darling, op cit., p. 74.
43.
Ibid., p.117.
44.
Thailand, p.748.
45.
Darling, op cit., p.168.
46.
Ibid., p. 128.
47.
Ibid., p.82.
48.
Ibid., p. 169.
49.
This is reminiscent of the Thieu technique of
allegedly “releasing prisoners,” not to the PRG as’required in the January 1973
agreement, but into the population at large. See the discussion, which follows
later in this module, of this device as a potential mechanism for covering up
the murder of political prisoners.
50.
Darling, op cit., p. 114.
51.
Ambassador Gauss wrote to Cordell Hull during
World War II that Chiang Kai Shek had reminded him that “In the matter of world
problems, China is disposed to follow our lead...” Department of State,
Relations With China, p.561. Chiang’s state, though deeply corrupt and
unstable, therefore held out a great potential for becoming “the principal
stabilizing factor in the Far East,” Yalta Papers, p.353. See note 13.
52.
National Security Council, 542912 (August
20,1954). U.S. Dept. of Defense, United States- Vietnam Relations, 1945-67,
book 10, pp. 731ff.; Gov’t. Printing Office, 1971.
53.
Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin in
Southeast Asia, Harper (1972), p.88.
54.
The Laotian Ambassador to France was apprehended
in Paris in April 1971 with 60 kilos of heroin destined for the United States.
Ibid., p.222.
55.
Ibid., Chapters 5 and 7.
56.
Ibid., pp. 166-222.
57.
Ibid., pp. 219-220. On the official cover-up of
the complicity of the Saigon leadership-mafia in the heroin trade, see esp. pp.
171-172, 218-219.
58.
See Blase Bonpane, Our Latin Vietnam,” Los
Angeles Times (February 11,1968); Georgie Ann Ceyer, “U.S. Military Role in
Guatemala,” Gazette & Daily, York, Pa. (December 24,1966).
59.
See Carlos Maria Gutierrez, The Dominican
Republic: Rebellion and Repression, Monthly Review Press (1972), Chapter 2.
60.
John P. Lewis, New York Times, Op. Ed. (December
9,1971).
61.
New York Times (January 9,1972).
62.
On this matter see the illuminating analysis by
Eqbal Ahmad, “Notes on South Asia in Crisis,” Bulletin of the Concerned Asian
Scholars (1972), v.4, No.1.
63.
“Purely internal” is also used by American officials in an
Orwellian sense, meaning not so threatening to our perceived interests as to
demand intervention. Thus the Pakistan instance, or the case of Thailand where
“the general tendency of most Americans (sic) was to declare that the ruthless
suppression of political opposition by the military leaders (who, as we
discussed above, were a product and on the payroll of the U.S.) was a purely
internal affair. . .” Darling, op. cit., p.129; versus the NLF’s
“aggression” in South Vietnam, clearly an “external affair.”
64.
New York Times (January 9,1972).
65.
The quotation, from a government official who
followed internal cable reports from Burundi, is taken from Michael Bowen, Gary
Freedman, Kay Miller and Roger Morris, Passing By, The United States and
Genocide in Burun- di, 1972, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(undated), p.5. This document is referred to hereafter, as Pass- mg By. The
Hutu constitute 85 per cent of the population of Burundi, but have been ruled
by the fourteen per cent Tutsi minority since the 16th century.
66.
Quoted from Passing By, p.6.
67.
On July 14,1973 the New York Times brought up
the subject again in a front page article by Charles Mohr entitled “Exiles
Keeping Strife in Burundi Alive.” As suggested by the title itself, the article
starts out with, and fea- tures heavily, the subversive activities of “militant
Hutu refugees” allegedly trying to overthrow “the predomi- nantly Tutsi
Government.” A “major factor” in the Burundi tragedy is the “passionately
militant Hutu students in exile,” who have disturbed the “relative quiet in
recent days after a serious out-break of incidents (sic) in mid-May in which,
it is said, thousands of Hutus were slain.” Later in the article Mohr discussed
further the number of Hutus killed, but finds the matter inconclusive (Tutsis
were killed also), and passes on quickly to the disrupting behavior of the Hutu
students and refugees. According to the Carnegie study the Burundi government
itself many months ago admitted to 80,000 casualties, and “the State Department
had authoritative intelligence that the death toll in Burundi was two to three
times that number. “Ibid., p.22. The kind of biased, ignorant, and insensitive
reporting manifested in the Mohr piece contributes no more to an informed
public opinion than the silence which preceded it.
68.
See the June 23,1972 hearings on the
confirmation of Robert L. Yost, excerpted in Passing By, pp.35-37.
69.
Ibid., p.27.
70.
Ibid., pp.13-17
71.
Ibid., pp.17-19, 31-33.
72.
Ibid., p.24.
73.
Ibid., p.26.
74.
Authorities agree that estimates of totals
killed are not based on hard information and may never be. The “best guess” of
the Cornell Modern Indonesian project is 250,000. Jacques Decornoy, a well
informed journalist specializing in Southeast Asia, estimates “at least
500,000.” Le Mon de (November 11, 1972). Former Prime Minister of Australia
Harold Holt suggested 500,000 to a million (see note 85). Malcolm Caldwell says
that “certainly” several hundred thousand were summarily executed, and “perhaps
as many as a million.” Indonesia, Oxford (1968), p.113.
75.
“Indonesian Communism Since the 1965 Coup,”
Pacific Affairs, (Spring 1970), p. 3~36.
76.
Ibid., p.52.
77.
An amnesty report of early March 1973 estimates
over 55,000 untried political prisoners in Indonesia, many casually arrested
and unable to obtain even a definition of grounds for their detention. Neal
Ascherson, “55,000 Held Without Trial in Indonesia,” The Observer, London
(March 18,1973).
78.
Op cit., p.56.
79.
Jacques Decornoy, “Des dizaines de milliers de
personnes sont internees sans grand espoir d’etre jugees un jour,” Le Monde
(November 11,1972).
80.
Robert Walker, “Indonesia Assures U.S. on Investments,”
New York Times (July 9,1970).
81.
Philip Shabecoff, “Times are Hard but the
Indonesians Have Hopes,” New York Times (May 29,1970). See also, “Suharto Aide
is Accused of Stealing Funds,” (AP), Philadelphia Inquirer (July 19,1970).
82.
According to a study by Joel Rocamora, ‘Political
Prisoners and the Army Regime in Indonesia,” Cornell University (June 1970),
p.1.
83.
New York Times (November 30,1966).
84.
These moderate scholars not only use a double
standard - with violence in the interest of opposition to social change
justified by a set of nationalistic rationalizations - the also show themselves
to be incompetent scholars, or progandists, or both. As described below, the
U.S.-Diem forces always gave violence a higher priority on the spectrum of
means for effecting or opposing change than did the NLF, and up until 1960 the
NLF used minimal violence. They were not “committed to the thesis that violence
was the best means of effecting change”; but Diem and his advisors never were
able to make a serious and sustained effort at any course other than
counterrevolution- ary violence.
85.
New York Times (July 6,1966).
86.
U.S. News and World Report (November 27,1972),
p.24.
87.
General “Jake” Smith. Cited in Teodoro A.
Agoncillo and Oscar M. Alfonso, History of the Filipino People, Malaya Books,
1967, p.272.
88.
Cited by Jonathan Fast, “Crisis in the
Philippines,” New Left Review (March/April 1973), p.75, from Moorfield Storey
and Julian Codman, Secretary Root’s Records: Marked Seventies in Philippine
Warfare, Chicago (1902), pp. 116, 71-73. For similar observations from U.S. War
Department records, see Chomsky, American Power and the New Mandarins,
Pantheon, (1969), Chapter 3, pp.252-3.
89.
Justus M. van der Kroef, “Communism and Reform
in the Philippines,” Pacific Affairs (Spring 1973), p.31.
90.
Fast, op. cit., pp.85-86.
91.
“Real wage rates of Philippine skilled workers
dropped (1955 is 100) from 89.2 in 1969 to 74.9 at the end of the first half of
1971; the rates for unskilled workers fell in the same period from 100.0 to
90.4.” Van der Kroef, op cit.,
92.
Ibid.
93.
Van der Kroef’s summary of one of the findings
of the 1970 Agbayani House Sub-Committee Report, Ibid., p. 39
94.
The only functioning press is principally owned
by Marcos and his family and associates. Ibid., p.58.
95.
Ibid., p.30.
96.
Ibid., pp.52-53.
97.
Far Eastern Economic Review (August 5,1972),
p.13; cited by van der Kroef, op. cit., p.51.
98.
Ibid., p.51-52.
99.
Geoffrey Arlin, “The Organisers,” Far Eastern
Economic Review (July 2,1973), p.16.
100.
Walton has now been reassigned to Iran, “his
capacity there being what it was in Saigon and Manila: the crea- tion and
strengthening of the civil police in order to ‘protect’ the people from any
anti-Government movements.” Ibid.
101.
Ibid.
102.
Ibid.
103.
Ibid., p.20.
104.
Tad Szulc, “The Moveable War,” New Republic (May
12,1973).
105.
“Another Senate Test,” New York Times (July
9,1973).
106.
For some details, see Chomsky, At War with Asia,
Pantheon (1970), Chapter 4, and For Reasons of State, Pantheon (1973), Chapter
2 and references cited there. For a Laotian view, see Fred Branfman, ed.,
Voices from the Plain of Jars, Harper (1972).
107.
op. cit., p.16.
108.
Phillipe Devillers, Histoire du Vietnam, Seuil
(1952), p.337.
109.
“The Problem of Democracy in Vietnam,” The World
Today (February 1960), p.73.
110.
See section 4 of this Module, “Accelerating
Bloodbaths in South Vietnam.”
111.
Jean Lacouture, Vietnam: Between Two Truces,
Vintage (1966), p.29.
112.
David Hotham, in Richard Lindholm, ed., Vietnam:
The First Five Years, Michigan State (1959), p.359.
113.
J. J. Zasloff, Origins of the Insurgency in
South Vietnam, 1954-1960: The Role of the Southern Vietminh Cadres, Rand (March
1967), p.11.
114.
Ibid.,pp.12-13.
115.
“Losung fur Vietnam,” Neues Forum
(August-September 1966), p.459 (present authors’ translation).
116.
Op. cit., p.197.
117.
Pentagon Papers, Gravel ed., v. I, p.259.
118.
Ibid.
119.
Ibid., p.254.
120.
Ibid.
121.
Ibid., p.255.
122.
Ibid., p.243.
123.
For further discussion of the peace agreements,
see Chomsky, “Engame: the Tactic of Peace in Vietnam,” Ramparts (April 1973),
and “Indochina and the Fourth Estate,” Social Policy (forthcoming).
124.
The problem was seen to be, in part, the
“tremendous sense of dependence on the U.S.” of countries like the Philippines
and South Korea. National Security Council Working Group Project-Courses of
Action, Southeast Asia (November 10,1964), Pentagon Papers, Gravel ed., Beacon
v.1, p.627.
125.
In the State Department’s view, “a fundamental
source of danger we face in the Far East derives from Commu- nist China’s rate
of economic growth which will probably continue to outstrip that of free Asian
countries, with the possible exception of Japan.” (DOD, bk. 10, p.1198.) The
Department urged that we do what we can to retard the progress of Asian
Communist states. The assault on North Vietnam and rural South Vietnam
certainly contributes to that end.
126.
The NSC Working Group Project says that “In South
Korea, there is... some discouragement at the failure to make as much progress
politically and economically as North Korea (from a much more favorable initial
position) has made.” Op. cit.; see note 124.
127.
An intelligence estimate of 1959 concluded that
“development will lag behind that in the North, and the GVN will continue to
rely heavily upon US support...” In the North, while life is “grim and
regimented... the national effort is concentrated on building for the future.”
(DOD, bk. 10, pp.1191-1193.) In essence, this forecast proved to be correct.
See the quotes from Kellen, note 16 and text.
128.
Revised BundylMcNaughton Draft of November
21,1964, Pentagon Papers, Gravel ed., v.111, p.661.
129.
Ibid.
130.
Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation, Norton
(1969), p.219.
131.
See NSC Working Group on Vietnam, Sec. 1:
Intelligence Assessment: The Situation in Vietnam, November 24,1964, Doc. 240,
Pentagon Papers, Gravel ed., v.111, pp.651-6.
132.
In an unpublished and untitled memorandum on
pacification problems circulated within the military in 1965, a copy of which
was given by Vann to Professor Alex Carey, University of New South Wales,
Australia.
133.
For the intellectual backup of a policy of
semi-genocide, see., Charles Wolf, Jr., United States Policy and the Third
World, Little, Brown (1967).
134.
The Saigon government, of course, has in no
sense represented the rural masses being pacified-in fact, its collaboration in
the terror, and its assumed interest in its own people as the
western-recognized legitimate govern- ment of South Vietnam, played an
important part in giving pacification whatever aura of acceptability it had,
and keeping the lid of silence on details. In matters like My Lal the Saigon
authorities have been as eager to deny and suppress as the American command.
135.
See Littauer and Uphoff, eds., The Air War in
Indochina, Cornell (1971), p.62.
136.
Ibid., p.55.
137.
Michael J. Uhi, U.S. Assistance Programs (1971),
p.315.
138.
Quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Bitter
Heritage, Houghton Mifflin, (1967), p.47.
139.
Indochina Resource Center, “A Statistical Fact
Sheet on the Indochina War” (September 27,1972).
140.
The Air War in Indochina, p.63.
141.
See, for example, Herman, Atrocities in Vietnam:
Myths and Realities, Pilgrim (1970), Chapter 3; Hersh, MyLai 4, Random House
(1971); Katsuichi Honda, Vietnam War: A Report Through Asian Eyes, Mirai-sha
(1972); Jonathan Schell, The Military Hal f: An Account of Destruction in
QuangNgai and Quang Tin, Vintage (1968); Kunen, Standard Operating Procedure,
Avon (1971).
142.
“Pacification’s Deadly Price,” Newsweek (June 19,1972),
pp.42-43.
143.
Cordon S. Livingston, “Letter from a Vietnam
Veteran,” Saturday Review (September 20, 1969).
144.
Robert M. Smith, “Vietnam Killings Laid to
Koreans,” New York Times (January 10,1970).
145.
Craig Whitney of the New York Times, who was
given extensive documentation on South Korean murders by Diane and Michael
Jones, summarized their findings briefly toward the end of an article focusing
on the future role of the South Koreans in Vietnam. Toward the beginning of his
article, Whitney states that “They (the South Koreans) have been providing a
military shield (Whitney does not say to whom) in a poorly defended section of
the central coast (“Korean Troops End Vietnam Combat Role,” New York Times
(November 9, 1972).
146.
See “‘Pacification’ by Calculated Frightfulness:
The Testimony of Diane and Michael Jones on the Massacres of South Vietnamese
Civilians by South Korean Mercenary Troops,” Pacification Monograph Number 2;
Edited with an Introduction by Edward S. Herman, Philadelphia, Pa. (1973).
147.
A very large number of South Korean murders were
“random” in the sense of not being attributable to any going military actions.
148.
A Rand Corporation study of 1966 “Viet Cong
Motivation and Morale Study” which gave documentary evi- dence of indiscriminate
South Korean murders of civilians, was classified and suppressed by Rand and
DOD. See American Report (July 28,1972).
149.
Letter in the New York Times (January 25,1970).
150.
“Security” is another Orwellism as consistently
applied to Vietnam by official spokesmen for the United States. They use it to
mean unthreatened control by the Saigon government. If Saigon controls by sheer
force and violence-often the case-the people and hamlet are “secure”; if the
NLF controls without force, the hamlet and its people are “insecure.” A
National Intelligence Estimate of June 1953 gloomily discussed the inability of
the French Union forces “to provide security for the Vietnamese population,”
who warned the guerrillas of the presence of French Union forces, thus
permitting them to take cover. In short, popular support for the Vietminh made
it difficult for France to provide security for the population from the
Vietminh. The Pentagon Papers, Gravel ed., v.1, p.396.
151.
The same tendencies quickly manifested
themselves in the Australian “pacification” effort. See esp. the docu-
mentation in Alex Carey, “Australian Atrocities in Vietnam,” Sydney, N.S.W.
(1968), 22 pp.
152.
U.S. Assistance Programs, p.183.
153.
An earlier predecessor was the “counter-terror,”
or “CT” program organized by the CIA in the mid-1960s to use assassination and
other forms of terror against the NLF leadership and cadres. See Wayne Cooper,
“Operation Phoenix: A Vietnam Fiasco Seen From Within,” Washington Post (June
8,1972).
154.
Pentagon Papers, Gravel ed., v.11, pp.429, 585.
155.
Ibid., pp.503-504.
156.
Ibid., v. IV, p.578.
157.
Richard S. Winslow, a former AID employee,
pointed out that Phoenix program language at one time spoke of the
“elimination” of VCI. “‘Elimination,’ however, gave the unfortunate impression
to some Congressmen and to the interested public that someone was being ‘eliminated.’
Now the major goal is ‘neutralization’ of the VCI. Of course, the same
proportion of VCI are being killed. . . . But Congress seems mollified now that
suspected Vietcong are neutralized,’ rather than ‘eliminated.”‘ U.S. Assistance
Programs, p.244.
158.
U.S. Assistance Programs, p.183.
159.
Ministry of Information, Vietnam 1967-1971,
Toward Peace and Prosperity, p.52.
160.
U.S. Assistance Programs, p.207.
161.
Ibid., pp.184, 225.
162.
Ibid., p.183.
163.
Ibid., p.212.
164.
Ibid., p.186.
165.
For Robert Komer, writing in April 1967, the
problem is’ that “we are just not getting enough payoff yet from the massive
intelligence we are increasingly collecting. Policelmilitary coordination is
sadly lacking both in collec- tion and in swift reaction.” Pentagon Papers,
Gravel ed., v~ IV, p.441.
166.
Pentagon Papers, Gravel ed., v.11, p.407,
referring to the officials of Bien Hoa Province.
167.
See Jon Cooper, “Operation Phoenix,” Department
of History, Dartmouth (1971), mimeographed. The infor- mant is Don Luce.
168.
U.s. Assistance Programs, p.314.
169.
New York Times (August 13,1972).
170.
Washington Post (February 17,1970).
171.
U.5, Assistance Programs, p.314.
172.
Dispatch News Service International, #376 (July
6,1972).
173.
u.s, Assistance Programs, p.321.
174.
Ibid., p.252.
175.
Ibid., p.314.
176.
Ibid., pp.314-315.
177.
Ibid., p.321.
178.
Ibid., p.252.
179.
UPI, Le Monde (November 5,1971); see further
citations in Chomsky, For Reasons of State (1973), p.92.
180.
For a discussion of the 1967 attack on Dak Son
and this general issue, see Herman, Atrocities in Vietnam, pp. 46-54.
181.
The quote is from a captured Communist document
dated March 1960, cited at length in Race, op. cit., pp. 116-119. The specific
quote is on p.119.
182.
Douglas Pike, Vietcong, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (1966), pp.91-92.
183.
Ibid., p.101.
184.
Race, op. cit., p.184.
185.
Law 10/59 initiated a system of military courts
that, within three days of a charge, were to sentence to death “whoever commits
or attempts to commit... crimes with the aim of sabotage, or of infringing upon
the security of the State” (Article 1) as well as “whoever belongs to an
organization designed to help to prepare or to perpetrate (these) crimes”
(Article 3). This law made all dissent and opposition subversive and punishable
by death.
186.
Op. cit., pp.196-197. Emphasis added.
187.
Ibid., pp.188-189, note 25.
188.
Ibid., p.200. It is interesting to note that
after talking with the Saigon leadership in 1965, James Reston wrote: “Even
Premier Ky told this reporter today that the communists were closer to the
people’s yearnings for social 1u185ti;1e and an independent life than his own
government.” New York Times (September 1,1965). Race, op. cit., p.200.
189.
190.
These reports reached flood proportions during
the DRV offensive of 1972, with the New York Times con- tributing its share in
the writing of Joseph Treaster and Fox Butterfield. Their reports, heavily
dependent on official handouts of Saigon and U.S. information officers, do not
withstand close scrutiny. See Tom Fox, “The Binh Dinh ‘Massacre’,” American
Report (September 15,1972); Le Monde, May 28-29,1972 (report of interviews with
refugees by an AFP special correspondent). See also note 221, below.
191.
This system of responsiveness extends into the
military sphere, helping to explain the “astonishing” fighting capacity and
“almost incredibly resilient morale” of DRV soldiers, who benefit from a system
of “morale restitution. designed to lend great emotional and physical support
to its members,” a system which “anticipates and alleviates possible future
morale troubles.” Kellen, op. cit., p.9.
192.
In R. N. Pfeffer, ed., No More Vietnams? ,
Harper and Row (1968), p.227.
193.
Race, op. cit., pp.182-183, note 22.
194.
Diane Johnstone, “‘Communist Bloodbath’ in North
Vietnam is Propaganda Myth, says former Saigon Psychological Warfare Chief,”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (September 24,1972).
195.
The analysis that follows is based on D. Gareth
Porter, The Myth of the Bloodbath: North Vietnam’s Land Reform Reconsidered,
International Relations of East Asia, Interim Report No.2, Cornell (1972).
196.
Ibid., pp.26-28.
197.
Ibid., pp.44-45.
198.
“Figure on N. Vietnam’s Killing ‘Just a Guess,’
Author Says,” The Washington Post (September 13,1972).
199.
Late 1954 was also a period of famine in much of
North Vietnam, affecting the very area in which Chi had lived, which further
compromises his inferences drawn from a count of village deaths by starvation.
200.
Fire in the Lake, Little, Brown, 1972, p.223.
FitzGerald gives no footnote reference for this “conservative esti- mate,” but
she relies heavily on Fall and her language here is similar to his.
201.
Michael Harrington writes that he and other
“socialist cadre . . . knew that Ho and his comrades had killed thousands of
peasants during forced collectivization in North Vietnam during the ‘SOs (a
fact they themselves had confessed). Dissent (Spring 1973). In fact, the only
known “confessions” are the fabrications that had been exposed many months
earlier, and neither Harrington nor other western observers “know” what took
place during the land reform. U.S. government propagandists can rest
unperturbed, despite the exposures of earlier fabrications.
202.
Porter, Op. cit., p.55.
203.
Stewart Harris, London Times (March 27,1968).
204.
Fire in the Lake, op. cit., pp.174-175.
205.
New York Times, Op. Ed. (June 15,1972). In his
book, No Exit Prom Vietnam (McKay, Updated Edition (1970), Thompson says that “Normally
Communist behavior toward the mass of the population is irreproachable and the
use of terror is highly selective” (p.40); but that work, while biased,
involved some effort at understanding and con- tained a residue of integrity,
entirely absent in the New York Times p iece.
206.
D. Gareth Porter, “Hue: A Study in Political
Warfare” (undated) as yet unpublished.
207.
Ibid., pp.9-14.
208.
Ibid., p.6.
209.
Ibid., pp.10-il.
210.
Ibid., p.12.
211.
Quoted in Townsend Hoopes, The Limits of
Intervention, McKay (1969), p.142.
212.
Ibid., pp. 141-2.
213.
M. Riboud, in Le Monde (April 13,1968).
214.
Ibid.
215.
Interview with Mr. Tony Zangrilli (February
2,1973).
216.
Alje Vennema, The Tragedy of Hue, unpublished;
quoted by Porter, op. cit., pp. 22-23.
217.
Oriana Fallaci, “Working Up to Killing,” The
Washington Monthly (February 1972), p.40.
218.
“Vietnam: The Bloodbath Argument,” Christian
Century (November 5,1969).
219.
Ibid.
220.
Katsuichi Honda, Vietnam War: A Report Through
Asian Eyes, pp.55-69.
221.
Martin Teitel, Hearings before the Subcommittee
to Investigate Problems Connected with Refugees and Escapees, Committee on the
Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 92d Congress, second session (May 8,1972), p.17
(Kennedy Sub- committee); “Again, the suffering of My Lai,” New York Times
(June 7,1972). In the same Senate Hearings Teitel reports other instances of
terrorism attributed to the NLF but apparently carried out by ARVN, and gives a
brief resume of U.S. Operation BOLD MARINER in the Batangan Peninsula, in which
the entire population of the penin- sula was forcibly moved to a sandpit near
Quang Ngai city, the land levelled by artillery and bombs and finally destroyed
by Rome Plows, dikes destroyed by bombardment so that rice cannot be grown, and
the people placed in semi-starvation conditions.
222.
Patrice De Beer, “Le traitement des prisonniers
politique par Saigon parait peu conforme aux accords du 27 janvier,” Le Monde
(March 16,1973). See also, After the Signing of the Paris Agreements, Documents
on South Viet- nam’s Political Prisoners, Narmic-VRC (June 1973), p.27.
223.
For extensive documentation on this point, see
esp.: Ibid.; A Cry of Alarm, New Revelations on Repression and Deportations in
South Vietnam, Saigon (1972); Jean-Pierre Debris and Andre Menras, Rescapes des
bagnes de Saigon, nous accusons (1973); The Forgotten Prisoners of Ngu yen Van
Thieu, Paris (May 1973); Holmes Brown and Don Luce, Hostages of War, Saigon’s
Political Prisoners (1973); Pham Tam, Imprisonment and Torture in South
Vietnam, FOR (un- dated); Prisonniers Politiques au Sud Vietnam, Listes de
Prisonniers, Appel des 30 Mouvements, Saigon (February 1973).
224.
Quoted in Brown and Luce, op. cit., p.14.
225.
Ibid., p.15.
226.
Ibid., p.32.
227.
Quaker Team in Quang Ngai Province, “To Report
Truthfully on the Treatment of Prisoners in 1972.”
228.
After the Signing (see note 222 above), p.32.
229.
U.S. Assistance Programs, p.314.
230.
After the Signing, p. 27.
231.
Ibid., pp.26-27.
232.
Jane and David Barton, “Indochina-Quang Ngai
Province Five Months After the Peace Agreement.” (June 20,1973). (Appended to
this Module.)
233.
After the Signing, p.33.
234.
Ibid., pp.33-34.
235.
See note 27 above.
236.
In the broadest sense, the long U.S.
intervention has been the only reason that a Thieu-type regime could exist in
the first ~ace.
237.
U.S. Assistance Prc~rams, p.5.
238.
GAO Report (July 1972), p.42.
239.
U.S. Assistance Programs, p.197.
240.
Ibid., p.224.
241.
Ibid., p.96.
242.
Ibid., pp.177,179. Our emphasis.
243.
AID, Fiscal 1971 Program and Project Data
Presentation to Congress; cited by Michael T. Kiare, “America’s Global Police,”
American Report, Sept. 15,1972.
244.
Quoted in Brown and Luce, op. cit., pp. 62-63.
245.
See note 24 above.
246.
U.S. Assistance Programs, pp. 186ff. One
illustration of “improvement” cited by William Colby was that confessions
obtained during “interrogations,” which ‘used to be used exclusively... are not
used exclusively any more. p .197.
247.
Quoted in Brown and Luce, op. cit., p. 32.
248.
Ibid., p.36.
249.
Ibid., p. Ill.
250.
AP report (November 1,1972).
251.
On October 12,1972, Thieu stated that “The
people and the army will not permit to live for more than five minutes” anybody
advocating a coalition government. On October 24 he announced that all
undesirable elements in South Vietnam would be exterminated. See The Forgotten
Prisoners, p. 41.
252.
This and other edicts are available in Alter the
Signing, p.22.
253.
New York Times (November 23,1972); Vietnam News
(March 6,1973). The latter, put out by the DRV, claims that Saigon had long
since worked out a “Security Plan 1971,” to be put into effect in case of a
bilateral solution bet- ween the U.S. and PRG and DRV, that, in the event of a
cease fire, would use “suitable measures” to neutralize dangerous political
prisoners.
254.
Laurence Stern, Washington Post (November
30,1972).
255.
Zasloff, op. cit., note 113, p.13.
256.
Michael Field, The Prevailing Wind: Witness in
Indo-China, Methuen, (1965), p.210.
257.
“M.Thieu... appliquons la lois des cowboys,” Le
Monde (January 27,1973).
258.
Boston Globe (June 24,1972).
259.
San Francisco Chronicle (June 4,1972).
260.
This document appeared in Le Monde (May
17,1973).
261.
Chris Jenkins, “Thieu’s Campaign of Terror,”
American Report (January 29, 1973); letter of the Committee Campaigning for the
Improvement of the Prison System of South Vietnam (December 9,1972); After the
Signing, pp. 35ff.
262.
Sylvan Fox, “Saigon Bypasses Accord by Freeing
Many Prisoners,” New York Times (February 6,1973).
263.
The press also failed to note the suspiciousness
of the huge number (40,000) allegedly being released, and the illogic in the
contention that the political component, numbering a huge 10,000 had “renounced
Communism.” (All at once? If not, why were they held to this point?)
264.
Prison News of the Committee Campaigning for the
Improvement of the Prison System of South Vietnam (December 14,1972).
265.
Prison News (December 9,1972).
266.
Ngo Vinh Long, “Thieu starving refugees to keep
the throne,” Boston Phoenix, (Dec. 12,1972), citing South Vietnamese nNewwsIsSP
er reports.
267.
Prison December 9,1972); After the Signing, pp.
35ff.
268.
Le JAonde (January 3,1973).
269.
Ibid.
270.
New York Times (January 27,1973).
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