Another Dissection - Home Bigart

The article I'm looking at is 'Vietnam Victory Remote Despite U.S. Aid to Diem,' by Homer Bigart, first published July 25, 1961, in The New York Times.

Not just any reporter, not just any newspaper

Who was Homer Bigart? I didn't know until I looked him up and found a 1991 eulogy in the American Journalism Review:

Bigart, who died last April at age 83, won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for his World War II coverage and one for his coverage of the Korean War. In a career that spanned the late 1920s through the early 1970s, first at the New York Herald Tribune and later at The New York Times, Bigart became a legend among his fellow journalists not only because of the quality of his work but also because he was so clearly a newspaperman's newspaperman.

Homer Bigart was not just any reporter. He was seasoned by two wars, he was highly experienced, honored by the the journalism profession, at death, a 'legend' among his peers.

Homer Bigart was the reporter on the spot for the New York Times. Is that a big deal? The Times was—and is—the most prestigious paper in the US, not a regional newspaper, but the chief newspaper for the entire country, read and followed closely by policymakers in the government, think tanks, people actually running things, and by the highly educated nationwide, and by the owners and editors of other newspapers throughout the country. In a way, it has the power to 'create' reality, at least in the minds of many well placed people.

Creating Reality

So what does this privileged mouthpiece for the real world do back in 1962? He starts like this:

The United States, by massive and unqualified support of the regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem, has helped arrest the spread of Communist inurgency in South Vietnam. But victory is remote. The issue remains in doubt because the Vietnamese President seems incapable of winning the loyalty of his people. (58)

Then he quickly paints by numbers. Someone—he doesn't say who is deciding this—on our side, is expanding the military:

By the end of the this year … 205,000 regular forces, 72,000 Civil Guard, 82,000 Self-Defense Corps… more helicopters, armored personnel carriers and other gadgets to enhance mobility, more sentry dogs to sniff out guerrillas, more plastic boats for the delta region, more American advisors with fresh, new tactical doctrines. (58)

against the other side, 'The Vietcong (Vietnamese Communist) guerrillas':

25,000 guerrillas who have no artillary, no anti-aircraft guns, no air power, no trucks, no jeeps, no prime movers, and only basic infantry weapons … and no substantial outside aid. (58)

And yet, 'victory is remote.' Why?

Visions of ultimate victory are obscured by the image of a secretive, suspicious, dictatorial regime. (59)

The rest of the article gives tangled evidence that the Diem regime is in the way of American efforts to stop The Communists from taking over South Vietnam. However, throughout the article, there is evidence of another story, that the Diem regime is against the population who are for the insurrgents and that the US is being forced to intervene with increasing violence

A 'secretive, suspicious, dictatorial regime'

Let's start to understand the world of Homer Bigart using the paragraphs quoted above. Despite 'massive and unqualified support' the 'Vietnamese president seems incapable of winning the loyalty of his people' because his is 'a secretive, suspicious, dictatorial regime.'

Bigart's language creates a tangle in the mind of the reader: to be 'incapable' one must be demonstrating effort and the desire to 'win the loyalty' of the real human beings in the country but failing. Is this what one would expect from a 'secretive, suspicious, dictatorial regime?' Does Homer Bigart suggest we should expect a dictator to try to win the loyalty of his subjects?

Insurrections without a cause

What causes the Communists insurrection? Bigart offers no help here. At the end of the article, he addresses a possible cause, but again in euphemistic language:

In the relatively quiet years between 1955 and 1958, when the Communist insurrection supported by North Vietnam began, South Vietnam made some modest economic progress. Saigon looked relatively prosperous. But United States economic aid was slow to reach the villages. And Ngo Dinh Diem did little to generate enthusiasm for his regime. (67)

This leaves the reader clueless as to what was going on in those years. What was this 'secretive, suspicious, dictatorial regime' doing in the countryside, where this insurrection was catching hold?

Signs are clear enough?

Bigart notes an inconsistency in the picture: Communists are attacking, but the rural population is not rallying to government, their defenders, but does not suggest a reason. He does note that 'the press is rigidly controlled and there is no freedom of assembly' presumably one reason it is hard to what the population thinks. However, he reports that in one attack

guerrillas moved into position in daylight, prepared the ambuscade in full view of the road and waited three hours for the convoy to appear. They must have been observed by scores of peasants. Yet no one informed the garrison in Bentre. Could this have happened if peasants felt any real identification? A family living at the scene said it was threatened with death if it informed. But the Vietcong probably would never have undertaken this action without full confidence that the peasants were with them, or at least indifferent. (60)

In fact, the opposite happens, as Bigart notes. When the government presence is felt, in the form of the army, the population flees:

Observers of sweeps by the Vietnamese army through the Mekong delta provinces are often struck by the phenomenon of deserted villages. As troops approach, all flee except a few old men and children. No one offers information; no one hurries to put out flags. Most of the rural area is controlled by Vietcong, whose agents will move back as soon as the troops have departed.

The rural population is quite likely sympathetic to the insurgents and flees from government forces. Bigart does not say why, but has euphemistically called this a 'lack of enthusiasm'  and summarizes the situation for the reader this way: 'In some areas, signs of dissatisfaction are clear enough.'

Clear enough? Not for Bigart.

Although he has already called the Diem 'regime' secretive and dictatorial and notes that it is heavily militarized, is suppressing the press and assembly, and is unsupported by the rural population who flee the army, he has failed to give any reason why. Instead, the story he his building so far is that the 'regime' we are supporting with massive military aid is not able to win the loyalty of the people who are for some reason dissatisfied with the government.

This, this right here, is how a reader is given information and simultaneously disabled from making sense of it. 

Two plus two does not equal four

Why does the rural population flee the Army. Bigart doesn't say. However, he knows why—or should—since he says a few paragraphs later:

generally the Communist rebels are indistinguishable from peasants. Thus, many of the "enemy" dead reported by the South Vietnam Government were ordinary peasants shot down because they fled from villages as the troops entered.… Some may have been Vietcong sympathizers, but others were running away because they did not want to be rounded up for military conscription or forced labor."(64).

Why does he tell us this at this point when he is questioning government claims for enemy casualties? Why didn't he mention this when he introduced the idea of 'dissatisfaction' with the government? Couldn't his readers then see that 'dissatisfaction' might be fear and rage at having people killed, conscripted and forced to work at gunpoint?

Bigart's reality includes skepticism about the government's claims of success in the fighting, but he can not build a picture of a government brutally indifferent to the population and at perhaps at war with it.

'Security:' Language to subvert the obvious

The next paragraphs talk about the importance of 'securing the countryside.' How are they doing this?

Diem is well aware of the importance of securing the countryside. His brother has visions of concentrating peasants into "strategic hamlets" ringed with mud walls, moats and barbed wire. The object is to isolate peasants from the Communists. Brother Ngo Dinh Nhu urged the creation of 8,000 hamlets by the end of the year. (60).

Does this sound like an attempt to 'win the loyalty of his people,' people who, it has already been admitted, are likely to be with the insurgents? That is what we are left to believe. Would this lead people to 'dissatisfaction?' Bigart gives the facts, the government is attempting to dislocate tens of thousands of people by force and isolate them in camps, and yet the only frame for understanding this is either incompetence or security.

What do 'Americans' think of this?

While appalled by the dreary regimentation of life in these fortified villages, most Americans are convinced that the strategic hamlet is part of the answer to the pacification problem. They hope to persuade the President that forced labor on hamlet defenses is not the way to win the affection of the peasants. (60)

'Secure the countryside' by isolating the peasants, who, Bigart admits, are probably with the insurgents. And a few paragraphs later he reports that these people are being murdered by the army or rounded up for forced labor. The cute language, 'enthusiasm,' 'dissatisfaction', 'loyalty,' 'observers struck by deserted villages' is not reporting; it is evasion.

So what do Americans propose:

that a trust fund be set aside to insure that emergency relief, food, blankets, medicine, or perhaps defense materials such as barbed wire and cement would reach the new villages in the first critical weeks. (60)

This is how reality is invented. 'Emergency relief' in the 'first critical weeks.' People are being uprooted and interned—perhaps 8,000 villages—to isolate them from those they side with by a dictatorial government, without getting support by that government, and this is a 'critical emergency' 'perhaps' needing 'defense materials' and 'relief.'

Unthinkable truths

Does Bigart help his reader make sense of what the US is doing?

In Bigart's world, separating a population from its insurgency is the pacification problem. This is 'defense.' So, what should be 'clear' if you follow his language, is this: Americans are defending a 'dictatorial regime' from a popular insurgency. The pacification problem is that 'forced labor' enslaved in a 'dreary regimentation' to defend a 'dictatorial regime' isn't working. But in this reporting, that picture is called 'not winning the affection' of the population. The euphemism is functional. It lets Bigart avoid the obvious and unthinkable truth about what the US is doing.

Bigart reports the facts, but lives in such a world that makes those facts incomprehensible, both to himself and to other 'Americans.'

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Americans are trying so hard, but this guy…

Diem is the problem. How? First, the suspicious dictator president is getting in the way of the military machine that the US is setting up in Vietnam. 'All major troop movements, all officer promotions, must have his approval.' He moves around troops, is afraid of a military coup, and makes 'use of general reserve troops' to secure the Presidential palace from other parts of the military, and to launch 'futile one-shot operations based on faulty intelligence and conducted with slipshod planning.'

Bigart illustrates with an example in which a convoy is 'wiped-out' by the guerrillas just forty miles from Saigon, the site of the presidential palace, but a follow-up by the military was delayed two hours because the general reserve needed the dictator president's approval. The guerrillas escaped.

This episode was a 'bitter revelation for Americans.' —'Americans?' Which? He doesn't say but presumably, all Americans, including his readers, as one singular point of view is put forward. Thus the reader is corralled in with those he talks of later: the leaders of the US advisory group, the American aid mission, US President Kennedy's military advisor, 'Washington,' the US Ambassador, the US Defense Department, the US Secretary of Defense, and the US Vice president. Why doesn't he say 'planners of the US government intervention in the South of Vietnam?'

What follows is a listing of the problems this unconditionally, massively supported suspicious dictatorial president is causing Americans.

By last year, the Communists controlled most of the countryside. The Vietnamese President was forced to ask for greatly increased military aid. President Kennedy responded by rushing thousands of United States military personnel to South Vietnam to serve as advisers and instructors. A united States Military Assistance Command was established under Gen. Paul Donal Harkins (67)

The final, confused prognosis, is that because Diem is not 'an inspired leader' and since there is no 'anti-communist alternative' the US may have to 'ditch Diem for a military junta' or fight the Communists themselves, and like the French before them, ultimately loose, 'lacking the endurance' for a jungle war.

Diem 'did little to generate enthusiasm for his regime' between 1955 and 1958 (67) and 'some feel the Vietnamese President cannot give his country the inspired leadership needed to defeat the Vietcong' (66).

An aside on objectivity

The journalists that gathered to honor Homer Bigart after his death obviously thought highly of the 'newspaperman's newspaperman.' Here is another extract:

As for Hiroshima, where he was one of the first reporters allowed in after the bomb was dropped, Bigart was curtly dismissive of those who would rewrite history. "At the time we thought it was just a hell of a good raid, just another big bomb. We were still full of the war spirit and Japan was an all-out war. We felt we had to win it and that we had to practically exterminate the enemy. I'm very suspicious of people's expressions of shock now. They've forgotten how we felt then."

Admirable frankness, at least regarding those who would 'rewrite history.' But what about those who write history, at least in the sense I spoke of above: reporters are the voice of reality. As the above anecdote shows, Bigart was rooting for the cause, 'full of the war spirit,' feeling 'we' had to 'practically exterminate the enemy,' even though in this case the enemy was a civilian city, which Bigart had to know.

How do the other 'we,' the ones who want our government to follow the norms of international law and decency, how do we defend ourselves against reporters who share the intentions, hopes, and ferver of those they report on?

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The article, "Vietnam Victory Remote Despite U.S. Aid to Diem", was written by Homer Bigart, and appeared July 25, 1962, in The New York Times. I read it in an anthology, Reporting Vietnam. Part One: American Journalism 1959-1969, in the Library of America series, (c) 1998, pgs 58 - 67.

The eulogy on Homer Bigart is available online, The American Journalism Review, "The Quiet Exit of Homer Bigart", November, 1991.

'Fumbling'- a slice of reportage by Stanley Karnow, 1961

I am trying to learn to read better. This article, by Stanley Karnow, presented a schizophrenic's reality to me, where the reporter seemed desperate to maintain one reality while reporting another. This juxtaposition seems decodable, but if one doesn't look for it, and work at it, I think it makes one's moral judgement confused. What looks at first to be horrible and wrong becomes OK, since it is never picked up and used by the authority who presents it. It must be alright, somehow, or it would be made a big deal.

(Historical note: the 'Diem régime' refers to the US backed government of what became known as South Vietnam. He was in power from 1954 until 1963, when he was killed in a military coup.)

How can a reporter do this:

In any conflict against guerillas, however, the key to success or failure lies in the rural population, and in many regions of South Vietnam the peasants' attitude to the Diem régime seems to range between plain and 'hostile' neutrality. To some extent, the army has been at fault. … Like most Oriental armies it has done its share of brutalizing peasants—raping, pillaging, torturing. And often it is caught up in clever Communist traps… psychological victori[es] for the Reds, psychological loss[es] for the Diem régime.

Does this win some award for density of rhetorical contortions?

hostile neutrality, to some extent the army has been at fault, like most Oriental armies, its share of raping, pillaging, torturing

The hostility must be neutral, as otherwise, the population would be leaning toward the other side, which apparently could never happen; the army is only somewhat culpable; they brutalize the population, but only because they are Oriental; and Diem, who earlier is credited with having inordinate control of the army, is not blamable at all. And of course, 'the Communists' are to blame too.

He goes on:

Aggravating this sort of fumbling… some of Diem's dramatic security decisions have fallen short. Late in 1959, for example, he devised a scheme to pull the peasants together in large agglomerations, officially to be called "prosperity centers" and commonly known as agrovilles. The laudable aim of these projects was to establish protected villages and, incidentally, to set up marketing cooperatives.

Now the award is for sugar-coating—or naiveté:

aggravating, fumbling, pull the peasants together, protect the villages

Diem is 'aggravating' army atrocities, which are lumped in as 'fumbling.' This time, Diem is given full potency in making this decision, whereas in the army's atrocities, he was not identified. The peasants are to be 'pulled together' and yet he gives no hint that they may not want to being relocated. It's 'laudable' that they be 'protected' even though it is clear from his own report that they should fear the army, not welcome it.

Next, for the only time in the article, Karnow reports facts from the scene himself. He visits a "prosperity center," a place called Vi Thanh, in the southern delta:

At first glance, it seemed magnificent compared to the scrubby farms I had seen along the way.… But probing a bit more deeply, I discovered some fatal flaws that, in practice, had made the entire scheme a detriment to South Vietnam's security.

So, what are the 'flaws' he discovered upon probing this government program? He describes them. I quote at length:

The swift and ruthless manner in which the agrovilles were created not only disrupted ancient customs, it also alientated more peasants then it could ever have protected. …In fifty days, beginning in December, 1959, with the help of the army [the official in charge] rounded up twenty thousand peasants—although they were in the middle of their rice harvest—and put them to work immediately. They were paid nothing, and many of them had to walk ten or twelve miles to and from the construction job every day. And when the agroville was finished, there was room in it for only 6,200 people, leaving some fourteen thousand others without their rice crop, without any payment for their work, and without any opportunity to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Here Karnow, without much obfuscation, quickly reports government brutality and indifference of terrible proportions, and yet just a sentence before, he says the scheme 'fell short' of its 'laudable aim'. He diminishes the massive, forced relocation by saying it 'disrupted ancient customs,' not uprooted entire communities. He fails to tie the history of the army, who rapes, pillages, and tortures, to this action, simply saying the peasants were 'rounded up'. He fails to probe that the people brought into the camp are now dependent on government supplies and services, a government that clearly cares nothing for their opinions or way of life. And even though he concludes that thousands would be without their rice or the money to buy food, he fails to follow up with a likely summary: thousands have been made totally dependent on an indifferent government and thousands more have been used as forced labor and reduced to possible starvation, without the slightest effort to help them.

These are 'flaws.' His next sentences:

On balance, there is no doubt that Diem has done a great deal for the South Vietnamese peasant. The accomplishments—credit, new seeds, irrigation projects, tax exemptions, land distribution and the like—cannot be overlooked. But the individualistic, self-conscious farmer, like farmers everywhere in the world, has an inherent inclination to discount his blessings; and in critical times, such as the present, failings tend to gain greater currency than achievements.

Now, its a blame-the-victim award. And an incredibly ugly one. But there are deeper points to bring out.

There is a schizophrenic dissonance in Karnow's reporting. He reports facts, though often vaguely, or with sugar-coating, but does not use these to build a coherent reality. He will obliquely introduce a quality, such as the brutal, authoritarian, and indifferent nature of Diem's government, but not use it to interpret or represent the reality in front of him. Instead, he works to maintain a different reality.

Two plus two does not equal four

Earlier in the article, Karnow noted that Diem was an authoritarian ruler who, together with his brothers, in order to 'control South Vietnam,' had set up extensive clandestine organizations, which, among other, unnamed, activities spied on every aspect of society. He often controls the army arbitrarily, and all officials above the village level, like the one who set up the "prosperity center" above, reported directly to the brothers. All were appointed by the Diem family, so none can be removed by popular vote. He also notes that Diem and his family were high functionaries in the colonial government of the French who had been defeated in an awful war a few years earlier, and that his family is believed by 'everyone' to be corrupt, controlling big parts of the economy and robbing the country of its wealth.

So? There is no reason to believe that this man, Diem, or his 'régime,' have the interest of the rural population in mind. None. They run an authoritarian government with a brutal army, have a history of serving outside interests, govern via secret societies, act arbitrarily, without consulting those affected, are indifferent to the actual lives of the rural population, and act in their own interests, not the country's. This is from Karnow's own reporting. Further, the one time Karnow reports from the scene of a government program, all this is proven out in spades. So why does he insist that Diem's aims are laudable and his accomplishments are praiseworthy?

Why—because he has too, or otherwise he has to see the whole situation differently.

'The Communists' are to blame for everything

This article starts history in 1959 by describing a military coup against Diem in 1960 and a 'deeper disturbance that has plagued South Vietnam for over a year,' namely that 'the Diem régime may well be approaching collapse, and with such a collapse, the country could fall to the Communists.'

But what happened to the years 1954-1959? Karnow editorializes: Diem "saved a régime that most 'experts' considered lost back in 1955" and launched a series of praiseworthy programs: land reform, resettlement, road building, industrialization, agricultural credit.

But that is not the reality his reporting paints, at least if you can still put two and two together. In Karnow's world, the army seems suddenly to have turned to rapists and torturers, the government programs into brutal experiments in development, the concern for agriculture and resettlement into appalling indifference. The authoritarian government run by personal cronies and clandestine organizations suddenly went from benign and effective to malign and arbitrary.

But why?

At root: "Bands of Communist guerrillas, directed from Hanoi in North Vietnam." More specifically, "the current Communist offensive against South Vietnam began to build up as early as September, 1959" using "the largest groups since they fought the French," a war that ended in 1954. They "are fanning out throughout the delta, hitting army posts, ambushing troops, terrorizing local village chiefs."

Karnow claims the crisis is due to the government reacting incompetently against this new threat, "demoralizing" the population and disabling the army, supported by tremendous US aid, a force that far exceeds the number and power of the guerrillas. And again he editorializes: "A durable anti-Communism can, in time, emerge from economic and social development. … Among other things, it requires a rational use of force accompanied by long-term economic planning and efforts to arouse popular enthusiasm. It also needs an intangible: style of leadership." Karnow did not think that Diem could provide that.

Sounds like a pentagon PR script for the next ten or so years of hell in Viet Nam.

Thinkable reality

What seems unthinkable to Stanley Karnow back in 1961 was that the Diem 'régime' was brutal, indifferent, authoritarian, and against the interests of the population from the beginning, though this seems to me the obvious inference to make from his own reporting.

It also seems unthinkable that the rural population of Viet Nam had any sort of independent agency, that it might mount a defense of its own against this abuse, that it might have indigenous ability to organize and direct itself in the face of these abuses.

Finally, it seems unthinkable that the undescribed group he routinely names 'the Communists,' the malign agent he blandly gives extraordinary agency to, might be complex, native, nationalist, and responsive to the population.

What is clearly thinkable to Stanley Karnow back in 1961 is the standard line for understanding the Vietnam war, then and now: an essentially evil and external character, 'the Communists,' already well known by the audience, is attacking a country, while the helpless population is hoping the local government, with sympathetic aid of the good character, the US, will continue its role as benefactor and protect it. However, ineptitude and bungling is keeping this from happening, much to the dismay of the population, who can only sit and hope that they good guys can find a way out of this mess.

Overall, the effect to me of this schizophrenic dissonance is to make the ugly truth of the Diem government invisible, folded into the overarching story of good vs. bad. It pushes back questions a reader might form otherwise: is this government legitimate? is there a reason for the violence against the government? is the population legitimately resisting an abusive government? and most importantly, why is the US funding this?

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The article, "Diem Defeats His Own Best Troops", was written by veteran reporter, Stanley Karnow, and appeared January 19, 1961, in a publication called The Reporter. I read it in an anthology, Reporting Vietnam. Part One: American Journalism 1959-1969, in the Library of America series, (c) 1998, pgs 3 - 17.

Stanley Karnow was co-producer and the Chief Corresponding on the landmark PBS documentary, Vietnam: A Television History, first broadcast in 1983, and was author of the 1983 Pultzer Prize winning tie-in book, Vietnam: A History. Given the popularity and accessibility of these accounts, they are likely to become the definitive popular version of the history of the Vietnam war.

Viet Nam - Two renditions of an attack

The attack was a significant escalation—both sides agree it was a major challenge to the army of the Diem government of South Vietnam. It was in January, 1960, on an old French fortress, Tua Hai, used as regimental headquarters of the Diem government's army in Tay Ninh province, northeast of Saigon.

Here is an incidental report, written in 1961, in an article on the challenges to the Diem government of South Vietnam, written by the American reporter, Stanley Karnow:

The current Communist offensive against South Vietnam began to build up as early as September, 1959. Communist guerrillas opened their operations with teams of fifty or more, soon increasing to company strength of a hundred—their largest groups since they fought the French. They had French, British, and American weapons hidden since wartime days; newer arms—some of Czech or Chinese origin—and fresh recruits were brought in from the north.

The first big push came last January. One night, attacking in company force, the Communists raided a regimental headquarters at Tay Ninh, northwest of Saigon, and killed thirty-four Vietnamese soldiers sleeping off their Chinese-style New Year's celebration. Soon they were fanning out through the southern delta, hitting army posts, ambushing troops, terrorizing local village chiefs. It is no longer safe to travel without escort in many parts of the country, and the important commercial highway between Saigon and Phnompenh is often closed. ( Stanley Karnow, The Reporter, Jan 19, 1961. In Reporting Vietnam, Library of America, p6)

Here is an account written in 1965 in a book about the guerrilla war, written by the Australian journalist. The below are all quotes from interviews with the man who commanded the attack

"The 'line' up till the end of 1959 had been exclusively a legal, political, non-violent form of struggle, but faced with the wholesale wiping out of all former resistance [to the French] cadres, it changed at the end of 1959 to permit the use of arms but in self-defense only.

"We decided to make the attack just prior to the Lunar year. The enemy's [the Diem government] terrorist campaign had reached its climax in the previous week. The Tua Hai regiment had just returned from a big military campaign in which hundreds of peasants in the Tay Ninh region had been massacred. … The biggest operation was launched at the end of January, not only to round up any former resistance members… but to grab up young able-bodied young men for their armed forces… [they] pillaged their homes, stealing their food. … People were demoralized, but underneath they were boiling with pent-up fury.

"We could not count on any outside force coming to the rescue. We had to stand up or be wiped out. … We got together 260 men—former resistance cadres, young men who had fled the press-gangs, some deserters from the Diemist army who had a few precious guns and some remnants from the armed religious sects. … Altogether we had 170 firearms, most of them archaic and with a strictly limited number of cartridges. … Apart from our fighting force, we also organized another 500 people from remote villages to arrive towards the end to carry our booty and any casualties. …"

[In a carefully designed attack, they took the fortress and carried away weapons and amunition.]

"There were arms everywhere, unopened cases of new weapons… The maximum we could carry were about 1,000 arms, including 800 rifles and a good selection of automatic weapons. … We kept enough arms for the battalion we set up immediately as a result of the battle, others were distributed to all other provinces, where they were most needed. They enemy's repressive machine started to disintegrate. With even a few arms in their hands, the people started moving everywhere and enemy prestige suffered a deadly blow. … A completely new stage in the struggle was ushered in. (Wilfred Burchett, Vietnam. Inside Story of the Guerrilla War, 1965. 116-117)

Viet Nam - Timelines

I need to align differing narratives of the events in the early part of the war. I'm going to make some uniform timelines of the different readings. Hopefully I can line up the timelines and see how different parties report the same events.

I'm starting with Burchett. His writing is full of detailed accounts by participants and those near to the action: rural Vietnamese, tribal people, NLF cadre and officials.

Cause and effect of violence in Viet Nam

• (Burchett,1) 1954-1961. From this narrative, the leadership of the resistance against the French followed to the letter the Geneva accords while the carryover of the French-installed government did not. The new US backed replacement government took full advantage with a campaign of terror. This caused renewed organizing and eventually a violent reaction.

TIMELINE 1. Events in and around SAIGON

TIMELINE 2. Events in the Central Highlands

TIMELINE 3. Events among the tribes of the Central Highlands

Burchett sums up the situation over these early years after the Geneva Accords:

The war in South Vietnam has no starting point in time and space because it never started. It never started because it never stopped. All that happened was that after the withdrawal of the 140,000 Viet Minh and cadres to the north, a one-sided war continued against an unarmed people. A large part of the same military machine built up to serve the French with U.S. arms and dollars, was turned loose over vast areas of South Vietnam to wipe out the political resistance the French had never been able to crush and thus suppress at birth any potential resistance to the reactionary policies Diem was committed to pursue. (p128)

Geographic areas referred to in the timeline:

• Saigon
• Tay Minh province
• Quang Nam province
• Quang Ngai province

Viet Nam - Humanizing role of US Military personnel

A common theme in American war reporting is that the US presence serves to civilize a struggle, make it more humane.

Here are excerpts from three independent sources regarding the use of napalm in civilian areas. See if you can spot the differences.

"… [ the 'struggle' ] has shocked American military observers with its senseless brutality.… They have encountered the charred bodies of women and children in villages destroyed by napalm bombs." 6/62 (1, p63)

"Down at Soc Trang, one of the [US] airmen came up with the idea of putting chunks of charcoal in our napalm tanks.… the charcoal is thrown another 200 feet farther, like a burning baseball, and does further damage to the VC houses. … Tomorrow three birds are going out with one half of their load of straight napalm and the other half with charcoal napalm. A photo ship is going along to take pictures. If higher headquarters thinks it's all right, then they'll buy us the charcoal. 1/3/64" (2, p128)

"[The targeting rocket] made a loud explosive honk as it left us, and hit about 50 feet from a hut, in what appeared to be a vegetable garden.…[Afterwards,] Two cans of napalm hit without exploding. Then more cans hit and part of the line of huts were obliterated in a rolling cloud of flame." 7/67 (3, p60)

"But napalm was the favorite weapon of most people [US Pilots] I talked to. 'One or two napalm attacks can change the fighting spirit of a whole company,' a Navy A-4 Skyhawk pilot, Lt. Comadr. Fitch, told me." 7/67 (3, p56)

Here are two anecdotes by source 3 regarding directing artillery fire against villages.

"I met an FAC [forward air controller] who had been directing gunfire from [US] Navy destroyers against hootches [huts] and VC concentrations for several months. The destroyers were miles off shore in a moving ocean. This young man had been relieved of duty because he openly declared himself guilty of assisting in killing many civilians because the long-range guns fired so wildly so often, hitting homes and people in the vicinity of the target coordinates.… 'I just want to go home and forget it forever,' he said." (3, p62)

"Another FAC…was going back home to the States the next day. He had been ordered to direct [ground] artillery against a village because 'three VC were reported there this morning.' He got over the village, he said, and looked down and all he could see were men, women and children walking around. He radioed back to the Arvins [Army of the Republic of Vietnam] who were waiting to fire the long-range guns and told them he didn't see anybody who resembled a VC but that there were civilians in the village. Did the province chief [an Vietnamese government official] really want the place hit? They radioed back that the province chief did, and to send the coordinates. 'I sent them' this young FAC said and drained his drink. 'You must have seen a lot of people killed.' 'No,' he said. 'No people got killed. Nobody was in the paddy where I directed the artillery fire.'" (3,63)

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The first source is a US reporter, writting in 1962, when most the direct fighting in 'the struggle' was done by South Vietnamese soldiers. The US funded the war, sent weapons and craft, and trained the South Vietnamese. They also had 'advisors' who were not supposed to be directly involved in combat. "Vietnam Victory Remote Despite U.S. Aid to Diem," originally in the The New York Times, July 25, 1962, reprinted in Reporting Vietnam. Part One: American Journalism 1959-1969, Library of America (1998)

The second source is a series of letters written by an Air Force Captain to his family back in the US. The letters were published in U.S. News & World Report, May 4, 1964, after he was killed in combat in March of 1964. We Are Losing, Morale is Bad… If They'd Give Us Good Planes…", published in U.S. News & World Report, May 4, 1964 and reprinted in Reporting Vietnam. Part One: American Journalism 1959-1969. Library of America (1998)

The third source is a free-lance writer who was invited to live and fly with US pilots in Vietnam. This was in 1966/67 when most of the air war was carried out directly by US pilots. From Air War—Vietnam, Bantam Books (1967), by Frank Harvey, a free-lance writer and civilian pilot.

Vietnam. Inside story. What happened at Buon Ea Nao?

Here's something interesting.

Here are two accounts of a US Special Forces operation inside Viet Nam. One is from Vietnam Studies. U.S. Army Special Forces 1961-1971, a book published by the US Dept of the Army in 1973; the other is by Burchett's book, published in 1963.

The operation was at a village called Buon Ea Nao in Burchett, but Buon Enao by the Army.

Here is a map from the Army book (p20), credited to 1964. I've circled the area in question, in what Burchett calls the "Tay Nguyen (Western Highlands)" "Dak Lak province" (p153), "Ban Mé Thout district" (p157). Note, Dak Lak was referred to as Darlac by the Americans.

According to Burchett, B.M. Thout was "a center for the biggest concentration of ethic minorities in South Vietnam, mainly the Rhade, Jarai and M'Nong tribespeople." The Army book discusses the Rhade in particular, calling them "the most influential and strategically located of the Montagnard tribes in the highlands of Vietnam. Mainly centered around the village of Ban Me Thuot in Darlac Province."

Montagnard is a holdover from the French occupation of Viet Nam. Translated as 'people of the mountains' it seems to act as the American term Indian as a catch-all for a diverse group of indigenous peoples.

THE NEW PROGRAM AT BUON EA NAO

The Army Account (pg 24-25)

The Buon Enao Experiment

With the permission of the Vietnamese government, the U.S. Mission in the fall of 1961 approached the Rhade tribal leaders with a proposition that offered them weapons and training if they would declare for the South Vietnamese government and participate in a village self-defense program. All programs that affected the Vietnamese and were advised and supported by the U.S. Mission were supposed to be accomplished in concert with the Vietnamese government. In the case of the Montagnard program, however, it was agreed that the project would at first be carried out separately instead of coming under the command and control of the Vietnamese Army and its advisers, the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group. There was no assurance that the experiment with the Rhade would work, especially in the light of the Vietnam government's failure to follow through on other promises to the Montagnards.

The village of Buon Enao, which had a population of approximately 400 Rhade, was visited in late October of 1961 by a representative of the U.S. Embassy and a Special Forces medical sergeant. During two weeks of daily meeting with village leaders to explain and discuss the program, several facts emerged. Because government forces had been unable to protect the villagers many of them supported the Viet Cong through fear. The tribesmen had previously aligned themselves with the government, but its promises of help had failed to materialize. The Rhade opposed the land development program because the resettlement took tracts of tribal lands and because most American and Vietnamese aid went to the Vietnamese villages. Finally, the discontinuance of the medical aid and educational projects by the Vietnamese government on account of the activities of the Viet Cong had created resentment against both the Viet Cong and the government.

The villagers agreed to take certain steps to show their support for the government and their willingness to co-operate. They would build a fence to enclose Buon Enao as a protection and as a visible sign to others that they had chosen to participate in the new program. They would also dig shelters within the village where women and children could take refuge in case of an attack; construct housing for a training center and for a dispensary to handle the promised medical aid; and establish an intelligence system to control movement into the village and provide early warning of attack.

In the second week of December when these tasks had been completed, the Buon Enao villagers, armed with crossbows and spears, publicly pledged that no Viet Cong would enter their village or receive assistance of any kind. At the same time fifty volunteers from a nearby village were brought in and began training as a local security or strike force to protect Buon Enao and the immediate area. With the security of Buon Enao established, permission was obtained from the Darlac Province chief to extend the program to forty other Rhade villages within a radius of ten to fifteen kilometers of Buon Enao. The chiefs and subchiefs of these villages went to Buon Enao for training in village defense. They too were told that they must build fences around their respective villages and declare their willingness to support the government of the Republic of Vietnam.

Burchett's Account (pg 156 - 159)

[Note: Below, 'Diem' and the 'Diemists' refer to Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem was Prime Minister under the French created government of the emporer Bao Dai when the French withdrew from Viet Nam after the Geneva accords of 1954. Diem declared the south a sovereign state, expressly forbidden by the accords, and was its president from 1955 to 1963 when he was assassinated after a military coup by some of his generals.]

…according to the plan [previously captured by guerilla attacks on outposts], the "agricultural settlements" were to be brought under control again and the inmates as well as the tribespeople in the "strategic hamlets" would be armed to defend themselves against the "Viet Cong." These were the new instructions which came with direct U.S. intervention at the end of 1961.

'New' Americans

Buon Ea Nao … was selected as the main camp for concentrating the minorities and instructing them in the use of U.S. weapons. Every village was supposed to send its elders for political indoctrination and ten able-bodied men for military training to protect themselves against "wild beasts." Ybih Aleo, the most authoritative leader of the 37 minority groups in the Tay Nguyen and himself from B. M. Thout district, a grizzled and grey French-trained military veteran and vice president of the NFL, told me that the Diemists, under specific U.S. advice, avoided saying they were to be armed against the Liberation Front or "Viet Cong" because they know any derogatory remarks would have alienated the tribespeople. "It was above all a U.S. officer in priest's clothing who spoke and said the weapons were against 'intruders' who came to steal their pigs or chickens, even if these were 'Diemist troops.' It was a clever line," Ybih Aleo said, "and it took into account the fact that the Diemist trops were completely discredited because of their atrocities against the people."

I heard a more detailed account from an elder of one of the villages; neither the name nor village can be revealed because he is still there and his village is now under Saigon control. A fine figure, he chose his words with great deliberation.

"This American spoke Rhade and called himself Eay (Father) Teo. He said he was a 'new' American and the the 'new' Americans were against the 'old' Americans who helped the Diemists hurt our people. 'We will help you become really independent,' he said. 'But you must not help either the Diemists or the "Viet Cong." We will give you everything you need and you will come into new homes we will help build. Cloth, rice, salt, bicycles, and arms to defend yourselves against any evildoer—we will give you all these.' We were confused. We knew the Americans helped Diem; now others come and say they oppose him. This 'new' American looked just like the 'old' ones. He seemed to be a military man but was dressed like a French priest. But he said he was not a priest. 'I am sent by Christ to help you but mine is the 'new' religion of the 'new' Americans.'

" ' You see,' said the Eay Teo, 'it is this way. The "old" Americans and the "Diemists" behave like cats. The "Viet Cong" is the mouse. If the mouse smuggles itself into your paddy, the cats come to kill the mouse. But in doing this they also harm your paddy. But if you block the mouse coming into your paddy, you can block the cat also. Then no harm will be done by cat or mouse. We will give you weapons to deal with both.'

"Our people talked this over but we were all suspicious. We did not want to be concentrated; we did not want their weapons. So we said, no concentration and no weapons. We have always defended ourselves till now in the old way. Eay Teo was very angry. 'If you refuse to take arms and the "old" Americans and Diemists come to kill you, it is your own fault,' he said. In a few days more than a thousand troops came to our area. Five villages were burned and 20 people, mainly children and old people, were killed. Our tribespeople were ordered to go to B.M. Thout again and to be ready to accept concentration. We were over a thousand who assembled and our hearts were heavy. Diemist troops surrounded us with their arms pointed at our backs. Eay Teo was there, the governor of the province and the chiefs of all the districts. 'Either you agree to concentrate immediately or the trouups will be sent against all your villages tomorrow,' said Eay Teo.

"We were all sad. Everyone looked at the ground for there seemed no hope. But then the old man, I Bru of Buon Dju village, climbed onto the platform of a hut and started to speak. He was old, nearly 70, but everyone knew him: 'We tribespeople,' he said, 'always lived with our ray [crops], our forests and brooks and tres. Now you want to lock us up, away from our trees and forests. In that case we will slowly die. Now you have your troops and guns around us. Better pull the trigers now so we die all together.' The district chief strode up to him: 'If you disagree with the government, the Americans, you old fool, you will all be killed. And if you continue to speak like that you will b e killed first, now.'

" 'If you are killed,' shouted old man I Bru, 'you lose your villa, your plantation, your fine car, your beautiful women. If I am killed, I lose this only,' and he snatched off his loin cloth, threw it in the face of the district chief and stood there naked, his chest thrust out to receive the bullets. There was tremendous excitement. Everyone rushed forward to save the old man, shouting, 'No concentration! No concentration!' Officials were swept off their feet and the soldiers made their guns ready. Then Eay Teo spoke up again, trying to smile but his lips were twisted. 'Why all the noise? Way all the excitement?' he said. 'We invited you to hear your opinions. Now you may go home.' "

That night, troops came from a nearby post, dragged the old man off and killed him. Next day people from 20 villages met to honor the old man. The tribespeople took a pledge that they would carry on the fight as the old man had done and it was agreed that only when there is no more forest and the brooks have dried up will the Rhade people allow themselves to be concentrated. But some of the villages near B. M. Thout were fenced around and turned into strategic hamlets. "Though they could fence in our villages, they could not fence in our hearts," the elder concluded. "They belong to the revolution."

THE PROGRAM IS EXPANDED

The Army Account (pg 25-30)

With the decision to expand the program, half of a Special Forces A detachment (seven members of Detachment A-35 of the 1st Special Forces Group) and ten members of the Vietnamese Special Forces (Rhade and Jarai), with a Vietnamese detachment commander, were introduced to assist in training village defenders and the full-time strike force. The composition of the Vietnamese Special Forces at Buon Enao fluctuated from time to time but was always at least 50 percent Montagnard. A program for the training of village medics and others to work in civil affairs projects intended to replace the discontinued government programs was also initiated. With the assistance of the U.S. Special Forces and Vietnamese Special Forces troops who had been introduced in December 1961, and a twelve-man U.S. Special Forces A detachment deployed in February 1962, all forty villages in the proposed expansion were incorporated into the program by the middle of April.

Recruits for both village defenders and the local security force were obtained through local village leaders. Before a village could be accepted as a part of the development program, the village chief was required to affirm that everyone in the village would participate in the program and that a sufficient number of people would volunteer for training to provide adequate protection for the village. The program was so popular with the Rhade that they began recruiting among themselves. One of the seven members of Detachment A-35 had this to say about how the Rhade received the program initially: "Within the first week, they [the Rhade] were lining up at the front gate to get into the program. This kicked off the recruiting program, and we didn't have to do much recruiting. The word went pretty fast from village to village." Part of the project's popularity undoubtedly stemmed from the fact that the Montagnards could have their weapons back. In the late 1950s all weapons, including the crossbow, had been denied to them by the government as reprisal for Viet Cong depredations and only bamboo spears were allowed until the second week in December 1961, when the government finally gave permission to train and arm the village defenders and strike forces. The strike force would maintain itself in a camp, while the village defenders would return to their homes after receiving training and arms.

The American and Vietnamese officials were acutely aware of the opportunity for Viet Cong infiltration and developed control measures to be followed by each village before it could be accepted for the Village Self-Defense Program. The village chief had to certify that everyone in the village was loyal to the government and had to reveal any known Viet Cong agents or sympathizers. Recruits vouched for the people nearest them in line when they came for training. These methods exposed five or six Viet Cong agents in each village and these were turned over to the Vietnamese and Rhade leaders for rehabilitation.

Cadres of Rhade trained by the Vietnamese Special Forces were responsible for training both local security (strike) forces and village defenders, with Special Forces troops acting as advisers to the cadres but having no active role as instructors. Villagers were brought into the center and trained in village units with the weapons they were to use, M1 and M3 carbines. Emphasis was placed on marksmanship, patrolling, ambush, counterambush, and swift response to enemy attacks. While members of a village were being trained, their village was occupied and protected by local security troops. Since no official table of organization and equipment existed, these strike force units were developed in accordance with the manpower available and the estimated needs of the area. Their basic element was the squad of eight to fourteen men, capable of acting as a separate patrol.

Activities within the operational area established in co-ordination with the province chief and Vietnam Army units in the vicinity consisted of small local security patrols, ambushes, village defender patrols, local intelligence nets, and an alert system in which local men, women, and children reported suspicious movement in the area. In some cases, U.S. Special Forces troops accompanied strike force patrols, but both Vietnamese and American policy prohibited U.S. units or individual American soldiers from commanding any Vietnamese troops.

All villages were lightly fortified, with evacuation the primary defensive measure and some use of family shelters for women and children. Strike force troops remained on the alert in the base center at Buon Enao to serve as a reaction force, and the villages maintained a mutually supporting defensive system wherein village defenders rushed to each other's assistance. The system was not limited to Rhade villages in the area but included Vietnamese villages as well.

Logistical support was provided directly by the logistical agencies of the U.S. Mission outside Vietnamese and U.S. Army supply channels. U.S. Special Forces served as the vehicle for providing this support at village level, although U.S. participation was indirect in that distribution of weapons and pay of troops was accomplished through local leaders.

In the field of civic assistance, the Village Self-Defense Program provided community development along with military security. Two six-man Montagnard extension service teams were organized to give the villagers training in the use of simple tools, methods of planting, care of crops, and blacksmithing. Village defender and strike force medics conducted clinics, sometimes moving into new villages and thus expanding the project. The civic assistance program received strong popular support from the Rhade.

The establishment of village defense systems in the forty villages surrounding Buon Enao attracted wide attention in other Rhade settlements, and the program expanded rapidly into the rest of Darlac Province. New centers similar to Buon Enao were established at Buon Ho, Buon Krong, Ea Ana, Lac Tien, and Buon Tah. From these bases the program grew, and by August 1962 the area under development encompassed 200 villages. Additional U.S. and Vietnamese Special Forces detachments were introduced. During the height of the expansion, five U.S. Special Forces A detachments, without counterpart Vietnamese detachments in some instances, were participating.

The Buon Enao program was considered a resounding success. Village defenders and strike forces accepted the training and weapons enthusiastically and became strongly motivated to oppose the Viet Cong, against whom they fought well. Largely because of the presence of these forces, the government toward the end of 1962 declared Darlac Province secure. At this time plans were being formulated to turn the program over to the Darlac Province chief and to extend the effort to other tribal groups, principally, the Jarai and the Mnong.

Burchett's Account (pg 159 - 162)

Life on the Reservation

The incident with I Bru took place at the end of 1961 and by February 1962 a partial economic blockade had been clamped down, with the stopping of salt supplies as the first step. Local officials ordered the tribespeople to halt rice-growing and cultivate jute instead, the Americans could supply rice more cheaply. About this time, according to Ybih Aleo, the Diemists startd planting "Gibbs" and "fountain pen" bombs in the minority villages, apparently as a reprisal for the traps with which the tribespeople were defending their homes and cultivation patches. The first was a tiny flat pressure min, about the size and shape of Gibbs' toothpowder tins. The second were shaped like Parker fountain pens. Raiding parties, which found hamlets emptyh when they arrived, would conceal Gibbs bombs everywhere, under a bed or table or a cooking pot or the bamboo strips which served as a floor in the tribespeople's huts. The "fountain pen" bombs were strewn around in the grass and a child picking one up would have his or her hands blown off. "After an enemy raid and the people returned to their homes, there were explosions, cries and groans until lat at night," Ybih Aleo said. …

Tran Dinh Minh [a Vietnamese who lived amongst the local tribespeople for 14 years, working for the Viet Minh against the French and now with the NLF] told me that during that period many of the younger men came to their base are and enlisted in the [NLF] forces. … "The struggle became difficult; once they had fenced in the villages, the Diemists then started setting up military posts to 'protect' them. We were not prepared at that time to lead the tribespeople in a general armed struggle. THey would have been exposed then to merciless reprisals from which we could offer no protection. Unlike most minority areas, there were no mountains to retire to [amongst the highlands] and the enemy's military strength there was many times greater than ours. We concentrated on political consolidation."

Life for the tribespeople gradually took on the pattern of that of the Red Indians in the "reservations" the Americans devised for those that survived the wholesale massacres of a century ago. As they were only allowed to move out from their enclosed villages in daylight, it was useless trying to work their ray [fields] and in fact they were only permitted to work land within a radius of one kilometer of the village. Normally the tribespeople leave the village in time to get in a full day's work at the ray between sunrise and sunset. The new regime was imposed to prevent contacts with the "Viet Cong" in the forests. There was no place to keep cattle within the barbed wire perimeter, so these were abandoned to the tigers. … they were subjected to the indignity of being searched as they left and entered the stockades. Hunting was finished; what could you hope to hunt within a kilometer of the village?

The parallel with the American Indians is too painfully obvious. The Diemists had started the old-style extermination campaign—and now the reservations for the latter stage. With tribal lands gone, hunting finished, custom's trampled on, their way of life turned upside down, they would die out anyway! But the tribespeople are no so resigned to their fate. As the tribal elder, mentioned earlier expressed it: "What you would see of our life if you could come to our village now, would be like ash. But underneath the ash are glowing coals. We await the day when the wind will come and blow away the ash and fan the coals into life."

Control in the stockades is exercised in daytime by Rhade nationals, selected long ago and trained in the Phillipines and introduced as representatives of the "new" religion and the "new" Americans. …

After a major effort by the Diemist regime in 1962, the area immediately surrounding B. M. Thuot, including the "agricultural settlements," wa brought back under Saigon's nominal control, but is was obvious from all I could see and hear, that the "glowing coal" situation was the real one.

VIetnam. Inside story -- 'Special War'