'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?

--------------------

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.