The Illogic of Withdrawal

...Does he really feel our "fair degree of free expression" in which he is permitted to publish such nonsense, compares with the totalitarian regime of Ho Chi Minh...

...Ellen Hammer, in The Struggle for Indo-China describes this whole period in detail...

...On page forty-six, Zinn writes: Most of the peasants have tiny holdings and over 500,000 have no land at all...

...In the words of P.J...

...Thus read the first paragraph of the decree...

...which make up the common morality of mankind today...

...One might be sympathetic and attribute it to the former, but Professor Zinn's credentials suggest he is perpetrating a hoax...

...The perspective of history suggests that a (Continued on Page 12) 9 ILLOGIC OF WITHDRAWAL (Continued from Page 9) united Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh is preferable to the elitist dictatorship of the South . . Right now, for Vietnam, a Communist government is probably the best avenue available to that whole packet of human values...

...She writes: Ho Chi Minh reached a last-minute agreement with the major opposition groups: he promised that regardless of the outcome of the elections, fifty of the seats in the new national assembly would go to the VNQDD, and twenty to the Dong Minh Hoi...

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...2° On Page eighty-one, Zinn suggests: . . . there is no persuasive evidence to indicate that the Vietnamese would be worse off under Ho Chi Minh than they have been under Diem or Ky...

...Revolts flared locally and had to be forcibly suppressed, and public anger rose to such heights as to threaten the very existence of the Lao Dong Party.22 Fall estimates close to 50,000 North Vietnamese were executed in the land reform and twice that many were sent to forced labor camps.23 Zinn's actual thesis, which goes a long way to explain — if not justify — his misuse of facts and lack of intellectual integrity, is found on page 100-101, where he says: . . . one forgets that the United States and Western Europe, now haughty in prosperity, with a fair degree of free expression, build their present status on the backs of either slaves or colonial people, and subjected their own laboring populations to several generations of misery before beginning to look like welfare states...

...True to his reputation for "all or nothing" integrity, he resigned in July (1933) after having publicly accused the emperor of being "nothing but an instrument in the hands of French authorities," and handed back all the titles and decorations bestowed on him by Bao Dai and the French.15 As Newman observed: "He was not of the stuff of which puppets are made...

...Consider just a few of the multifarious fallacies remaining...

...a prime reliance on private enterprise and on the pricing mechanisms of the market as the chief determinant of business decisions.25 Conclusion The above analysis suggests Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal is untrustworthy and of little value to scholars...

...Remarking on "freedom of the press" in North Vietnam Newman writes: On 15th (sic) December 1956 the government published a new decree guaranteeing freedom of the press...

...This paragraph especially suggests that the writer is lying...

...and often there was only one candidate running in a district . . . Voting officials asked publicly for whom they wanted to vote so that they could write down the names for them...

...prior to formation of the Viet Minh, he had used the same Nguyen Ai Quoc (among others), and in fact only in 1958 did North Vietnam admit that Ho Chi Minh was indeed the old Comintern leader who had co-founded the French Communist Party, and had spent several years as a Russian citizen.9 Hoang Van Chi, a former Viet Minh soldier, observes that: "The name of Ho Chi Minh became known to the Vietnamese public for the first time in August, 1945...

...In the interest of fairness, one should consult Hammer...

...It is worthwhile to note that while Zinn does not subscribe to the "Munich analogy," he does concede: There is strong evidence that if the Sudetenland had not been surrendered at Munich . . . and that if Hitler had then gone to war, he would have been defeated quickly with the aid of Czechoslovakia's 35 well-trained divisions...

...Even the figures issued by the Viet Minh on the election results were open to serious question...

...Does Zinn really want readers to check his sources, or does he hope his word will be accepted without question...

...the preservation of human life, self-determination, economic security, the end of race and class oppression, and that freedom of speech and press which an educated population begins to demand...

...But for the wide circulation the book is receiving, one could dismiss it as the confused efforts of a misguided academician...

...On page thirty-eight, Zinn says: And what was United States policy...

...The agrarian reform incensed the people of North Vietnam more than any other Communist action before or since...

...8 In fact it would have been impossible for Ho Chi Minh to be "a popular" anything...

...The Americans have never pretended to favour Communism, and the Chinese made it quite clear that their ambitions included, among others, control of South-East Asia.12 The book gets no better...

...In view of American claims today that its policy is to support self-determination and independence, the answer is both illuminating and troubling: the United States fully supported the French effort to maintain its power in Indochina against the nationalist struggle for independence...

...Upon examining the record of Asian countries he will find economic prosperity is greatest in countries having certain traits in common...

...Its real value will be to show future generations how bad bad can be...

...First, the Viet Minh was not formed in 1940, it was formed in May of 1941.4 Second, Bernard Fall points out that "guerilla warfare" against the Japanese consisted of only one recorded engagement, on July 17, 1945, in which only eight Japanese soldiers were killed.5 Third, the Viet Minh from the start was Communist controlled...

...By December 1, 1959, of a total of 436,672 hectares of Vietnamese owned land subject to transfer under the agrarian reform ordinance, 411, 273 hectares (roughly one million acres) had been surveyed and allotted to 118,525 new owners...

...it was the first general, popular election in the history of Indochina, and Ho Chi Minh became President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...

...These include, as Richard Nixon recently observed...

...Instead, the United States issued a unilateral declaration promising to refrain from threatening or using force to disturb the agreements, and stating it would view any renewal of agression in violation of the agreements with grave concern and as seriously threatening international peace...

...This is true, but should, in the interest of intellectual integrity, be placed in the proper context...

...As a result of land reforms in North Vietnam, over thirteen million peasants, who formerly owned land, were deprived by the Communist government.21 Honey writes: The first shock of disillusionment with Chinese policies came with the disastrous failure of the agrarian reform in North Vietnam...

...Zinn reports that in South Vietnam 500,000 peasants had no land...

...An analysis of this sentence will prove instructive...

...Many things were irregular about the elections...

...One could understand differences of opinion as to exactly when the insurgency began (Trager says 1955 *; others say 19562, and 19573), but one can not so easily understand the flagrant inconsistencies of a "respected" member of the academy...

...Thus the 'hundred flowers' era was even shorter in North Vietnam than in China.24 INDIANA UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ONTOLOGY Immediate Openings For Secretaries, Statisticians, Maitre d' Call 339-4828 INDIANA UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF SCATOLOGY Immediate Openings For Blenders, Statiscians, Testers Call 336-8203 JOIN The Egg Power Marching Society Call 339-1748 I challenge Zinn to produce factual support for his suggestion the "welfare state," or any other form of socialism, guarantees economic security...

...The Diem regime's "land reform" was too slow, too puny, and had too many loopholes...

...there was little secrecy in the casting of ballots...

...Page thirty-seven of Zinn's book is enough to condemn it for incompetence...

...Robert F. Turner Compliments of Ransburg Electro-Coating Corp...

...This thesis receives support from the fact Zinn identifies the birth of insurgency in South Vietnam as 1958 (page 88), 1959 (page 77), and 1959-1960 (page 63...

...Honey: The fiction that the Vietnamese resistance movement (Viet Minh) was basically a nationalist movement in which some Communists played a part, not a movement dominated and tightly controlled by Communists, was continued until the end of the war.6 One leading historian has claimed that the Viet Minh was formed as a direct result of Comintern orders.7 Finally, before the formation of the Viet Minh (in China), Ho Chi Minh "had not set foot on Vietnamese soil for thirty years...

...This is not true...

...There are, however, some worthwhile points and interesting assertions in the book...

...This contrasts poorly with the more reliable Fall who writes: While timid attempts had been made during the administration of Nguyen Van Tarn in 1953 credit for a comprehensive land transfer law must go to the republican government.18 Newman writes: If President Ngo Dinh Diem had been judged only on his agrarian policy, he would have been acclaimed.19 Wesley Fishel points out the land reform was not as successful as some of us might have wished: The land reform program got off to a slow start, but by 1957 it was in active operation...

...Under Secretary of State Walter Bedell Smith stated "My government is not prepared to join in a declaration by the conference such as is submitted...

...Perhaps the next one improves...

...10 But anyone can make a mistake...

...He writes: At this time (1940) the nationalist movement of the Vietminh was formed, carrying on guerilla warfare against the French and the Japanese, under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, a popular resistance leader and a Communist...

...On the next page (page thirty-nine) Zinn says the United States "accepted" the Geneva settlements...

...Comments like this lead those of us who have been behind the Iron Curtain to believe that perhaps Zinn has not...

...And if he chose at the sign of resistance not to go to war . . he would have been stopped in his expansion.26 To give the book favorable recommendation would be a disservice...

...The United States refused any post-war action which might even appear to support the reimposition of Western colonial rule...

...During the years since that time, however, steadily increasing Communist terrorist activity and resulting insecurity in the countryside brought the land redistribution program to a virtual halt...

...The American position is documented, and summarized by Newman, in Background to Vietnam: The American outlook on South-East Asia is clear...

...Most responsible scholars on Vietnam are not even that kind, and Fall writes: "In January, 1946, after rigged elections had given the Vietminh an absolute majority in the government . . ."n But let us not dwell too long on just one page...

...The other clauses outlined the conditions which made freedom impossible...

...THE ILLOGIC OF WITHDRAWAL Howard Zinn's Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal is characterized by inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and either a blinding adherence to political dogma, or a purposeful attempt to deceive American readers...

...Perhaps analysis of the great "land reforms" in North Vietnam will illustrate this point...

...But official opinion changed rapidly when the Chinese Communists, having driven the Americanbacked Nationalists from the mainland, reach8 ed the borders of Burma, Laos, and Viet-Nam...

...As the Communists began to violate the agreements from the moment they were created, any obligation of the United States (and South Vietnam, which also refused to sign them) was negated.14 As we again turn the page, we find Zinn suggesting Ngo Dinh Diem was "a former official in the French colonial government...

...On the very same day as the decree was issued, Nhan Van was suppressed...

...Zinn does not feel obligated to tell the reader that: Ngo Dinh Diem fell out with his sovereign and the French when it became apparent that the latter would not agree to endow Annam's Chamber of People's Representatives with effective legislative powers...

...indeed, the lower classes — and most Vietnamese are peasants — would probably be better off...

...16 If Diem was a villain, can Zinn explain why Ho Chi Minh begged him to join the Viet Minh government?17 To continue examining Zinn page by page would produce dozens of additional errors, but would require more time than the book merits...

...Perhaps one should continue to the bottom of the page, where Zinn writes: In January, 1946, the Vietminh held a national election, openly in their part of the country, secretly in the French part...

...They were dominated by the Viet Minh...

...It was in fact impossible to talk of real fairness and accuracy in a country-wide election held in conditions of quasi war and among people who had no knowledge of the techniques of democracy...