The Tragic Vietnamese Farce

...The smart money says that with a little luck President Nguyen Van Thieu, whose name will be the only one to grace the ballot, should have no trouble winning a new term...

...A Gallup Poll taken'some three months ago revealed that two Americans out of three are opposed to leaving any "residual force" in Vietnam beyond the middle of next year...

...Similar "incentives" were reportedly promised to Thieu's other potential opponent, General Duong Van (Big) Minh...

...The most repulsive spectacle in Sai- gon these past few weeks and months has not been Thieu's methodical cam- paign to preserve his power—this was, after all, fully in character and quite predictable—but the frantic scramble of American officials trying to engi- neer something that could be palmed off on the gullible as a "free election...

...The war, in other words, would continue (and per- haps intensify), but with only a few Americans on the ground...

...military presence from Indochina...

...Still, South Vietnam enjoys the unique dis- tinction among nations of being gov- erned by a corrupt dictatorship that has been installed and maintained at the cost of almost 50,000 American lives and some $130 billion of Amer- ican treasure...

...At Bunker's behest, the South Viet- namese Supreme Court, which had barred Vice President Nguyen Gao Ky from the presidential ballot in accord with Thieu's absurd election law, re- instated Ky's name...

...The exercise and logistic support...

...We have seen no evi- dence that he is ready yet to become, in his words, "the first American President to lose a war...

...The President may believe, as Alsop apparently does, that such a move would effectively eliminate the war as an issue in next year's campaign...

...The people must be reminded—and must remind Congress—that a promis- ing peace plan submitted by the Na- tional Liberation Front has lain on the table in Paris for many months, studi- ously ignored by the United States...

...He quoted liberally from President Nix- on and Henry Kissinger...

...It would be tragic if his expectations were to be rewarded—if the peace movement were to collapse now, when it is closest to success...

...The sub- stance of his argument was that even though the election was rigged, Minh should run for the good of the coun- try because if Thieu ran unopposed Congress would be disposed to cut off aid funds...

...Now is the time for bringing this criminal exercise to a halt...

...Had Bunker's efforts succeeded, the resulting "election" would undoubted- ly have been served up to Congress and the American people as evidence of how we have Vietnamized "democ- racy" in our client state...

...This means, as The New York Times has astutely observed, that he will re- sign "if his military police, military governors, and bureaucratic minions fail to stuff the ballot boxes adequate- ly" on October 3. The Nixon Administration's ubiqui- tous background briefers and other American apologists for the Saigon re- gime have been reminding us that Thieu is hardly the only despot in this world and that the great majority of the planet's population is never af- forded a real electoral choice...

...De- mocracies are not easy to develop in these countries," Secretary of State William Rogers patronizingly observed at a recent press conference...

...After hurried consultations with Pres- ident Nixon, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, the septuagenarian guardian Victory in Vietnam of American interests in South Viet- nam, rushed back to his post to try to threaten, cajole, and bribe Thieu and his potential rivals into staging a plau- sible charade...

...President Thieu, who thoughtfully arranged it to come out that way by writing a ludicrously rigged election law, says he will, nonetheless, regard the balloting as a referendum on his rule—a demonstration that "the con- fidence of the people in me is clear...

...If Washington will make no meaningful move toward ending the war by nego- tiation, the burden is on Congress to end the war by legislation...

...It is the only country whose people—and whose neighbors —have been subjected to wholesale slaughter by American bombs and guns in the cause of preserving "the right to self-determination...

...The Tragic Vietnamese Farce The South Vietnamese farce which the governments in Saigon and Washington are pleased to call an "election" is scheduled to take place a few days after this issue of The Pro- gressive reaches most of its readers...

...Rather, he clearly sees the diversion of his trip to Peking as an opportunity to buy more time in his confrontation with the peace forces at home...

...Now is the time for cutting off every last cent of war appropriations...

...He may even believe that with enough "air and logistic support" he can pre- serve an American client state in South Vietnam...

...The mockery of the Octo- ber presidential election should demol- ish the last of the lingering myths about the purposes of America's military presence in Vietnam...

...When the mercu- rial vice president still declined to en- ter a contest he knew he was doomed to lose, Bunker offered, according to Ky's associates, "financial incentives" to get him into the campaign...

...Now is the time to set a firm and early date for withdrawing not only all ground troops but all vestiges of U.S...

...An aide to Minh, Ton That Thien, who sat in on a meeting be- tween the general and Ambassador Bunker, gave this account to Keyes Beech of the Chicago Daily News: "The ambassador was reading from two or three pages of notes and our impression was that he was following instructions from the The White House...