-DRAFT-

1. In your opinion, is the U.S. at present making progress toward a successful outcome in Vietnam, are we just holding our own in Vietnam, or are we losing out?

1. Making progress toward a successful outcome

2. Holding our own

3. Losing out

4. No opinion

2. Do you think the Administration is doing a good job in handling the war in Vietnam, about as well as can be expected, or is it being badly mishandled?

1. Good job

2. About as well as can be expected

3. Badly mishandled

4. No opinion

3. Do you believe the Administration in Washington is doing as much as it should to negotiate a peaceful settlement in Vietnam, or should it me more actively seeking some way to stop the fighting?

1. Doing as much as it should

2. Should be more actively seeking a way

3. No opinion

4. In your opinion, which side is more to blame for the fact that there has been little progress in Paris negotiations, and the war is still continuing? Is the *United States* more to blame, the *North Vietnamese*, or are both sides equally to blame?

1. United States more to blame

2. North Vietnamese more to blame

3. Both equally to blame

4. No opinion

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5. How much do you think the Nixon Administration is telling the American people about what is going on in Vietnam--all of the facts, most of the facts, some of the facts, very few of the facts, or is it withholding or distorting the facts.

1. All of the facts

2. Most of the facts

3. Some of the facts

4. Very few of the facts

5. Withholding or distorting the facts

6. No opinion

6. HAND RESPONDENT CARD "A"

There is much talk about "hawks" and "doves" in connection with Vietnam, and considerable disagreement as to what action the United States should take in Vietnam. Some people think we should do everything necessary to win a complete military victory, no matter what results. Some people think we should withdraw completely from Vietnam right now, no matter what results. And, of course, other people have opinions somewhere between these two extreme positions. Suppose the people who support an immediate withdrawal are at one end of this scale (POINT TO TOP OF SCALE) at point number 1. And suppose the people who support a complete military victory are at the other end of the scale (POINT TO BOTTOM OF SCALE) at point number 7. What point on the scale best describes your own views on Vietnam?

Now, where on the scale would you place President Richard Nixon? (ASK FOR EACH MAN LISTED)

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>Immediate<br>Withdrawal</th><th>2</th><th>3</th><th>4</th><th>5</th><th>6</th><th>Complete<br>Military<br>Victory</th><th>No<br>Opinion</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>A. Respondent's own<br>views</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>4</td><td>5</td><td>6</td><td>7</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>B. President Richard<br>Nixon</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>4</td><td>5</td><td>6</td><td>7</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>C. South Vietnam<br>President Thieu</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>4</td><td>5</td><td>6</td><td>7</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>D. Senator Edward<br>Kennedy</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>4</td><td>5</td><td>6</td><td>7</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>E. Presidential adviser<br>Henry Kissinger</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>4</td><td>5</td><td>6</td><td>7</td><td>0</td></tr></tbody></table>

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<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>For</th><th>Against</th><th>No Opinion</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>D. We should resume the bombing of military targets in North Vietnam</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>E. We should halt withdrawals of American troops from Vietnam until we receive some evidence that the North Vietnamese are reducing their level of activity</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>F. We should try to quarantine or blockade all of North Vietnam so that no supplies from other countries can be shipped in</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>G. We should bomb enemy sanctuaries in such places as Cambodia and Laos</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>H. We should use atomic bombs to end the war in Vietnam quickly</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td></tr></tbody></table>

11. I'm going to read you some pairs of statements having to do with Vietnam. For each pair, please tell me which statement comes closer to your own opinion.

A. Lately, the North Vietnamese have been giving evidence that they are willing to reduce the level of fighting in Vietnam to help bring about an end to the war.

B. The North Vietnamese are just trying to fool us and are waiting for the right time to start another major offensive.

C. No opinion.

A. If we step up the pressure on North Vietnam through bombing, blockade of Haiphong, and other measures, the North Vietnamese will be more likely to come to an agreement to end the war quickly.

B. Stepping up military pressure on North Vietnam will just increase their determination to fight harder and continue the war.

C. No opinion.

A. If the U.S. pulls out most of its combat troops from Vietnam, the South Vietnamese army will be able to take over the fighting effectively.

B. Pulling most of our combat troops out of Vietnam will probably result in a defeat for the South Vietnamese.

C. No opinion.

A. The United States' policy in Vietnam has changed; we are now actively working to cut down the fighting and bring an end to the war.

B. The United States' policy in Vietnam is no different that it has been; we are doing very little to cut down the fighting and end the war.

C. No opinion.

-6-

A. Regardless of what we do in Vietnam, we will never be able to achieve our objectives. Therefore, we ought to get out of Vietnam right now (regardless of the consequences).

B. The longer we continue to fight in Vietnam, the more likely we will be to achieve our objectives. Therefore, we ought to keep fighting for as long as needed.

C. No opinion.

A. A military victory in Vietnam is impossible, without some step like use of nuclear weapons or an invasion of North Vietnam.

B. A military victory in Vietnam is possible, if we just put enough conventional pressure on the North Vietnamese.

C. No opinion.

A. If the South Vietnamese government were to come under Communist control, other countries in Southeast Asia will probably fall to the Communists.

B. Whether or not South Vietnam comes under Communist rule will not have much effect on what happens to other countries in Southeast Asia.

C. No opinion.

A. If it is to be truly representative of the people, the South Vietnamese government should contain some Communists.

B. The South Vietnamese government is representative of the people without any Communists included.

C. No opinion.

12. How do you rate the job South Vietnam's President Thieu and his government have done so far--excellent, good, only fair, or poor?

1. Excellent

2. Good

3. Only fair

4. Poor

5. No opinion

If "only fair," or "poor," ask:

Would you be in favor of United States efforts to replace President Thieu and his government with someone else?

1. Yes

2. No

3. No opinion

CHARLES WOODRUFF YOST

United States Ambassador to United Nations

* 1907—Born to Nicholas and Gertrude Cooper Yost in Watertown, N.Y.

* 1934—Attends Communist indoctrination course at Anglo-American Institute, First Moscow University. Marries Polish national, Irena Oldakowska.

* 1935—Serves in Resettlement Administration. This agency housed a Communist cell. Its General Counsel was Lee Pressman, identified and admitted Communist. Later in same year he returns to State Department, begins long association with Alger Hiss. Hiss is later to recommend Yost to Whittaker Chambers as a prospective underground espionage agent for the Soviets.

* 1941—Represents State Dept. on Policy Committee of the Board of Economic Warfare. Associated with Frank Virginus Coe, Nathan Gregory Silvermaster and Michael Greenberg, Soviet Agents.

* 1945—Appointed to work with Hiss, Jessup and Pasvolsky in organizing the United Nations. Secretary General of the U.S. Delegation to the Potsdam Conference, where the Balkans and other eastern European countries were given into Soviet control.

* 1946—Identified as a member of the Institute of Pacific Relations, before Senate Judiciary Committee.

* 1961—Begins 5 year career as senior member of U.S. Delegation to the U.N., serving to retirement in 1966.

* 1966—Retires from government service to salaried position with Council on Foreign Relations.

* 1969—Appointed U.S. Ambassador to U.N. by President Nixon.

HIS KNOWN VIEWS

Favors "bridge building" to Communist enemies.

Favors unilateral halt of bombing of North Vietnam.

Advocates recognition of Red China.

It is 'strange that President Nixon, who takes credit for exposing Alger Hiss, has forgotten the record and associations of Ambassador Yost!

ORDER ADDITIONAL COPIES:

50 for $1

500 for $5

1,000 for $9

AMERICANS FOR NATIONAL SECURITY
P.O. Box 1622
Washington, D.C., 20013

HENRY ALFRED KISSINGER

Special Assistant to the President
for National Security Affairs

* 1923—Born to Louis and Paula Stern Kissinger in Germany. Father was prominent rabbi and Zionist in Berlin.

* 1938—Kissinger family flees Hitler, lands in United States.

* 1943—Serves with 970th Counter-Intelligence Corps, USAF.

* 1953—Appointed study director by infamous Council on Foreign Relations.

* 1956—Establishes Rockefeller connection through appointment as director of project to develop concepts that will help America meet the challenges of the day.

Subsequently serves as special consultant to President Kennedy and to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Serves for 10 years as chief foreign policy advisor to Nelson Rockefeller. Credited with influencing Republican platform writers toward a more dovish view on Vietnam.

* 1961—Participates in Pugwash Conference sponsored by pro-Soviet Cyrus Eaton.

* 1969—Appointed by President Nixon to top foreign policy advisory post although national security regulations forbid appointment of the alien-born to sensitive security positions.

HIS KNOWN VIEWS

Military superiority: Deplores the idea that U.S. should seek to establish overwhelming military superiority over the Soviet Union.

World Government: Advocates "a united Europe with federal, super-national institutions as a precondition for an Atlantic partnership or regional world government."

Troops in Vietnam: "Withdraw."

Vietnam negotiations: "Exclude the South Vietnamese from the Paris peace talks."

His best friend, the notorious Adam Yarmolinsky, states: "I will sleep better with Henry Kissinger in Washington." Americans will not find it so easy to sleep while Kissinger controls foreign policy.

GENERAL

KISSINGER, HENRY A.

JAN 14 1972

Dear Francois:

Many thanks for your letter of December 28.
It has been too long since I last heard from you.
Your kind good wishes and words of encourage-
ment are welcome and greatly appreciated.

I too wish there would be a chance for us to get
together and would be personally delighted if
the President asked me to come to NATO some
time after Peking and Moscow. At the moment
there are no plans in this direction but I would,
of course, make a point of seeing you if anything
along those lines developed.

When will you be coming to the United States?
I do hope to see you again before too much time
has passed. Please stay in touch.

M. François de Rose
The French Delegation
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Brussels, Belgium

HAK:jlp:1/12/72

France-soir

PARIS, 100. RUE REAUMUR
---
WASHINGTON OFFICE

A. DE SEGONZAC
Chief Correspondent in North America

GENERAL

KISSINGER, HENRY A.
KISSINGER, HENRY A. /DT

ROOM 614
NATIONAL PRESS BUILDING
(202) 638-0104

November 8, 1972.

Dr. Henry Kissinger
Special Assistant to the President
The White House
Washington, D.C.

Dear Dr. Kissinger,

I am writing to you to apologize, in the name of all the members of the Foreign Correspondents Group, for the appalling leak to the "Washington Post" of your remarks at the off-the-record luncheon you had with us last Friday. Though it is not a defense, I believe that whoever was responsible was victim of the war the Post is waging on the backgrounders and of their refusal to respect the rules of these meetings.

The news, it seems, was not gathered by Post reporters directly. If my guess is correct, it was obtained by somebody who saw you joining us at the restaurant, phoned one of our members to find out what was said, then gave the details to the Post who did not apply the off-the-record rules. Whatever the explanation, it is a breach of faith and we are all terribly upset about it.

Though you would be quite entitled to hold this incident against our group, we sincerely hope you will not do so. The group has been in existence for more than ten years. Nothing like this has ever happened before, and I am sure it will not happen again. Once more, please accept our apologies. I can assure you, we have all learned a lesson.

KISSINGER, HENRY A.

/D

*

15 April 1971

Effective 6 May 1971, Mr. and Mrs. Peer de Silva and family will no longer live at 9614 Verveille Drive, Vienna, Virginia 22180. Their mailing address or after date will be, for all first class or letter mail, and Mrs. Peer de Silva, American Embassy, Canberra, Australia. beyond that, bulky parcels or magazines will be mailed to Mr. and Mrs. Peer de Silva, American Embassy, Canberra, APO SAN FRANCISCO 96209.

APR 28 1971

CENTRAL FILES

KISSINGER, HENRY A. / D+

January 24, 1969

Mr. Peer de Silva
170 Main Drive
San Rafael, Calif. 94901

Dear Peer:

Thank you for your note. Unfortunately, my mail was a little slow in catching up with me and when I called today, I discovered that you had already left Washington.

I do hope that you will let me know the next time you are in Washington and I will certainly see you for lunch or if that is not possible, something agreeable to our schedules.

RECEIVED
FEB 21 1969

CENTRAL FILES

1-24

[Y]

Sally:

I don't know how good a friend Mr. de Silva
is. I tried to reach him today to
set up a meeting tomorrow with HAK and
found that he left this morning for California.
If he is a close friend, perhaps you
would want to draft a little note to him?

Joan

October 11, 1969

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
The White House
Washington, D. C.

Dear Henry,

I am writing you in a purely personal capacity, without reference to my agency or to my duties in it, and in doing so wish to make a suggestion which may prove useful to you and thereby to the Government.

I don't know whether or not you know Isaac Don
Levine. You possibly have heard of him. He is a free-
lance political writer, long immersed in problems in-
volving Eastern Europe and the USSR and the communist
movement in general. I have known Don for almost twenty
years, and have found him all respects sound, considered,
discreet and broadly experienced in the areas I have
mentioned.

Your schedule and commitments must leave you very
little extra time, if indeed any, but I would suggest
that you would find occasional conversations with Don to
be both provocative and original in substance. Don is
getting to be an elderly gent now, but he is very active
and energetic and his mental processes are sharp and
incisive, as they have always been. Should you want to
reach him, he lives in Waldorf, Maryland and his tele-
phone number is 301 - 645-5129.

I see Don about every month for an extended lun-
cheon, and it was our most recent talk together that
causes me to write you this letter; Don has no idea
that I am doing so.

Best regards and all best wishes in your work.

9614 Verveille Drive
Beau Ridge
Vienna, Virginia 22180

KISSINGER, HENRY A. /D*

JUL 17 1971

Dear Ithiel:

Many thanks for your note and for passing along to me the collection of your writings on Vietnam between 1966 and 1970. I was very interested to see it and have given it to my staff to be sure that they don't miss it.

Please stay in touch.

Professor Ithiel de Sola Pool
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Center for International Studies
30 Wadsworth Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

jlp:7/17/71

Introduction

Inevitably, in the present paroxysms of passion
that envelope American discussions of Viet Nam, those of
us who have studied and written about that troubled land
see our views distorted in public debates. It is asking
too much to expect that polarized political advocates
should avoid recasting what they read, or read about,
into simple partisan polarities.

However much I have tried to call the shots as I
saw them on Viet Nam, what I have written has naturally
been subjected to a certain amount of this misinterpret-
tation. To set the record straight for those of my
friends and colleagues who may be interested, I have
reproduced here all the articles that I have published
about Viet Nam since I started studying that country in
1966.

Upon rereading, I am not displeased with those
pieces. The problems of Viet Nam are less complicated
than the problems of American reaction to it. Within a
few months after arriving in Viet Nam in 1966 a few basic
points became apparent to me which continue to seem
valid today. Among these conclusions, three that are
widely disbelieved by many in this country nonetheless
seem to me quite undeniable.

(1) America has an interest in Indo-China and
everywhere in opposing communist military
conquest of resisting countries.

(2) The large majority of South Vietnamese oppose the Viet Cong, though the Viet Cong is and will remain (like the Communist Parties of Italy and France) a minority so strong that it will not disappear.

(3) Under such circumstances, success for the side we favor depends upon political reforms and giving security to the people.

-2-

Military force can at best prevent overt conquest; thus military action must be subordinated to political objectives.

One might have thought that these simple guidelines would be obvious to Americans. Unfortunately they are not. Many passionate doves were so anxious to deny the legitimacy of our involvement in Viet Nam that they have convinced themselves of the myth that the Viet Cong represent the Vietnamese people. Like earlier wishful thinkers who convinced themselves that Hitler wanted only to rectify the injustices of Versailles, or that the Chinese communists were just peasant reformers, these wishful thinkers cannot stand the cognitive dissonance involved in recognizing simultaneously the true nature of the adversary and the awful costs of resistance to him.

On the other hand, the American Government has still not understood the limits of force and the self-defeating character of it. It is hard to understand how intelligent men could believe that aerial bombardment, harassment and interdiction artillery fire, defoliation, and population displacement could be effective means to win a population, or that moral men could believe them appropriate means of action among the population we are defending.

The bulk of what I have written on Viet Nam, both in publications and in reports, has been addressed to these two sets of misperceptions. I have tried to answer the question of who the Viet Cong are, how they operate, and what is their relation to the population. I have tried to argue for political measures and for restraint on military force.

Those are the themes that run through the following papers. I am less sanguine than I once was about the ability of both the American people and American

-3-

government to act rationally. I cannot help being dismayed at the spectacle of the new-isolationism rampant. Nor can I help being dismayed by the fact that the U.S. Government, even after it has seen the enormous success of the pacification program in Viet Nam, still proposes to rely on air power as its basic weapon, extends the war in Cambodia and Laos, and measures the success of Vietnamization by the degree to which it makes ARVN a replica of the U.S. Army.

The combination of the impact of the "peace" movement in demoralizing American public opinion and of the militaristic, non-political approach to the Government, makes for a very dismal prospect of war ahead. Not that South Viet Nam will fall after American combat troops are withdrawn; it seems too strong for that. But the North Vietnamese seem too strong to be driven home either. The most likely prospect for anything else depends upon America finally understanding that the security of the territories whose struggle for independence we support depends less on arms than on political, economic and social development.

Note:

The first paper, "Political Alternatives to the Viet Cong", deals with a problem that American officials now label the VCI, or Viet Cong infrastructure. Four years ago, that paper flagged the problem, but proposed an approach of political accommodation quite different from the program of police action currently being pursued. The Viet Cong are far weaker today than when this paper was written, but the problem of how to live side by side with the residues of a powerful foe still remains crucial to achieving peace in Viet Nam.

The piece appeared in *Asian Survey*, Vol. 7, No. 8, August 1967.

POLITICAL ALTERNATIVES TO THE VIET CONG

ITHIEL DE SOLA POOL

One of the barriers to ending the war in Vietnam is that there is no way to terminate the fighting without simultaneously producing an interim political settlement. In a war that has territorial lines between the combatants, there can be a truce with each side retaining control in its domain. That is not so in Vietnam. A ceasefire there, with the two sides mingled, would leave political struggle continuing in full bloom. The process of governing each hamlet would constitute a political attack on one side or the other, the outcome of which would in effect determine the nature of the settlement. For example, if an assassination should occur in a hamlet, would the police arrest the culprit? Or in other hamlets an issue might arise over who has the right to collect taxes. Such conflicts over the exercise of sovereignty would constitute a continuation of the war even if certain types of operations were temporarily suspended in a way analogous to the suspension of big battles during the many recent short truces. It is clear, therefore, that explicitly or not, any termination of hostilities in Vietnam will require and will automatically imply the terms of the post-war political settlement.

This is not to suggest that the political settlement would be permanent any more than any other political settlement ever is. For the moment, however, it would define the effective constitution of the country. It therefore behooves us to think about kinds of political settlements that might be viable and acceptable to us.

I rule out of consideration here a large range of viable political settlements—namely those which constitute Viet Cong victories. They are not acceptable. For that reason I do not consider among the political alternatives the inclusion of the Viet Cong in a coalition government or even the persistence of the Viet Cong as a legal organization in South Vietnam. I readily concede that these unacceptable alternatives are distinct possibilities. My purpose here, however, is not to consider all possible settlements but rather settlements that might preserve Vietnam from communist domination. On the basis of the ideological record of the Viet Cong and of Vietnamese communism in general, one can hardly postulate a settlement in which the Viet Cong agrees to be a law-abiding political movement and in turn is recognized as a legitimate participant in Vietnamese politics. In lay public debates now going on one often hears comments to the effect that Vietnamese communism, because it is anti-Chinese, would be like Yugoslav communism. The historical record, however, is that the Vietnamese communist movement has been one of the most extreme, one of the most

555

556

POLITICAL ALTERNATIVES TO VIET CONG

fanatical, one of the most ruthless and dogmatic in the international movement. Whether in its blood purge of Trotskyists, or its purge of resistant peasants in North Vietnam, or in its military struggle, it has consistently shown disinclination to conciliation and cohabitation with conflicting tendencies. A Vietnamese communist regime would probably be simultaneously anti-Chinese and ruthlessly totalitarian.

Let me not dwell on this, however, for it is not my main point. I bring it forward simply to explain why the political settlements I wish to consider here are ones in which we postulate no formal agreement between the GVN and the Viet Cong, and therefore no legalization of the Viet Cong, but rather a political settlement successfully imposed by the GVN despite the persisting great political power of the Viet Cong.

We may postulate that continued military successes alone will not break the power of the Viet Cong in the South Vietnamese countryside. We may postulate further that to break the hold of the Viet Cong over substantial portions of South Vietnam, attractive alternatives must be provided that will split away substantial portions of the present Viet Cong organization. In short, the Viet Cong is too strong to be simply beaten or suppressed. No political settlement is going to be viable which does not place a substantial portion of the present Viet Cong supporters behind it. This article concerns the requirements for such a settlement.

Let us start by considering what it is that makes the Viet Cong attractive to its middle and upper level leadership. I exclude from consideration the top hundred individuals who may be presumed to be so deeply indoctrinated in communist ideology at this point that whatever led them into the Viet Minh in the first place is now ancient history.¹ Below these top leaders is the large group of cadre who make the military units and the political organization function at the provincial, district and village levels. Without these people the Viet Cong cannot continue to be effective.

Who are these people? In the first place they are not youngsters. Most of them have been in the movement for considerable periods both at the provincial and district level. They are often veterans of fifteen to twenty years. Many of them, of course, are regroupees or northerners. But the ones on whom a stable settlement depends are the ones who are native to the province or locality in which they are working, for they are the ones with political roots.

The element of the Viet Cong that will remain effective longest after the main forces have been increasingly battered in combat will be those cadres who have built a political base in their own villages, including of course

¹Various studies such as Lucien Pye's "Guerrilla Communism in Malaya" have shown that Asian communist movements typically turn their members into ideological communists after they have joined, not beforehand. This is certainly true of the Viet Cong. While the present leadership largely consists of people who joined voluntarily rather than having been drafted or entrapped, as is true for the majority of rank and file members, nonetheless they learned communist doctrine only after having first joined the movement for personal or nationalist reasons.

ITHIEL DE SOLA POOL

557

military cadres who will try to slip back from the main force. It is these Viet Cong cadres who are the political machine in the populated areas and who both can and must be partially won over in any politically stable settlement. They are not the toughest part of the Viet Cong organization; at the same time they are the part that is the most politically significant and the most responsive to citizen needs and problems.

That they are not the toughest part is attested to by the location of the recent large scale rallying (i.e., defection from the Viet Cong to the government) since Tet. Most of the recent rallying has been in a couple of populous provinces where Viet Cong control of the villages goes back decades. It was not operation Junction City that brought in ralliers, but the operations in Binh Dinh, for example. Soldiers in the main forces in a wilderness never allowed separated for more than a moment from their three-man group are less likely to rally than are villagers, military or political, who, even in a powerful Viet Cong organization, are in a functioning society. The cadres operating out of villages are subject to a much more normal range of cross-pressures, political motivations and alternatives.

In Vietnam, as for thousands of years in most peasant societies, the villager tends to look upon the government as simply one more predator who, while it may promise protection against other predators, is primarily to be feared. The government is the tax collector, the policeman, the marauding soldier, and in the best of all possible worlds these will be kept out of the village. To villagers in Viet Cong villages, the Viet Cong is the protection association against the government. It has the advantage of being local, but to sustain itself it must tax and be punitive, too. Indeed, as the Viet Cong has suffered reverses, its taxes and its draft have become more severe than the government's. Initially it could offer a bargain, but this was a loss leader it could not long maintain. Like all new bidders for power in peasant society, the Viet Cong offered to keep the government out at lower taxes and with less severe behavior, but eventually it, too, became just another government.

Social and political facts rather than purely military organization determine the hold of the Viet Cong in densely inhabited areas. Typically, five factors may lead a villager with leadership qualities to side with the Viet Cong rather than the government. These five factors are: (1) social mobility, (2) land, (3) abuses, (4) nationalism, (5) belonging to Viet Cong families.

1. *Social Mobility:* The typical Viet Cong cadre is a professional revolutionist in a sense that Lenin did not have in mind, as well as in the sense that he did. He is a professional in the sense that he is a bureaucratic careerist. To him, being a Viet Cong army officer or tax collector or village or district secretary is an entree into the small rural middle class which also includes the school teacher, the local storekeeper or the government bureaucrat.

The Viet Cong's fantastically elaborate system of record keeping is one

558

evidence of the bureaucratic self image of the Viet Cong leadership. Elaborate questionnaires are filled out by every member at each major junction in his life such as, for example, his being promoted from candidate to party member. These questionnaires are kept on file as are detailed rosters of all members. Reporting of that and other information upward is a continuous process carried out by the commo-liaison cadres. This courier system is of particular importance because according to the Constitution of the Viet Cong every decision made by a committee at one level must be ratified by the committee one level above it. Such reports go up. Orders and educational materials go down. In short, the Viet Cong keep very busy at the paper work of which new bureaucrats are so proud. The "can bo" (cadres) think of themselves as cadres by profession. Typically, they do not have the educational qualifications to enter the government civil service with its western-style system of rank. But on the side of what they call the Viet Cong Government (because the Vietnamese do not generally have the western notion that there is only one legitimate government) they can make a career as professional can bo. It is just as important to a Viet Cong cadre to be able to practice his profession if he changes sides as it would be to a Viet Cong medical man, a Viet Cong journalist, or a Viet Cong army officer. Cadre is recognized as one of the standard professions in South Vietnam today.

2. Land: Another major motivation for joining the Viet Cong is to get more land for one's family. Viet Cong land reform has been widely misunderstood in the United States as the application of some kind of uniform equalitarian principle based on justice. In fact, what goes under the name of land reform should better be called land redistribution. The people from whom the land is taken are of course the more well-to-do farmers, and they generally oppose the Viet Cong if they dare to, because they know their land may be taken from them. The people to whom the land is given are of course generally poorer farmers, but that is not their only or crucial distinguishing characteristic. They are poor farmers who have joined the Viet Cong organization in the hope of getting this land and who are rewarded by land for their loyalty, activities and support. Land redistribution is, in short, a patronage operation. Dissatisfied peasants band together in a gang to despoil their neighbors. They then reward the deserving members of the cabal with land largely in proportion to their contribution to the organization. It is normally expected in a Viet Cong village that the families of the Viet Cong leaders will have gained considerably in land during the Viet Cong tenure in the village. The ideology sets limits to this patronage process. The local Viet Cong leaders do not become large landlords. Nonetheless, the appeal of the Viet Cong is partly its ability to reward its members via land redistribution.

3. Abuses: Numerous men have joined the Viet Cong because members of their families were killed by the French, or because they were abused, beaten or had their property stolen by government troops or officials under the Diem regime, or because of other such abuses. This process of course

ITHIEL DE SOLA POOL

559

continues today, though on a reduced scale. The leadership of the Viet Cong, however, was joining up at a time when a venal and authoritarian government was alienating the population all across rural Vietnam. It seems to be the case that the most devoted and fanatic members of the Viet Cong are in large part those who joined as a response to atrocities against their families. One is reminded of Lenin acting out on a world arena his revenge for the hanging of his brother. Vietnam has many little would-be Lenins seeking the same sort of revenge.

4. *Nationalism:* This motive for joining the Viet Cong is important, but so widely stressed that we may touch it quickly. Nationalism provided much of the content of rationalization for the Viet Cong even if few people have joined without one or another of the other motivations pressing on them much more directly than does a general dislike of foreigners.

5. *Belonging to Viet Cong Families and Villages:* For many of the men who join, the choice is not whether to get involved but merely on which side to do so. Young men know that they are going to be drafted by one side or the other. The choice may then largely be determined by the predominant affiliation of their family or village. It may be a fairly automatic choice.

In a village where the Viet Cong was able to entrench itself as the established local protection association, it was the natural thing for a peasant boy to join. If he was oriented to politics or warfare at all, he was in joining the Viet Cong expressing his identity with his own community against the strangers and exploiters from the city.

These five factors are among the leading attractions of the Viet Cong to a middle and higher level cadre. Clearly, those who are under no cross-pressure because all these factors apply will be very hard, indeed, to win over. Other men, however, are under cross-pressure. Let us consider some of the resentments that drive men away from the Viet Cong.

Among these are, of course, Viet Cong abuses. Acts of ruthlessness, murder, and injustice of one sort or another provide a substantial backlog of resentment. However, the Viet Cong have trained their people to couple their brutality with a high order of politeness and gestures of good behavior. Viet Cong brutality is, therefore, a less effective basis for appeal to the side of the GVN than Americans would like to believe, though it is not to be minimized by any means.

More interesting and more significant is the surprising fact that a large part of the Viet Cong leadership comes from "rich" or middle farmer families and they resent deeply the discrimination which the Viet Cong exercises against them and their families. The cadre who are angry about Viet Cong treatment of the rural middle classes are, of course, not the people who joined because they were poor farmers and hoped thereby to get land. The morale of the latter breaks far less easily. The poor farmers, however, often lack the qualifications for effective leadership and for promotion to higher positions. Thus, there arises this ironical situation: since the Viet Cong wants its leadership to consist of poor peasants whom it can trust, it dis-

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criminates against persons of middle or "rich" peasant origin, slows down their promotions, and embarrasses them by pointing to their backgrounds. At the same time, however, it is these persons of better background and better education who have the qualifications that enable them to rise to positions of leadership. The Viet Cong is thus creating for itself a somewhat discontented leadership consisting in large part of people who had to overcome substantial barriers to get there. Cognitive dissonance theory would suggest that as long as these people are loyal they will be more fanatically loyal than anyone else, but that they also have the potential for making a total break when the going gets too rough.

This situation may also be described as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Viet Cong believe poor peasants will be more loyal. It therefore favors them and they are more loyal. The Viet Cong believe the richer peasants are unreliable. It therefore discriminates against them and they become unreliable.

The reaction of Viet Cong cadres to the despoilment of their relatives by land redistribution is in some ways surprising to those of us who come from a guilt culture in which there is a tradition of belief in equality. We find it somewhat difficult to generate moral fervor against the despoilment of the rich on behalf of the poor. However, in Vietnam, to protect one's own family is not something to be ashamed of even if one is protecting the richer against the poorer. Hence, a Viet Cong cadre can wax very indignant about the injustice perpetrated on his family in reducing its land.

If we have described the situation and motivations of the Viet Cong cadre in villages in populated areas correctly, then it is futile and hopeless to expect that the Viet Cong cadre can be won over to active support of the government in Saigon. The cadres are village-based active competitors to the civil servants recruited on the basis of education. Their concern is for the protection of their village community against exploitation from the city. To get these people to abandon the Viet Cong they must be given a political basis for maintaining both their personal power in the village and the village's power in relation to the nation. In effect, that means there must be a kind of self-determination for the villages these ex-Viet Cong lead.

These Viet Cong cadres of whom we are talking are thoroughly political men and must have a political rationalization for changing sides and an opportunity to do it with political advantages gained. Changing sides is not disapproved of in Vietnamese culture. On the contrary, as Douglas Pike says, "Proselyting is common and no opprobrium is placed on one who changes sides provided he observes a decent interval."²

Rationalization must be provided, however, to make a cadre feel justified in switching from the side that he had previously identified as being for the common peasant, against the exploitative officials and against the foreigners, in favor of the side that previously seemed to be that of the landlords, the

²Douglas Pike, *The Viet Cong* (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1967), p. 10.

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city exploiters and the colonialists. Somehow his image of reality has to
undergo a major change.

Our view, that ideology is important to Viet Cong cadres, is not a popular
one. In one form or another there is a widespread notion that Asian com-
munism is solely a matter of the belly. But the Viet Cong cadres are neither
peasant reformers nor hungry men. They certainly have not been the latter
at least until the last couple of years. The Viet Cong treats its cadres well.
They do not get formal salaries, but unlike lower-ranking guerrillas who are
often expected to get themselves taken care of by their families, they do get
fed and clothed. As one recent rallier said: "Over here the people some-
times say . . . that the VC cadres have to eat only fish salt with rice so that
they have to live a truly miserable life. It is not so because over there the
middle level cadres can afford to have beer to drink and they also have meat
for their meals." There are four levels of rations: that for the enlisted men,
a better ration called thieu tao given to sick people and company com-
manders and including such items as milk and meat, trung tao used by bat-
talion commanders, and dai tao for regimental commanders and up. The
last is essentially a supply of as much as the person wants without ration.

Sexual outlets also are provided for the higher cadres. In addition to the
illicit hu hoa which occasionally takes place at all levels, there is an organi-
zation of girls known as ho ly, which translates as "satisfaction support
units," for battalion commanders and up. Also, the higher cadres are care-
fully protected from military dangers. Ralliers comment with surprise at
the extent to which American officers appear in insecure locations along
with their men.

Nonetheless, it would be too simple a notion of human nature to assume
that just because the Viet Cong cadre have personal motives for their affilia-
tions they do not also have political motives. On the contrary, they clearly
do. One of the remarkable features of the Viet Cong is its program of train-
ing and indoctrination. Until the military build up in the last couple of years,
a member of the Viet Cong typically spent perhaps a third of his career in
training programs of one sort or another. These were carried out with a
great deal of psychological sophistication. There was much emphasis upon
freedom to ask questions and upon student repetition of the "correct" an-
swers. The cadre also learned the power of propaganda. He became skilled
at manipulating people by symbols, at the management of meetings and
demonstrations, and in general he acquired a view of the world in which
politics is the driving and dominant force.

Not the least item of evidence on this point is the relationship of the
political to the military cadre. Under the Party committee at any given level
are a series of sections with special functions. One of these is the Military
Affairs Committee. The Chairman of the Military Affairs Committee of the
Party is normally the deputy commander and political commissar of the
military organization at that level. It would be virtually unheard of for his
nominal boss, the military commander, to become Party secretary at that

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level, but it would be fairly common for the chairman of the military com-
mittee to be elevated in that way. The subordination of the military to the
political cadres is unambiguous.

Ralliers are quite explicit that Viet Cong cadres have become truly po-
litical men:

Low level cadres only have a vague idea about communism . . . they
do not like to discuss further, or anything other than their jobs, be-
cause in the old days they were merely oppressed people. Now they are
promoted to some sort of VIP in the village . . . the main gripes against
the Front that they might have from time to time are when they are as-
signed a job and are unable to carry it out smoothly. As for the pri-
mary level cadres and upwards . . . they used to discuss policies and
such other abstract things.

This contrast can be illustrated by two men's stories as to why they rallied.

I

The reason why I rallied is because there was no freedom in the VC
and because there was no humanity and they were cruel and we didn't
have enough food to eat and when the VC came my mother was killed
and so I rallied.

II

I had many reasons to rally. These reasons came together and became
meaningful little by little, and over a long time . . . The first reason is
that I do not like this kind of war and I do not like this kind of method
of operation, which is designed to impose the yoke of communism upon
the Vietnamese people . . . The second reason I left is that I have been
a member of the Party since 1946 and I have studied very many things
—the principles, doctrines, theories, and ideologies of communism. I
have also studied the theories of capitalism and the way in which both
sides choose to live. The thing I object to among the communists is
that under their regime the people lack liberty . . . The final reason
I left is that I was not in agreement with the VC about the way in which
they employed the higher ranking cadres like myself.

The former man was a simple rank and filer, the latter a high level officer. Both merged personal and political motives but the relative proportions in the mix were quite different. The officer may have been rationalizing too when he talked of communism and freedom, but for him the rationalization was sufficiently important that without it he probably would not have rallied.

The Viet Cong has an abundant quota of true believers. The ideology in
which they believe is a simple and naive one. The world is divided into two
camps, the camp of capitalism and the camp of socialism. The camp of so-
cialism, they believe, is going to win because the people are for it—even the
people in capitalist countries. The American capitalists however are trying
to take over Vietnam by a new indirect form of colonialism. The GVN are
American puppets and supporters of exploiters, the tax collectors, the mer-
chants, the big landlords, the police, and the evil men in the villages.

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That may be a simple ideology. It is however a powerful one and one that provides abundant justification for all the prejudices and preferences of a dissident Vietnamese of peasant origin.

A political program to combat that ideology and to provide the Viet Cong political cadre in the underground with the justification for working with the government would have to be focused around the notion of hamlet self-government. The Viet Cong local bosses and community leaders, even if disillusioned about the prospect of Viet Cong victory and cynical about what Hanoi, Peking or Moscow can do for them, still may be reluctant as any politicians would be to yield up the grass roots organization that they control in their own precincts. Also, the local citizens whom they control may be fearful of being occupied by GVN forces whom they have been fighting for many years. It is not clear how much forgiveness the government can guarantee them. Hamlet home rule is the greatest gift that the GVN can offer to those of its former enemies who will agree to cease warring upon it. The ancient Vietnamese proverb that says that the Emperor's writ stops at the village gate expresses a classical notion of village autonomy coupled with at least nominal feality that will still make sense to those peasants who make up the Viet Cong.

It is true that the higher level Viet Cong who have been through the elaborate training and indoctrination processes that we have described no longer thought in village terms when the Viet Cong was winning. They had been welded by the organization into a national movement with an international perspective. Examination of Viet Cong propaganda reveals few clear ideas about a domestic program for a communist South Vietnam. Even the item most often cited in the United States, land reform, is confusedly dealt with, having been pushed out of the focus of attention when land redistribution efforts proved to be in some respects a double-edged sword. The Viet Cong propagandists never bothered to say very much about what a communist South Vietnam would be like, for they were basically more concerned with other ideas. When they smelled victory in 1964, the Party ideologues talked about their own domino theory to which they firmly adhered: after South Vietnam fell, so, they believed, would all of Southeast Asia.

That fact might seem to be an argument against my thesis that the strongest appeal to substantial segments of the Viet Cong cadre could be couched in terms of hamlet home rule. The reaction of the cadres in a moment of defeat however must be clearly distinguished from their reaction in what they thought was a moment of victory. In the apparent moment of triumph they saw themselves as part of a world communist take-over in which they could act on the big arena. In the moment of defeat in which some small straw is being offered to them to save themselves politically, they will most naturally retreat to the familiar and secure base of village politics in which they know how to operate and which can continue to offer certainties after the communist vista has proved to be a myth. The original faith of the Viet

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Cong leaders, which they had when they joined the movement, and the residual faith which the cadres seem to preserve after disillusionment with the rest, is that they understand politics among villagers in a way the GVN never will and that they know how to talk to, organize, and teach the peasants, while the outsiders (whether North Vietnamese or ARVN or GVN) are exploitative. The cadres' faith in their communist-taught knowledge of political techniques at the grass roots level remains strong even among those who abandon communism.

A program of hamlet home rule represents no substantial danger to Vietnamese national unity and stability. I have been phrasing the issue in terms of hamlet home rule rather than village home rule with this point in mind: At some level of magnitude the autonomous ness of an area represents a genuine problem to the central government. Hao Hoa control of An Giang province is right now a great boon to the Government of South Vietnam, but one they view with some suspicion. If village home rule might still be seen as somewhat of a threat because of requirements for the development of fairly extensive political organization, hamlet home rule is hardly a threat at all. The hamlet, as the smallest and most natural political unit, does not require exogenous organization attached to it to make it function effectively.

Village and hamlet elections are of course the primary and most promising mode of establishing hamlet home rule and bringing former members of the Viet Cong into political participation under government auspices. The fact that such elections are now taking place is one of the most promising signs of recent years. When these elections become nationwide, undoubtedly many Viet Cong sympathizers will be elected. Once elected as hamlet or village officials, however, these men must accommodate to the authority that has legitimized them. They can resist it and remain independent of it, but only to the degree that they accept it as the condition of their authority.

In addition to local elections, two economic measures can be proposed which would constitute a simple understandable and effective program of hamlet home rule in competition with the Viet Cong. The first of these economic measures would be the abolition of agricultural taxes. Such taxes now provide a relatively trivial proportion of GVN revenues. The larger amounts that are due are hard to collect. The attempts to collect them provide a major rationale for village cooperation with the Viet Cong. Ending the legitimacy of village taxation would also remove one of the excuses for ARVN activities within the villages. No longer could depredations easily be camouflaged as tax collections. Fear of ARVN forces and GVN officials could thus be reduced and a major source of corruption eliminated. It would be very difficult for the Viet Cong to follow suit. It could not afford to drop its taxes for it has no other source of revenue comparable to the urban economy under the control of the GVN and American foreign aid.

A second useful economic measure of similar character concerns rent. (Incidentally, rents and taxes, concepts quite distinct in our minds, are not