MEMORANDUM

September 27, 1967

TO: Dean Erwin N. Griswold
Dr. Max F. Millikan
Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Dr. George B. Kistiakowsky

FROM: Milton Katz

SUBJECT: Meeting with George Lodge on Sunday, September 30

This is to confirm the meeting arranged with
George C. Lodge at my home, 6 Berkeley Street, Cambridge
38, Massachusetts at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, September 30.

Erwin Griswold is unable to attend at that
time, and we are trying to work out a separate meeting
for him and George Lodge. All of the others have ac-
cepted the hour and date as convenient.

I look forward to seeing you there.

accepted the hour and date as convenient.
for him and George Lodge. All of the others have ac-
time, and we are trying to work out a separate meeting
Erwin Griswold is unable to attend at that

38, Massachusetts at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, September 30.
George C. Lodge at my home, & Berkeley Street, Cambridge
This is to confirm the meeting arranged with

FROM: Milton Katz

TO: Dr. George B. Kratinskowy
Dr. Henry V. Kraeger
Dr. Max B. Millikan
Dean Erwin N. Griswold

September 30, 1963

МЕТОДИИМ

October 17, 1962

Mr. George Cabot Lodge
100 Boylston Street
Boston 16, Massachusetts

Dear Mr. Lodge:

After careful consideration of the issues, the pronouncements
of the candidates and their records, I have decided to support your
candidacy for the United States Senate and to urge my friends to do
likewise.

I have been reluctant to give up my position as an independent
who has usually voted Democratic. However, the issues in this election
seem to me sufficiently important to endorse a candidate for public
office for the first time in my life.

The office of United States Senator is the second highest elec-
tive post in the country. It is an indispensable part of our system
of checks and balances. At this critical time in our nation's history
it should be filled by a man of experience, enlightened views and
independent judgment.

My many discussions with you, your writings and your public pro-
nouncements have convinced me that you would make the most effective
contribution of all the candidates to our nation's progress. I am
persuaded that you will support enlightened policies in the areas which
concern me most: foreign policy, national security policy and disarma-
ment. I am convinced that you will make a major contribution to the
twin goals of all Americans: to maintain the peace while preserving
our values, and that you will do so with an awareness that simple
answers in any direction are likely to be irresponsible. I accept
your assurance that you will neither support nor oppose policies on
the basis of partisan considerations.

For all these reasons, your election seems to me important
not only for the people of Massachusetts but for the integrity of the
democratic process and the vitality of the two party system.

I hope very much that you will be successful in your candidacy
for the United States Senate.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

GEORGE F. BAKER FOUNDATION

GEORGE C. LODGE

Lecturer on Business Administration
Associate Director,
Division of International Activities

SOLDIERS FIELD

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02163

CABLE ADDRESS: HARBUS

Telephone: KI 7-9800

April 6, 1965

Professor Henry A. Kissinger
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Henry:

It was wonderful to see you again at lunch the other day. Attached are two papers which relate to our conversation:

1. A statement on change in Latin America written by 38 top managers of Central America as a part of class work at our program in February in Panama.

2. A discussion of the philosophical problem we talked about.

Hoping to see you soon again.

GCL:cms

Attachments

May 12, 1965

Mr. George C. Lodge
Associate Director
Division of International Activities
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, Mass.

Dear George:

To my dismay I noticed that I
have never written you about the speeches
you were kind enough to send me nearly
a month ago.

It will not surprise you but
I agree with them almost completely.
I think they are a splendid job.

With every good wish and kind
regards.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

GEORGE F. BAKER FOUNDATION

GEORGE C. LODGE

Lecturer on Business Administration
Director,
Division of International Activities

SOLDIERS FIELD

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02163

CABLE ADDRESS: HARBUS

Telephone: KI 7-9800

MAY 26 1966

May 24, 1966

Professor Henry Kissinger
Director, Defense Studies Program
Center for International Affairs
6, Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Henry:

Thank you very much for sending me a copy
of your article as it appeared in *Daedelus*. It is most
stimulating and interesting and I am glad to have it in
this finished form.

Thank you too for arranging the lunch with
Dick Neustadt. Both Abe and I found him to be a very
interesting man and are grateful to you for making it
possible for us to meet him.

As for yesterday's Viet-Nam exercise, I cannot
thank you enough for giving us your valuable time. I know
that the students found your comments most interesting and
helpful and we are most grateful to you.

Looking forward to seeing you in New York on

June 2.

As ever,

GCL:j1

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

GEORGE F. BAKER FOUNDATION

AUG 17 1966

SOLDIERS FIELD

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02163

August 15, 1966

Professor Henry A. Kissinger
Director, Defense Studies Program
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, Mass. 02138

Dear Henry:

My mother sent me this
photograph which I thought you might
like to have.

I am dying to hear how the
trip went.

GCL:j1

PROF. DR. E. H. VAN DER BEUGEL

DEN HAAG, December 7th 1966

SMIDSWATER 1

TEL. 070 - 11 35 67

DEC 1 2 1966

My dear Henry,

This is not to remind you about my ultimatum of
seeing you in January but on a completely different matter.

A son of one of my friends in Holland has applied
for the Business-School in Harvard.

You are aware of the fact that I know some of the people there
and especially Cabot Lodge but I thought that it would be more
productive if you could drop him a word and tell him that this
boy is known to me and that my impression is excellent.

His data are the following:

Björn Olaf Goossens, born 13-12-1943.

9 years school in Holland

3 years étude commerciale at the Institute of Dr. Schmidt
in Lutry - Switzerland

Economics at the University of Lausanne where he has al-
ready obtained his "demi license" and where he hopes to
terminate his studies in June 1967.

He has sent his application to the Dean of Admissions
of the Harvard Business-School.

Prof. Henry A. Kissinger
c/o Harvard University
6 Divinity Avenue - CAMBRIDGE 38 (Mass.)
U.S.A.

GEORGE C. LODGE
SOLDIERS FIELD POST OFFICE
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02163

APR 3 1967

March 31, 1967

Professor Henry A. Kissinger
Center for International Affairs
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Henry:

The attached represents an effort to set down
some ideas about the pacification program in Viet Nam.

Knowing how busy you are, I hesitate to burden
you with it but I would be extremely grateful for any
comments that you might have.

I am wondering whether it would be presumptuous
of me to send it to members of the new team going out
there and would appreciate your advice on this also.

Thank you very much.

GCL:j1

Draft

3.27.67

# THE POLITICAL ORGANIZATION OF SOUTH VIET NAM

by

George C. Lodge

The "second war" in South Viet Nam against the Viet Cong shadow-government, which exerts real if terroristic control over many of the country's 2,500 villages, is a war which we and our allies have not yet begun to win. The difficulty is only secondarily military, material and economic; it is primarily ideological, doctrinal and political.¹

The U.S. objective in South Viet Nam is here taken to be the establishment of a nation: a reasonably cohesive political entity which is committed to its independence and to its social and economic growth along lines which are generally understood by and agreeable to a substantial portion of its people. An over-simplified historical view of South Viet Nam's current dilemma could be sketched as follows: in the period between 1946 and 1954; Ho Chi Minh, the Viet Minh and, it must be assumed, the majority of the Vietnamese people were engaged in a classical sort of revolution which, like others in Asia

1. **Ideology:** an organic vision of the problems of a community in its being and in its becoming.

2. **Doctrine:** the plan for the realization of the vision, including short and long term objectives, priorities and criteria for judging success.

3. **Political:** the devices and means by which people are motivated and organized to achieve the fulfillment of the plan.

- 2 -

and Africa, had two objectives: 1) independence from colonial rule and 2) establishment of radically different, revolutionary, economic, social and political structures. As the Viet Minh achieved Objective #1, they set about imposing their version of Objective #2 in the northern areas which they controlled. The result was the authoritarian police state which is today North Viet Nam. For a variety of reasons the Viet Minh version of Objective #2 was unacceptable to substantial numbers of Vietnamese, northerners as well as southerners who, however, found Objective #1 quite acceptable. Thus there came to be in the South various groups of people for whom in effect the revolution was only half valid. While these groups were unsympathetic to the police state of the North, they had no clear vision or purpose concerning the nature of the state or community which they wanted to build in South Viet Nam. They had, in effect, no revolutionary alternative. Ngo Dinh Diem moved into this chaotic situation and imposed authoritarian control, but did not succeed in formulating an acceptable or effective definition of Objective #2. His military successors have been similarly unsuccessful. The people of South Viet Nam, especially those in the rural areas, are thus in a condition of revolutionary abortion; many exploitative remnants of pre-revolutionary, economic, social and political practices linger on, while the traditional structures which provided meaning and a measure of social and personal security have been torn apart by the systematic action of the Viet Cong and the chaos of war. To achieve our

- 3 -

objectives, the revolution in the South must be completed, hopefully
in a more constructive and just way than that followed by the North.

The prerequisite for the fulfillment of U.S. objectives in
South Viet Nam is the formulation by the Vietnamese of revolutionary
purpose followed by the conception and introduction of new economic,
social and political structures which are an ideological, revolutionary
alternative to those which have been imposed in the North. This
effort by the Vietnamese can be encouraged and assisted or discouraged
and retarded by the policies and actions of the United States.

Much of the effort of the leaders of South Viet Nam in this
regard have until now been inadequate and ineffective. Similarly,
the doctrine by which the United States has aided and conducted the
so-called "pacification" program has been substantially irrelevant to
the task.¹ In contrast, however, the election of a National Assembly
and the promulgation of a new constitution are entirely consistent with
it. The purpose of this paper is to provide some thoughts about how
the pacification program can be made more consistent with our
fundamental objectives in South Viet Nam. It will consider some of
the fallacies of our present "pacification" and economic and social
aid doctrine and will offer some recommendations.

¹ See Stewart Alsop: "The President's Next Big Decision", *Saturday Evening Post*, March 25, 1967

- 4 -

I

Let us take a hypothetical South Vietnamese village, Can Do.
It is located in the Central section of the country not far from the
Iron Triangle forest refuge of the Viet Cong. While there are
obvious differences between Can Do and, for example, villages of the
Mekong Delta region and other areas of the country, we shall regard
many elements of its situation as being not untypical. Its
traditional structure has progressively disintegrated. The village
chief was murdered in his house early last year and his successors
have been unable to exert any meaningful leadership. A contingent
of Vietnamese troops and a U.S. advisory team are stationed in the
village which is subject to periodic raids, kidnappings, pillaging
of rice and indiscriminate terrorism on the part of small groups of
Viet Cong guerrillas. The ability of the troops to protect the
villagers is severely limited by insufficient local intelligence and
support. Its population of 5,000 appears listless and indifferent,
overwhelmed by fear of the Viet Cong and concern for personal
survival. They have lost the sense of community which they once had
and are now little more than isolated individuals, defenseless against
the enemy and unprotected by those affiliated with the government in
Saigon.

There is a rice mill in Can Do which is owned by a Chinese
merchant who lives in Saigon. It is the only mill available to the

- 5 -

rice farmers within a 20-mile radius of the village. Its rates are
consistent with its monopolistic status, being from three to five times
as highly as mills generally in South Viet Nam. The Government's
agricultural credit agency (NACO) has not made a loan in the last three
years from its Can Do office. Credit is, therefore, available only
at exorbitant rates from the mill, local store owners or loan sharks.
There is reason to believe that farmers are being forced to mortgage
land to obtain necessary credit.

The Saigon Government and USAID provide certain economic and
social benefits to the Can Do area. For example, USAID financed the
construction of a schoolhouse; the local Government-sponsored Farmers'
Association has distributed some fertilizer; other Government agencies
have made available hogs and tin roofing and provided for periodic
visits by a health worker. (The local Viet Cong news bulletin claimed
credit for having obtained the health worker.) The U.S. military
groups in the area have provided some health services to the people
and have distributed candy and food to the children.

The Tenant Farmers Union, affiliated with the Vietnamese
Confederation of Labor (CVT), has a small office and leadership group
in Can Do. At one time the TFU had a strong organization among the
farmers of the region but over the years this has been seriously eroded
by the Farmers' Association, which is part of a network of similar
organizations established by President Diem who feared the political
power of the CVT. TFU headquarters in Saigon and Tran Quoc Buu,

- 6 -

President of the CVT, have sought for several years to obtain USAID-
financed fertilizer for distribution through the TFU organization
instead of through the Farmers' Association but have not been successful.
The TFU, incidentally, is substantially free of Viet Cong influence
but has no special commitment to the Saigon Government.

II

If we take the situation at Can Do and consider it as being
sufficiently typical to warrant serious consideration, then we must
ask ourselves what does it mean in terms of U.S. objectives. First
priority must be placed on the organization of the farmers of the
area in such a way that they have the will to resist the Viet Cong,
rebuild their community and become participants in the formation of
the nation. All other activities, then, must be subservient to this
end and must be directly related to it. We are not in Viet Nam to
build schools or to distribute hogs, tin roofs or fertilizer.

If one looks at the organizing task in Can Do, several steps
become obvious:

1. <u>Agitation</u>. The farmer must be made to understand his needs in such a way that their fulfillment appears feasible and so that they can become useful organizing tools. He must be made to care about something more than survival. In Can Do it is probable that the need most readily perceived by the farmers is for reasonable credit and milling facilities. His exploited condition in both respects should be made explicit and dramatic to him. At the same time a way around

- 7 -

this condition should be described. This way might range from seizure
of the mill to the construction of another mill which might be
cooperatively owned by the farmers of the region and be made part of
a credit organization. With this kind of a vision before them a
significant group of farmers would then be prepared to move.

2. **Motivation.** Once agitated, a leadership group would become motivated and be prepared to secure the following of others.

3. **Organization.** Motivation in turn would lead to the development of an organization for the conduct of the mill-credit program. At this point the organization becomes far more important than the mere satisfaction of the need for which it was formed. It becomes a vital piece of political structure with the capacity to operate on many fronts, revolutionary in nature but with great constructive potential.

4. **Commitment.** At this stage the organization, its leaders and members, develop a sense of commitment to the organization, to structures it has built and to the community which it is in fact forming. So committed, the organization has increased will and zeal to defend itself and its work against attackers. Let us, for example, assume that the Viet Cong destroyed the new cooperative mill. If it were clear to the Can Do farmers that they could obtain a replacement for their mill with the help of USAID or the Saigon Government or in some other way, the VC attack would prove to be an organization builder. It would solidify them in their purpose. If, on the other

- 8 -

hand, there were no way in which they could obtain a replacement, the
new organization would probably disintegrate in despair.

Given the priority objectives of the U.S., therefore, the
principle, perhaps even the sole purpose of USAID in Can Do should be
to give material and technical support to the newly formed farmers'
organization so that it may grow and prosper. USAID's purpose is not
to undertake programs from which no organizational benefit is derived
and which consume scarce Vietnamese manpower, overburden already
fatigued administrative systems and invite corruption and leakage to
the Viet Cong. Political development does not necessarily follow
the injection of material and economic resources. In fact the two
are quite irrelevant. Development of the sort we are seeking in rural
Viet Nam must be preceded by the formation of political receptacles
which can receive careful and highly focused injections of economic
resources. We simply cannot assume the existence of sufficient levels
of motivation and organization or of governmental administrative
machinery required to convert matter into political results. In fact,
we know full well that rural South Viet Nam is notably bereft of
these basic political ingredients. We should not pretend otherwise.
Economic, material and technical aid should be dependent upon and
serve the interests of real and valid motivational-organizational
receptacles. Without the presence of such receptacles such aid can
be harmful in three ways:

- 9 -

1) The introduction of an artificial administrative bureaucracy without local roots is apt to bring corruption and smother the delicate tentacles of what someday might be real local government.

2) The people are inclined to look increasingly for outside help, and so are to that extent discouraged from organizing to help themselves.

3) Material is of no value unless its recipients are clear regarding its purpose.

It should be noted that the purpose of the sequence of actions described above is not primarily the fulfilling of a need. This is incidental. The important objective is the construction of a political organization, an institutional receptacle, which can then be fed with matter and technique, nourished, to grow and expand and connect with other organizations to form the framework and fabric necessary to form a new society. The need, whether it be concerned with credit, or milling or education or health, is inconsequential. We are not, after all, in Viet Nam to feed the hungry, heal the sick or teach the ignorant. We are there to help build a nation. Needs must therefore at all times be regarded as tools for the construction and creation of organizations and purpose. Otherwise the fulfilling of needs tends to smother purpose and eliminate valuable organizational tools.

It should also be noted that the sequence described is fundamentally revolutionary in that radical and permanent changes in

- 10 -

basic political, social and economic structures are taking place.
This is as it must be if the Southern part of the Vietnamese revolution
is to flower and not be frustrated and atrophied. For too long in
Viet Nam and elsewhere we have shied away from the notion of
revolution and thus blinded ourselves and our friends to the inevitable.
We have done this either by avoiding the word completely or by defining
it as involving merely the distribution of matter and technology to
poor and ignorant people. If we have recognized the revolutionary
requirement of structural change in political, economic and social
systems, we have generally tended to suppose erroneously that such
change is necessarily so violent and chaotic as to be unsupportable.

There is no evidence that the work of the Revolutionary
Development cadres in rural Viet Nam today is in the least bit revolutionary.
They are more accurately described as armed government social workers.
What we call the Ministry of Revolutionary Development is indeed more
accurately translated from the Vietnamese as the Ministry of Rural
Development.

### III

Next, we must consider where and how we might find appropriate
agents for the agitation-motivation-organization-commitment sequence.
There seem to be some general criteria which such an agent must meet
in order to be successful:

- 11 -

1) He must carry with him a measure of _authority_. He must be listened to when he speaks; he must be believed and to some extent trusted. Even if the Government of South Viet Nam wanted to be an agent of radical change, it is seriously limited on this count. While the peasant may hold no hostility for the central or provincial government, it is remote and unfamiliar. The peasant is apt to be either suspicious of or indifferent to it or its representative. This is a normal situation in the countryside of most developing countries, exacerbated in Viet Nam by the physical danger of identifying oneself with the Saigon Government.

2) The successful agent of change must be able to _communicate_ down to the lowliest peasant and at the same time must have _access_ to real power at the other end of the political spectrum. That is, the leader of our farmers' organization in Can Do must be able to talk to the rice farmer and be understood and he must also be able to secure quickly necessary assistance from Saigon to build or rebuild the rice mill, for example, and to meet other priority needs.

3) He must bring _competence_ to perform the tasks at hand. These tasks are generally many and varied. Returning to the Can Do example, a successful change agent must himself possess or be able to obtain skill and knowledge concerning rice milling, marketing, credit systems, transport, bookkeeping and probably rice agriculture. The problems of the Can Do peasant are not specialized and cannot be isolated for specialized treatment. They are many and varied and are inter-related.

- 12 -

4) The change agent must be able to provide protection for the new organization and its creations from both the forces of the status quo and the Viet Cong. For the latter, he must have close support from military elements. In this connection it is relevant to note the relationship of security to the doctrine herein proposed. It is quite obvious that it is impossible to protect the countryside from Viet Cong action by barbed wire or military action alone. A measure of internal community organization is an essential prerequisite to security. This in turn depends upon the sequence mentioned above. The problem of protecting the revolutionary organization against the status quo is in some ways more delicate and difficult and will be discussed below.

As will be readily seen, the task of creating the political receptacles or revolutionary engines of motivation and organization which are required for the fulfillment of our objectives is not a simple one. The necessary leadership is scarce and that which exists is understandably cautious, events having shown that it is highly vulnerable to elimination not only by the Viet Cong but by the power structure of South Viet Nam itself. (Witness the unfortunate removal of Captain Mai as training director of the People's Action Teams. His revolutionary zeal and inspiration so necessary for victory were unacceptable to some elements of the status quo.)

## IV

If we look at other countries in which the revolutionary process

- 13 -

is or has been underway in Asia, Africa and Latin America, we can identify several more or less typical sources of leadership for the construction of political receptacles. Three are relevant to South Viet Nam: labor organizations which may be trade unions, peasant leagues or cooperative undertakings; religious organizations such as those of the radical social action wing of the Catholic Church in Latin America and the Philippines or the Buddhist cooperative movements in Thailand; rural organizations sponsored by or closely allied with revolutionary political parties, such as Accion Democratica in Venezuela or Christian Democratic parties in Chile, Guatemala and El Salvador. Frequently there is substantial overlapping between these three categories but they can be usefully seen as distinct. It is significant that for the same reasons which have been mentioned earlier none of these in their initial phases had a close governmental connection. Some indeed are openly opposed to the government in power. A wise government may be able to change with revolutionary developments in its country and avoid violent displacement but it is hardly able to take initiative and exert leadership with respect to such developments. In their later phases, however, these revolutionary engines frequently become principal organizing forces for a new government and invariably are closely associated with it once it is in place. (Note, for example, the history of the independence movements of India, Ghana, Guinea and Tunisia and the revolutionary movements of Betancourt in Venezuela and Frei in Chile.)

- 14 -

In South Viet Nam, therefore, it would seem urgent to:

1. Identify the potential sources of revolutionary leadership capable of setting in motion the agitation-motivation-organization-commitment sequence and building new political receptacles and organizations in the countryside.

2. To reorient USAID and military policies and programs so that they place first priority on the delicate task of feeding and supporting these organizations.

3. To look for the establishment of a new revolutionary government which is to the fullest extent possible built upon the political framework which these organizations together comprise.

In order to prepare for such a radical shift from existing doctrine, it would seem advisable to reduce drastically all USAID and other pacification efforts, to reorganize the appropriate U.S. administrative units in Saigon and Washington and redeploy U.S. and Vietnamese manpower accordingly. The new criteria by which all aid programs would be judged would be the extent to which they directly served and supported an organizational end.

It can be expected that the present regime in South Viet Nam will resist this change. This resistance, however, cannot be usefully measured until the new scheme with its objectives and rationale is carefully and precisely explained at the highest levels of government. Natural resistance in the bureaucracy cannot be taken as being in and of itself a serious obstacle. When real and important elements of

- 15 -

resistance are identified and isolated, then we must be prepared to
make hard decisions based upon our serious and costly commitment to
the achievement of our objectives in South Viet Nam. It is not
enough to say that some of these matters are for "the Vietnamese"
to decide. We must analyze which Vietnamese are deciding what for
whom. We cannot pretend that we have not and are not intervening
in the development of South Viet Nam. For this intervention to be
successful we must be just as firm politically as we are militarily.
The only chance for success is for the United States to be clear,
precise and consistent in its assessment of the requirements for
victory, and firm in the pursuit of those requirements.

V

Regarding the specific application of this doctrine, let us
look at the possible sources in South Viet Nam of revolutionary
political organizational leadership of the three varieties already
mentioned: labor, religious and political parties.

LABOR:¹ The Vietnamese Confederation of Labor (CVT) is an
organization with proven capacity to agitate, motivate and organize.
It is hard to estimate its real capacity for action at the moment.
It has been restrained by successive governmental regimes which

¹ These comments on labor are taken partially from a report made by the author to the Department of State about a year ago on the basis of a visit to Viet Nam and may, therefore, be out of date in some respects.

- 16 -

[10]

understandably fear its political power. It is wary of committing
itself to any single regime, having the equally understandable
apprehension that the regime may change.

On the other hand, it is reasonable to estimate that it has 100
competent leaders and perhaps 100,000 committed followers in three areas
of work which are critical to Viet Nam: fishing, the rubber plantations,
and farming. It also has varying degrees of strength in other
activities, especially the oil industry, various sorts of transport,
the docks, the construction industry, and in some parts of the country,
meat slaughtering.

Relationships and understanding between the CVT and the GVN,
especially Prime Minister Ky, appear to be good. There seems to be an
awareness on Ky's part of the importance of the CVT in securing political
support for the GVN, gaining worker cooperation in industries such as the
Saigon bus company, and in performing various social services in both
urban and rural areas. Tran Quoc Buu, President of the CVT, appears
disposed to cooperate with the GVN, although he is obviously aware of
the distance between the GVN and the people. It is impossible to
predict what will happen to these relationships in the future, just as
it is hard to assess with confidence the real power of the CVT. It
is time, however, to conduct some careful tests with the following
objectives:

a. To show the GVN that the CVT can be a useful and
constructive force in the achievement of national objectives;

- 17 -

b. To show the CVT that it can engage in substantial
activities without the interference of government;

c. To lay the basis for continuing activity by the CVT in
motivating and organizing the people of South Viet Nam;

d. To develop useful experience in this regard which can be
converted into training material for wider application.

**Test #1:** At Phan Thiet the CVT has about 10,000 dues-paying members under the leadership of Tran Van Khuyen, most of whom are or were engaged in fishing, fish processing and boat building. The quantities of fish caught today are substantially below normal because it cannot be transported over the roads to Saigon and other markets, where the price of fish is rising, contributing to the general inflationary problem.

A $15,000 (one million piasters) loan should be extended to
the Fishermen's Federation at Phan Thiet with which it would build a
50-ton boat, members of the boat builders union contributing some free
time for the construction. This boat would be owned and operated
cooperatively by the Union. It could be built in two months and could
pay for itself within a year or less with efficient operation. It
would shuttle between Phan Thiet and Saigon, carrying fish to market.

Its real purpose, however, would be to demonstrate and test
techniques of cooperative formation in Viet Nam today, to form a model
for further similar organizations along the coast and to produce

- 18 -

practical and proven training material for cooperative and community
development to be used for the training of Revolutionary Development
cadres. This is a low risk project which consumes a minimum of
Vietnamese manpower and could provide maximum assurance to the CVN and
the CVT of each other's sincerity. It is outside of Saigon and would
be under the direction of a relatively nonpolitical labor leader, who
appears to enjoy close relations with his District Chief.

There are undoubtedly numerous obstacles to be overcome. For
example, the unloading and marketing of the fish in Saigon in an
efficient and just manner would have to be assured. Some technical
assistance might be required. This might be sought from the
community development institute (Coady Institute) at Antigonish, Nova
Scotia; Histadrut in Israel, or possibly, Taiwan.

If the Phan Thiet boat worked well, the Union could be
encouraged to organize cooperative operations in other fields, such as
cold storage and freezing, marketing and credit. It has already had
some elementary cooperative experience with a landing and cleaning
facility at the port.

Incidentally, if USAID plans to continue to supply motors to
the fishermen at Phan Thiet or elsewhere, it should be done through
the Union so as to strengthen it as an organizer, the motors themselves
being of secondary importance.

- 19 -

LQ

**Test #2:** It appears that the Tenant Farmers Union is strongest in Dinh Tuong, Vinh Binh and Kien Giang Provinces. Consideration should be given to assisting this union in these areas to form credit and fertilizer cooperatives. It is apparent that NACO is not reaching far enough down to be really effective. Furthermore, it does not carry with it the motivation-organization powers that the TFU may. In general, it would seem wise to channel as much fertilizer and agricultural assistance through the TFU as possible. Undoubtedly the Union would need accounting and administrative help if this were to be done on a large scale. Such action would mean curtailing the activities of the Government's Farmers' Association.

**Test #3:** The Plantation Workers Federation has its best organization at Loc Ninh in Binh Long Province on the French-owned C.E.X.O. plantation. The GVN might nationalize this plantation and turn it over to the Union to run as a cooperative. The Union would need assistance in bookkeeping, marketing and other areas which might come from the Malaysia Rubber Workers' Union. This is one of the strongest organizations of its kind in Asia and has long enjoyed close relationships with the Plantation Workers of Viet Nam. There are 5,000 workers on the Loc Ninh plantation, 3,000 of them permanent, under the leadership of a man named Tuy, reputed to be one of the strongest leaders in the country.

In general, opportunities should be sought to involve the CVT in the management of enterprises. It has done an apparently successful

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[LQ]

job of managing the slaughter house in Hué, reducing prices and
increasing wages.

Most important is the ideological and commitment impact of
such projects.

In countries where the opportunities for more traditional
trade union functions, such as collective bargaining, are severely
limited, this type of cooperative-entrepreneurial venture can have
substantial and beneficial social, political, and economic effects
(e.g., Tunisia, Israel, Uruguay, etc.)

If the CVT is going to become a major factor in Vietnamese
development, it will and should eventually become increasingly
identified with government. ¹ This is the pattern throughout the
developing world. The stronger the CVT becomes, the more of a
political force it will be and thus the more necessary it will seem
to government to have its cooperation and support. The CVT obviously

¹ Tran Quoc Buu, speaking to the Saigon Lions' Club on February 12, 1966, his first public speech in three years, said: "The trade union plays an important role as an intermediate structure between the state and the individual, (which) assures the state a functioning efficiency, enabling it to transmit the state's initiatives to the masses. Instead of reaching the individual in a sporadic manner, the state finds, thanks to this intermediate structure, a recognition on the part of the masses." And again: "One should envisage the trade union less in its initial and claiming form than that of an equilibrium factor in both distribution (of wealth) and in the life of the community.... I think we may affirm that the trade union can work effectively in a developing country, first as a factor of equitable distribution of national wealth and second as an intermediary structure between the state and the individual."

- 21 -

will continue to need government protection and approval. It is,
therefore, of the utmost importance to keep the lines between the two
strong and clear of misunderstanding and unjustified apprehension.

**RELIGIOUS:** It is far harder to be as specific about the ways
in which Catholic and Buddhist organizations could be made more
politically useful along the lines mentioned above. If, however, the
task were given priority it would not seem impossible to make some
progress here. There is evidence that Buddhism generally,
particularly in Thailand, is becoming increasingly interested and
active in community building undertakings (see *Buddhism and Asian
Politics*, Joseph M. Kitagawa, paper printed by the Foreign Service
Institute, Department of State). Assisting Catholic action projects
would become less difficult if the Buddhists of South Viet Nam were to
clarify their own program.

**POLITICAL PARTIES:** As civilian political activity increases
with the advent of a constitutional government, it must be expected
that various political organizations will emerge and seek a following
in rural areas. While aiding any one of these organizations is fraught
with obvious difficulties, it would be a mistake to miss the
opportunity which they afford for the achievement of our overall
objectives. It would seem possible to devise a reasonably balanced
system of aiding those rural political receptacles which show a
capacity to generate real peasant commitment to the formation of a new
community and nation.

- 22 -

VI

If, as James Reston suggests, "the real question (in Viet Nam) is whether the United States will stay the course and adjust its strategy, not to a quick solution but to a long-range accommodation," then the doctrine suggested above takes on special importance. It will not be until the Viet Cong see real political change in the South that they will recognize the futility of their cause. Only then will their leaders believe that a new nation has been born, a nation which is dedicated to its independence, broadly inspired by a commonalty of purpose and organized for the fulfillment of that purpose.

Various estimates have been made of how long it will take before the U.S. achieves its objectives in South Viet Nam. If our doctrine remains what it is and if it continues to have its current pervasive effect on Vietnamese affairs, it is not too much to question whether we will ever achieve our objectives. If on the other hand it becomes enlightened by a truly revolutionary ideology which kindles the fires of hope throughout the land, it is not too much to expect that three years will bring what we can legitimately call victory.

¹"Washington: The Deeper Tendences of the War", *New York Times*, March 26, 1967.

April 10, 1967

Mr. George C. Lodge
Soldiers Field Post Office
Boston, Massachusetts 02163

Dear George:

I have read your paper on the pacification
program with great interest and general agree-
ment.

Perhaps we could lunch together some-
time to discuss it further.

With warm regards,

HAK:cb

June 1, 1967

by

George C. Lodge

There are four kinds of war in Viet Nam; the United
States and its allies are succeeding in three: 1) the
conventional war against overt aggression by main force
units; 2) the political war which seeks at a minimum to
prevent a Viet Cong coup and eventually to move Viet Nam
towards a government with broad popular support; and 3)
the economic war aimed at preventing runaway inflation and
the resulting crippling misery among the masses. But in
the fourth war against the covert aggression of the
terrorist and the guerrilla, victories are scarce. The
means of winning this "other war" do not appear yet to have
been found; failure in this war seriously undercuts the
victories in the other three.

- 2 -

The difficulty is only secondarily military, material, technical and economic; it is primarily ideological, doctrinal, and political.¹

The U.S. objective in South Viet Nam is to help ward off aggression and build a nation; a reasonably cohesive political entity which is committed to its independence and to its social and economic growth along lines which are generally acceptable to a substantial portion of its people. It is understood that the concept of a nation and political leadership among Vietnamese is quite different from that commonly held in the United States. It is essential that this difference in traditional political and cultural modes and the difficulties which it presents to the adoption of a Western democratic model be kept clearly in mind; that we remember, for example, that the leader in Viet Nam has been he who received what Paul Mus of Yale calls "the mandate of heaven".

An over-simplified view of South Viet Nam's current dilemma could be sketched as follows: in the period between 1

**Ideology**: an organic vision of the nature and problems of a community in its being and in its becoming.

**Doctrine**: the plan for the realization of the vision, including short and long term objectives, priorities and criteria for judging success.

**Political**: the arrangement of power for the fulfillment of the doctrine; the techniques through which people become organized and committed to its fulfillment.

- 3 -

1946 and 1954, Ho Chi Minh, the Viet Minh and, it must be assumed, a substantial portion of the Vietnamese people, were engaged in a classical sort of revolution which, like others in Asia and Africa, had two objectives: 1) independence from colonial rule and 2) establishment of radically different, revolutionary, economic, social and political structures. As the Viet Minh achieved Objective #1, they set about imposing their version of Objective #2 in the northern areas which they controlled. The result was the authoritarian police state which is today North Viet Nam. For a variety of reasons the Viet Minh version of Objective #2 was unacceptable to substantial numbers of Vietnamese, northerners as well as southerners who, however, found Objective #1 quite acceptable. Thus there came to be in the South various groups of people for whom in effect the revolution was only half valid. While these groups were unsympathetic to the police state of the North and sought a different way of life, they had no doctrinaire vision or purpose concerning the nature of the state or community which they wanted to build in South Viet Nam. In fact, they had no idea of a modern nation state. They were fragmented into many different regional, sectarian and ethnic groupings and their historical experience caused them to expect nothing but trouble from a central authority.

- 4 -

For these reasons, it is not surprising that the groups
in the South had no clear or articulate revolutionary
alternative to the model of Objective #2 which Ho Chi Minh
had established.

Ngo Dinh Diem moved into this chaotic situation and sought to impose an inefficient authoritarian control, but did not succeed in formulating an acceptable or effective revolutionary alternative. His successors were similarly unsuccessful until the Constituent Assembly, elected in 1966, adopted a new Constitution, the Preamble of which calls for "a republican form of government, of the people, by the people and for the people, whose purpose is to unite the nation, unite the territory and assure independence, freedom and democracy with justice and altrusion for the present and future generation". This purpose, of course, like all such declarations, is today no more than words; the task ahead is to convert the words into an organized, revolutionary, political movement which will be in truth and fact an effective way for the Vietnamese people to achieve a better life and avoid enslavement by a police state. Until this conversion and organization takes place the people of South Viet Nam, especially those in the rural areas, will remain in a condition of revolutionary abortion; many exploitative remnants of pre-revolutionary economic, social and political practices linger on, while the

- 5 -

traditional, local structures which provided meaning and a
measure of social and personal security have been torn apart
by the systematic action of the French in the first instance,
and subsequently of Diem and the Viet Cong. To achieve our
objectives, the revolution in the South must be completed,
hopefully in a more constructive, humane and just way than
that attempted by the North.

A vital prerequisite for the fulfillment of U.S.
objectives in South Viet Nam is the formulation by the
Vietnamese of revolutionary purpose followed by the con-
ception and introduction of new economic, social and
political structures which are an ideological, revolutionary
alternative to those which have been imposed in the North
and which provide an effective way for South Viet Nam to
advance. Efforts by the Vietnamese can be encouraged and
assisted or discouraged and retarded by the policies and actions
of the United States.

The election of a National Assembly and village
councils offers the promise of leadership which is capable
of formulating and acting upon this new purpose. The
Constitution is indeed the beginning of its statement.
But it seems obvious that these achievements alone are inade-
quate.

- 6 -

This paper intends to show by the examination of a
hypothetical town, its problems and the programs aimed at
it, that much of the U.S. effort among civilians in rural
South Viet Nam is as yet not only ineffective but is indeed
irrelevant to the primary task at hand. Specifically, it
is argued, that the *doctrine* by which the United States,
particularly USAID and the Office of Civilian Operations
(OCO), has aided and conducted the so-called revolutionary
development program fails to meet the central issue.
Suggestions will be made about how this program can be made
more consistent with our fundamental objectives in South
Viet Nam.

I

- 7 -

leadership. A contingent of Vietnamese troops and a U.S. advisory team are stationed in the village which is subject to periodic raids, kidnappings, pillaging of rice and indiscriminate terrorism on the part of small groups of Viet Cong guerrillas. The ability of the troops to protect the villagers is severely limited by insufficient local intelligence and support. Its population of 5,000 appears listless and indifferent, overwhelmed by fear of the Viet Cong and concern for personal survival. They have lost the sense of community which they once had and are now little more than isolated individuals, defenceless against the enemy and unprotected by those affiliated with the government in Saigon.

There is a rice mill in Can Do which is owned by a Chinese merchant who lives in Saigon. It is the only mill available to the rice farmers within a 20 mile radius of the village. Its rates, consistent with its monopolistic status, are from three to five times as high as mills generally in South Viet Nam. The Government's agricultural credit agency (NACO) has not made a loan in the last three years from its Can Do office. Credit, is, therefore, available only at exorbitant rates from the mill, local store owners or loan sharks.

- 8 -

The Saigon Government and USAID provide certain
economic and social benefits to the Can Do area. For example,
USAID financed the construction of a schoolhouse; the local
Government-sponsored Farmers' Association has distributed
USAID-financed fertilizer; other Government agencies have
made available hogs and tin roofing and provided for periodic
visits by a health worker. (The local Viet Cong news
bulletin claimed credit for having obtained the health worker.)
The U.S. military groups in the area have provided some health
services to the people and have distributed candy and food to
the children.

The Tenant Farmers Union, affiliated with the Viet-
namese Confederation of Labor (CVT), has a small office and
leadership group in Can Do. At one time the TFU had a
strong organization among the farmers of the region but over
the years this has been seriously eroded by the Farmers'
Association, which is part of a network of similar organi-
zations established originally by President Diem, who feared
the political power of the CVT, and continued since. TFU
headquarters in Saigon and Tran Quoc Buu, President of the
CVT, have sought for several years to obtain USAID-financed
fertilizer for distribution through the TFU organization
instead of through the Farmers' Association, but have not

- 9 -

II

If we take the situation at Can Do and consider it
as being sufficiently typical to warrant serious considera-
tion, then we must ask ourselves what it means in terms of
U.S. objectives. First priority must be placed on the
organization of the farmers of the area in such a way that
they have the will to resist the Viet Cong, rebuild their
community and become participants in the formation of the
nation. All other activities, then, must be subservient
to this end and must be directly related to it. We are not
in Viet Nam to build schools or distribute hogs, tin roofs
and fertilizer except as a means to nation building.

1. **Agitation:** The farmer must be made to understand his needs in such a way that their fulfillment appears feasible and so that they can become useful organizing tools. He must be made to care about something more than survival. In Can Do it is probable that the need most readily perceived by the farmers is for reasonable credit and milling

- 10 -

facilities. His exploited condition in both respects should
be made explicit and dramatic to him. At the same time a
way around this condition should be described. This way
might range from seizure of the mill to the construction of
another mill which might be cooperatively owned by the farmers
of the region and be made part of a credit organization.
With this kind of a vision before them a significant group
of farmers would gain new hope and be prepared to move.

2. **Motivation:** Once agitated, a leadership group would be prepared to move; they would have the confidence and the will to act to fulfill the need which they now feel; they begin to care about something more than just survival. Motivated themselves, they are able and eager to agitate others and to secure a following.

3. **Organization:** Motivation in turn would lead to the development of an organization for the conduct of the mill-credit program. At this point the organization becomes far more important than the mere satisfaction of the need for which it was formed. Again, let us remember that our purpose in Viet Nam is no more the provision of reasonable credit and milling facilities than it is hogs or tin roofs. These needs are useful only to the extent that they can be treated, processed and made into levers of organization.

- 11 -

The organization then becomes a vital piece of political structure with the capacity to operate on many fronts, revolutionary in nature but with great constructive potential.

4. **Commitment**: At this stage the organization, its leaders and members, develop a sense of commitment to the organization, to structures it has built and to the community which it is in fact forming. So committed, the organization has increased will and zeal to defend itself and its work against attackers. Let us, for example, assume that the Viet Cong destroyed the new cooperative mill. If it were clear to the Can Do farmers that they could obtain a replacement for their mill with the help of USAID or the Saigon Government or in some other way, the VC attack would prove to be an organization builder. It would solidify them in their purpose. If, on the other hand, there were no way in which they could obtain a replacement, the new organization would probably disintegrate in despair.

Given the priority objectives of the United States, therefore, the principal, perhaps even the sole purpose of USAID, in Can Do should be to give material and technical support to the newly formed farmers' organization so that it may grow and prosper. USAID's purpose is not to undertake programs from which no organizational benefit is derived and which consume scarce Vietnamese manpower, overburden already fatigued administrative systems and invite corruption and

- 12 -

leakage to the Viet Cong. Political development does not necessarily follow the injection of material and economic resources. In fact the two are quite irrelevant. Development of the sort we are seeking in rural Viet Nam must be preceded by the formation of political structures which can receive careful and highly focussed injections of economic resources, and be nourished by them to become energetic engines of political change. We simply cannot assume the existence of sufficient levels of motivation and organization or of governmental administrative machinery required to convert matter into political results. In fact, we know full well that rural South Viet Nam is notably bereft of these basic political ingredients. We should not pretend otherwise. The injection of economic, material and technical aid, therefore, should be preceded or accompanied by the creation of political (motivational-organizational) structures. Without this presence such aid can be harmful in three ways:

1. The introduction of an artificial administrative bureaucracy without local roots is apt to bring corruption and smother the delicate tentacles of what someday might be real local government.

2. The people are inclined to look increasingly for outside help, and so are to that extent discouraged from organizing to help themselves.

- 13 -

It should be noted that the purpose of the sequence of actions described above is not primarily the fulfilling of a need. This is incidental. The important objective is the construction of a political organization, an institutional receptacle, which can then be fed with matter and technique, nourished, to grow and expand and connect with other organizations to form the framework and fabric necessary to form a new society. The need, whether it be concerned with credit, or milling or education or health, is inconsequential. We are not, after all, in Viet Nam to feed the hungry, heal the sick or teach the ignorant. We are there for the primarily political purpose of assisting the construction of a new nation. Needs must, therefore, at all times be regarded as tools for the construction and creation of organizations and purpose, which are prerequisites to the formation of national structures. Otherwise the fulfilling of needs tends to smother purpose and eliminate valuable organizational tools.¹

¹ The testimony of Dr. Samuel P. Huntington of Harvard University before the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, March 1967, pp. 115-121.

- 14 -

It should also be noted that the sequence described
is fundamentally revolutionary in that radical and permanent
changes in basic political, social and economic structures
are taking place. This is as it must be if the Southern
part of the Vietnamese revolution is to flower and not be
frustrated and atrophied. For too long in Viet Nam and else-
where we have shied away from the notion of revolution and
thus blinded ourselves and our friends to the inevitable.
We have done this either by avoiding the word completely or
by defining it as involving merely the distribution of
matter and technology to poor and ignorant people. If we
have recognized the revolutionary requirement of structural
change in political, economic and social systems, we have
generally tended to suppose erroneously that such change is
necessarily so violent and chaotic as to be unsupportable.

There is little evidence that the work of the
Revolutionary Development cadres in rural Viet Nam today
is in fact revolutionary. They are more accurately
described as armed government social workers.

III

Next, we must consider where and how we might find
and encourage appropriate Vietnamese agents for the
agitation-motivation-organization-commitment sequence.
There seem to be some general criteria which such an agent
must meet in order to be successful:

- 15 -

1) He must carry with him a measure of _authority_. He must be listened to when he speaks; he must be believed and to some extent trusted. Even if the Government of South Viet Nam wanted to be an agent of radical change, it is seriously limited on this count. While the peasant may hold no hostility for the central or provincial government, it is unfamiliar and remote. The peasant is apt to be either suspicious of or indifferent to it or its representative. This is a normal situation in the countryside of most developing countries, exacerbated in Viet Nam by the physical danger in many parts of the country of identifying oneself with the Saigon Government.

2) The successful agent of change must be able to _communicate_ down to the lowliest peasant and at the same time have _access_ to real power at the other end of the political spectrum. That is, the leader of our farmers' organization in Can Do must be able to talk to the rice farmer and be understood and he must also be able to secure quickly necessary assistance from Saigon to build or rebuild the rice mill, for example, and to meet other priority needs.

3) He must bring _competence_ to perform the tasks at hand. These tasks are generally many and varied. Returning to the Can Do example, a successful change agent must himself possess or be able to obtain skills and knowledge concerning rice milling, marketing, credit systems, transport, book-keeping, and probably rice agriculture.

- 16 -

The problems of Can Do are not specialized and cannot be isolated for special treatment. They are many and varied and are interrelated.

As will be readily seen, the task of creating the revolutionary, political engines of motivation and organization which are required for the fulfillment of our objectives is not simple. The necessary leadership is scarce and that which exists is understandably cautious, events having shown that in many places it is highly vulnerable to elimination not only by the Viet Cong but by the power structure of South Viet Nam itself. (Witness the unfortunate

- 17 -

## IV

If we look at other countries in which the revolutionary process is or has been underway in Asia, Africa and Latin America, we can identify several more or less typical sources of leadership for the construction of political receptacles. Three are relevant to South Viet Nam: labor organizations which may be trade unions, peasant leagues or cooperative undertakings; religious organizations such as those of the radical social action wing of the Catholic Church in Latin America and the Philippines or the Buddhist cooperative movements in Thailand; rural organizations sponsored by or closely allied with revolutionary political parties, such as Accion Democratica in Venezuela or Christian Democratic parties in Chile, Guatemala and El Salvador. Frequently there is substantial overlapping between these three categories but they can be usefully seen as distinct. It is significant that for the same reasons which have been mentioned earlier none of these in their initial phases had a close governmental connection. Some indeed are openly opposed to the government in power. A wise government may be able to change with revolutionary development in its country and avoid violent

- 18 -

displacement but it is hardly able to take initiative and exert leadership with respect to such developments. In their later phases, however, these revolutionary engines frequently become principal organizing forces for a new government and invariably are closely associated with it once it is in place. (Note, for example, the history of the independence movements of India, Ghana, Guinea and Tunisia, and the revolutionary movements of Betancourt in Venezuela and Frei in Chile.)

1. Identify the potential sources of revolutionary leadership at the regional and local as well as the national level, which is capable of setting in motion the agitation-motivation-organization-commitment sequence and building new engines of change in the countryside.

It is clear that the fall elections will provide some new leaders and perhaps new political organizations. These together with appropriate non-governmental groups (see below) must be carefully assessed in order to determine what balance and pattern of rural organization will be most useful for the achievement of our objectives.

2. Reorient USAID and military policies and programs so that they place first priority on the delicate task of feeding and supporting these organizations and individuals.

- 19 -

3) Look for the establishment of a revolutionary political movement, governmental or non-governmental, which is to the fullest extent possible built upon the political framework which these organizations together comprise.

In order to prepare for such a radical shift from existing U.S. doctrine, it would seem advisable to reduce drastically USAID and other pacification efforts, to re-organize the appropriate U.S. administrative units in Saigon and Washington, and redeploy U.S. and Vietnamese manpower accordingly. The new criteria by which all aid programs would be judged would be the extent to which they directly served and supported an organizational end.

It can be expected that certain elements of the regime in South Viet Nam will resist this change. This resistance, however, cannot be usefully measured until the new scheme with its objectives and rationale is carefully and precisely explained at the highest levels of government. Natural resistance in the bureaucracy cannot be taken as being in and of itself a serious obstacle. When real and important elements of resistance are identified and isolated, then we must be prepared to make hard decisions based upon our serious and costly commitment to the achievement of our objectives in South Viet Nam. It is not enough to say that some of these matters are for "the Vietnamese" to decide.

- 20 -

We must analyze which Vietnamese are deciding what for whom. We cannot pretend that we have not and are not intervening in the development of South Viet Nam. The only chance for success is for the United States to be clear, precise, and consistent in its assessment of the requirements for victory, and firm in the pursuit of those requirements.

V

LABOR¹: The Vietnamese Confederation of Labor (CVT) is an organization with proven capacity to agitate, motivate and organize. It is hard to estimate its real capacity for action at the moment. It has been restrained by successive governmental regimes which understandably fear its political power. It is wary of committing itself to any single regime, having the equally understandable apprehension that the regime may change.

1 These comments on labor are taken partially from a report made by the author to the Department of State about a year ago on the basis of a visit to Viet Nam and may, therefore, be out of date in some respects.

- 21 -

has 100 competent leaders and perhaps 100,000 committed
followers in three areas of work which are critical to Viet
Nam: fishing, the rubber plantations and farming. It also
has varying degrees of strength in other activities,
especially the oil industry, various sorts of transport,
the docks, the construction industry, and in some parts of
the country, meat slaughtering.

Relationships and understanding between the CVT and
the GVN, especially Prime Minister Ky, seem to be good.
There seems to be an awareness on Ky's part of the importance
of the CVT in securing political support for the GVN, gaining
worker cooperation in industries such as the Saigon bus
company, and in performing various social services in both
urban and rural areas. Tran Quoc Buu, President of the CVT,
appears disposed to cooperate with the GVN, although he is
obviously aware of the distance between the GVN and the people.
It is impossible to predict what will happen to these
relationships in the future, just as it is hard to assess
with confidence the real power of the CVT. It is time,
however, to conduct some careful tests with the following
objectives:

a) To show the GVN that the CVT can be a useful and
constructive force in the achievement of national objectives;

- 22 -

b) To show the CVT that it can engage in substantial
activities without the interference of government;

c) To lay the basis for continuing activity by the
CVT in motivating and organizing the people of South Viet
Nam;

d) To develop useful experience in this regard which
can be converted into training material for wider application.

**Test #1:** At Phan Thiet, the CVT has about 10,000 dues-paying members under the leadership of Tran Van Khuyen, most of whom are or were engaged in fishing, fish processing and boat building. The quantities of fish caught today are substantially below normal because it cannot be transported over the roads to Saigon and other markets, where the price of fish is rising, contributing to the general inflationary problem.

A $15,000 (one million piasters) loan should be extended to the Fishermen's Federation at Phan Thiet with which it would build a 50-ton boat, members of the boat builders union contributing some free time for the construction. This boat would be owned and operated cooperatively by the union. It could be built in two months and could pay for itself within a year or less with efficient operation. It would shuttle between Phan Thiet and Saigon, carrying fish to market.

-23-

Its *real* purpose, however, would be to demonstrate and test techniques of cooperative formation in Viet Nam today, to form a model for further similar organizations along the coast and to produce practical and proven training material for cooperative and community development to be used for the training of Revolutionary Development cadres. This is a low risk project which consumes a minimum of Vietnamese manpower and could provide maximum assurance to the GVN and the CVT of each other's sincerity. It is outside of Saigon and would be under the direction of a relatively non-political labor leader, who appears to enjoy close relations with his District Chief.

There are undoubtedly numerous obstacles to be overcome. For example, the unloading and marketing of the fish in Saigon in an efficient and just manner would have to be assured. Some technical assistance might be required. This might be sought from the community development institute (Coady Institute) at Antigonish, Nova Scotia; Histadrut in Israel, or possibly Taiwan.

- 24 -

**Test #2:** It appears that the Tenant Farmers Union is strongest in Dinh Tuong, Vinh Binh and Kien Giang provinces. Consideration should be given to assisting this union in these areas to form credit and fertilizer cooperatives. It is apparent that NACO is not reaching far enough down to be really effective. Furthermore, it does not carry with it the motivation-organization powers that the TFU may. In general, it would seem wise to channel as much fertilizer and agricultural assistance through the TFU as possible. Undoubtedly the Union would need accounting and administrative help if this were to be done on a large scale. Such action would mean curtailing the activities of the Government's Farmers' Association.

**Test #3:** The Plantation Workers Federation has its best organization at Loc Ninh in Binh Long Province on the French-owned C.E.X.O. plantation. The GVN might nationalize this plantation and turn it over to the Union to run as a co-operative. The union would need assistance in bookkeeping, marketing and other areas which might come from the Malaysia Rubber Workers' Union. This is one of the strongest organizations of its kind in Asia and has long enjoyed close

- 25 -

In general, opportunities should be sought to involve
the CVT in the management of enterprises. It has done an
apparently successful job of managing the slaughter house in
Huế, reducing prices and increasing wages.

Most important is the ideological and commitment impact
of such projects. In countries where the opportunities for
more traditional trade union functions, such as collective
bargaining, are severely limited, this type of cooperative
entrepreneurial venture can have substantial and beneficial
social, political and economic effects (e.g., Tunisia, Israel,
Uruguay, etc.). If the CVT is going to become a major factor
in Vietnamese development, it will and should eventually
become increasingly identified with government.¹

1 Tran Quoc Buu, speaking to the Saigon Lions Club on February 12, 1966, his first public speech in three years, said: "The trade union plays an important role as an intermediate structure between the state and the individual, (which) assures the state a functioning efficiency, enabling it to transmit the state's initiatives to the masses. Instead of reaching the individual in a sporadic manner, the state finds, thanks to this intermediate structure, a recognition on the part of the masses." And again: "One should envisage the trade union less in its initial and claiming form than that of an equilibrium factor in both distribution (of wealth) and in the life of the community... I think we may affirm that the trade union can work effectively in a developing country, first as a factor of equitable distribution of national wealth and second as an intermediary structure between the state and the individual."

- 26 -

This is the pattern throughout the developing world. The stronger the CVT becomes, the more of a political force it will be and thus the more necessary it will seem to government to have its cooperation and support. The CVT obviously will continue to need government protection and approval.

**RELIGIOUS:** It is far harder to be as specific about the ways in which Catholic and Buddhist organizations could be made more politically useful along the lines mentioned above. If, however, the task were given priority it would not seem impossible to make some progress here. There is evidence that Buddhism generally, particularly in Thailand, is becoming increasingly interested and active in community building undertakings.¹ Assisting Catholic action projects would become less difficult if the Buddhists of South Viet Nam were to clarify their own program. In this connection, the work of Father Dan McClellan in starting credit unions should be considered for priority assistance, especially in those rural areas where they are showing real organizing capacity.

1 See *Buddhism and Asian Politics* by Joseph M. Kitagawa, a paper printed by the Foreign Service Institute, Department of State.

- 27 -

[w]

POLITICAL PARTIES: As civilian political activity increases with the advent of a constitutional government, it must be expected that various political organizations will emerge and seek a following in rural areas. While aiding any one of these organizations would require the utmost discretion, it would be a mistake to miss the opportunity which they afford for the achievement of our overall objectives. It would seem possible to devise a reasonably balanced system of aiding those rural political receptacles which show a capacity to generate real peasant commitment to the formation of a new community and a nation.

VI

If, as James Reston suggests, "the real question (in Viet Nam) is whether the United States will stay the course and adjust its strategy, not to a quick solution but to a long-range accommodation,"¹ then the doctrine suggested above takes on special importance. It will not be until the Viet Cong see real political change in the South that they will recognize the futility of their cause. Only then will their leaders believe that a new nation has been born, a nation which is dedicated to its independence, broadly inspired by a commonalty of purpose and organized for the

1 "Washington: The Deeper Tendencies of the War", New York Times, March 26, 1967

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fulfillment of that purpose.

Various estimates have been made of how long it will
take before the U.S. achieves its objectives in South Viet
Nam. If our doctrine remains what it is and if it continues
to have its current pervasive effect on Vietnamese affairs,
it is not too much to question whether we will ever achieve
our objectives. If, on the other hand, it becomes
enlightened by a truly revolutionary ideology which kindles
the fires of hope throughout the land, it is not too much to
expect that three years will bring what we can legitimately
call victory.

Draft - G.C. Lodge

March 20, 1968

THOUGHTS ON THE STRUCTURE OF GOVERNMENT
IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Predictions concerning government in international affairs in
the year 2000 must rest on some fundamental presumptions. Mine are:

1. By 2000 the human race will have adapted sufficiently to the nuclear environment to have escaped suicide. It will have successfully crossed the evolutionary threshold on which it is now so dangerously poised, achieving increased integration and synthesis in all areas and conditions of life: races, nations, peoples; politics, economies, cultures and technologies. (This process follows the dictum laid down by Teilhard de Chardin, the most compelling visionary of our time.)

2. At the same time, however, the matter of survival will be recognized in 2000 more clearly than it is today as being the one over-riding and highest priority, objective and purpose of governments and people. It will have become increasingly clear that the principal threats to survival will be Big War and Famine. The chief threat of war, then and now, lies in the conflicts which will inevitably attend the integration and synthesis predicted in (1). The chief threat of famine lies in the failure to achieve this integration and synthesis, or in the continuation of the disparity between population growth and food production, distribution, and consumption.

Merging these two presumptions, I shall predict that the policies, programs and structure with which the U.S. government faces the world in 2000 will be shaped to a primary Survival Objective:

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to eliminate the causes of Big War and increase the production of food through a process of universal integration and synthesis.

While the three component of this objective are harmonious, they are also discordant. Although essential to survival, they contain the ingredients of conflict. The integration of nations into regional groups, leading to a more perfect world political order and eventually to world government, seems as sensible as it does inevitable. Such integration, for example, is a prerequisite to an effective world police force capable of controlling aggressors. It is also necessary for the better organization of land, markets, distribution systems, credit, technology, and people, necessary to support and encourage a radical increase in food production and effective control of famine. The present design of nations is such that within ten years it is quite possible that food-rich United States will have to decide which nations are going to "live" and which must "die" because of their inherently impossible food-people ratio and potential.

This is hardly a peacable outlook. And yet essential as multi-purpose international integration is, it plainly will itself bring substantial conflict and threat of war. Integration requires the diminution of sovereignty, the weakening of nationalism and the reallocation of many forms of political and economic power. The path to this reallocation is strewn with extraordinary tension.

The following questions, among others, come to mind: By what criteria and according to what priorities will power be sacrificed and shifted? How will such decisions be made and accepted? Will the many countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia which are not yet nations in the true sense have to become nations before they can enter into regional combinations? Or can they skip the nationalizing-centralizing processes which have been so laden with conflict for the

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more developed world?

********

The resolution of these questions and the approach to the survival objective requires a variety of changes in the philosophy and structure of U.S. government. By 2000 - taking the optimistic view which one must to contemplate that year at all - the United States will have first of all become used to its great power. It will be no arrogance to recognize it; it will seem folly not to. Comfortable with power, we will have gained the wisdom and the confidence to use it more perceptively and humbly; more subtly and with clearer purpose than we do today. We will have learned its limitations, and we will have grasped more precisely our interests. We will recognize which elements of power can with greater effect be relinquished to international authority and which cannot.

By 2000 we will have learned considerably more about the nature of "development" and its vital connection with peace, survival and world order. In the first place we will understand that development is and must be change; that change to be useful must be carefully directed and aimed; that direction and aim are functions of socio-political institutions and agents; that development, therefore, is primarily social and political and secondarily economic. We will wonder at our foolishness in having consigned development to the economists for so long. We will see that its mysteries are more essentially related to the combined art of the political scientist, the sociologist, the psychologist, the anthropologist and the theologian. It will be apparent that for "change" to be "development", it must have direction and must be organized for permanence, continuity, and protection from the forces of the status quo. We will realize

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that these characteristics can be provided by certain socio-political
institutions which we shall for convenience call "engines of change".
We will see that these engines are the _only_ useful receptacle for
the material injections of the economist and the technician; that
what falls outside their fuel tanks is wasted, or worse is diverting
and corrupting. The engines of change will be seen as necessary
converters of economic fuel into purposeful and directed power.
By 2000 we will perceive quite clearly that mid-century economic and
technical aid programs were seriously marred by their failure to
reflect an understanding of the radical socio-political prerequisites
for change and development. We will shudder particularly when we
take a backward glance at these programs during the 1960's in South
Viet-Nam and Latin America. Hindsight will reveal that we sustained
long beyond their time ineffective and doomed social and political
structures which themselves were the principal obstacle to the
change and development which we thought we were encouraging.

It will be clear that the construction and mobilization of effec-
tive engines of change in such areas as Latin America and South Viet-
Nam is an essentially revolutionary process, carrying with it profound
and radical structural alteration of basic economic, political and
social systems. The full agony of change will be understood as only
a few, like Eric Hoffer, understand it today. We will no longer be
comfotable in the sublime conviction that "development" involves
merely a relatively smooth transfer of matter from the rich to the
poor. We will ask ourselves with increased poignancy and respect:
Why change? Who shall we change? How fast? Why?

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[10]

We will come to understand that the introduction of change into the rigid, traditional, oligarchical and exploitative environments of the southern world is not only revolutionary and fraught with violence and the threat of war, but it is also exceedingly difficult. The environmental constraints obstructing change and sustaining the status quo will prove to be sturdy. Like the roots of a great dying tree, they intertwine, supporting and feeding one another, tenaciously holding onto life. The undoing of these constraints -- a radical task for our engines of change -- will clearly be a prerequisite to an increased production of food and to the fulfillment of the circle of requirements upon which such an increase depends: a degree of hope and confidence, a vision, a sense of power over the environment, greater knowledge and skill, increased competence; all of this leading to increased motivation, to a rejection of the static conviction that change is either impossible or suicidal; to a willingness on the part of the poor but popular majority to leave their alienated isolation, join together, to trust one another, to organize. Their organizations will then themselves be engines of change to continue the process, altering the rigid intertwine of forces controlling land, markets, credit, politics, justice and economics.

As we come to realize the awesome task of change in the pursuit of our Objective, and as we commit ourselves wisely and judiciously to the inevitable revolutionary process, we will come to see with increasing clarity how limited is the capacity of government in causing change.. Indeed, whether it be in the Black Ghetto of Detroit or the parched countryside of Northeast Brazil, we shall see that government finds it hard to alter the power upon which it rests.

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Governments, at one level or another, naturally resist the agitation required to reallocate power. They fail to measure how distant and how isolated are those who have never participated in the formulation of power; they tend to resent the unpatriotism of those within their formal jurisdiction who have scarcely belonged to any community at all let alone to a nation. It will have become clear by 2000 that those political jurisdictions in many parts of the world which we call democratic nations are neither democratic nor are they nations. We will not hold this against them; we will merely understand that given their histories and experiences it could not have been otherwise. We will wisely, however, stop pretending that they are what they are not, providing them with large amounts of money and matter to do what they cannot possibly do. We will stop wasting ourselves and corrupting others.

We will find that effective engines of change, effective means of motivation and organization, effective integrators, come in different molds and models;

-- There will be the communal-cooperative organization, current models for which are the kibbutz and moshav in Israel, the Peasant League in Northeast Brazil, the campesino federations of Venezuela, the various off-shoots of the radical, socially active wing of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America and Asia, and the farmers' organizations of Taiwan. These are characterized by strong spiritual and inspirational elements. They are a means through which religion will have substantial political effect, contributing essential ideological direction to an unsatisfactorily barren pragmatism.

[L0]

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-- The traditional bargaining labor union, representing employees in negotiations with an employer, will continue to be of primary political importance in the developing world, operating frequently as the machines of political parties.

-- Perhaps most important will be new versions of the large, integrated business enterprise. Coming with different combinations of public-private management, these will be the world's most efficient integrators and most effective engines of change. The corporation of 2000 will, for example, bring the basic managerial competence essential to undoing the knots which currently tie the food production, processing, distribution and marketing process. The integrating capacity of the multi-national corporation of 2000 will be particularly remarkable, its functions and authority being at once political, social, economic, cultural and technical, but also psychological, motivational and organizational. In 2000 the world will be laced by the branches and subsidiaries of several thousand multi-billion dollar corporations. Their direction will emenate largely from the United States and to a lesser extent from the Soviet Union, Europe and Japan, but their ownership will be spread throughout the world in vast complexity of public and private combinations. Their managers will be from every land, truly citizens of the world; they will long since have ceased to be the creatures of any single sovereign. New international law and organization will have been formed to supervise and regulate their activity. This organization, at first commercial, financial and economic, will grow into the world's foremost political body and by 2000 will be on its way to becoming truly a world government.

********

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LTC

What of the structure of government which will be formed to plug into this world of 2000? We can be pretty sure that the current structure of the executive branch of government will have little meaning or relevance to the nation's problems. This is the case in many ways today. A recent observer of our effort in Vietnam commented: "The bureaucratic jurisdictional lines of the U.S. establishment run verticle while the problem lines all run horizontal."

Don Schon spoke earlier of the Department of Agriculture as being a "memorial to nineteenth century productivity problems!" Assigning to it important if not controlling responsibilities for U.S. initiatives in the world food crisis exemplifies the difficulty. It is plain that the problems associated with increased crop production in the world are only marginally within the competence or experience of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Indeed its consignment to Agriculture for handling lowers its priority and deprives it of the high level, integrated priority attention it must receive. The more important components of the crisis are, as we have seen, political, social and economic. Its solution, a matter of survival, involves a variety of factors which are currently of paramount interest to State, Defense, Commerce, and Justice. Increased food production in Brazil, for example, requires the radical political reorganization of a restless and violent area of the country, the Northeast; it requires the mobilization of great capital resources into combinations of power which may well have to control the market in one way or another, reducing competition in order to organize the most efficient and practical pricing, distribution and marketing system. That these may be "combinations in restraint of trade" is not unlikely.

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That they will be critical to the establishment of political stability and civic order is obvious.

Although bureaucracies have enormous endurance -- especially big and political ones -- the reorganization of Washington governmental structures to conform more conveniently to the integrating challenges of the world will have proceeded significantly by 2000.

1. The big departments will remain, some merged such as Commerce and Labor, and several new ones will be added, to handle space, undersea, and other matters. Most significant, however, will be the increase in the size and importance of the Budget Bureau and related offices of the White House. These will emerge first as coordinated task forces to deal with specific ad hoc problems and will grow into Schon's "gardens of competence". They may well follow the pattern set by the Central Intelligence Agency. Spawned in the White House around the several needs of the members of the National Security Council for intelligence, it also served a recognized governmental need for varieties of integrated action, some of which were hardly covert at all. A good example is the not very secret activites of CIA in Viet-Nam in designing, promoting and mothering the unusually successful People's Action Teams. This activity did not spring from CIA because of its secrecy or its essential relationship to intelligence but rather because the Agency was uniquely capable of providing an integrated attack upon a problem -- community organization - which required just such an attack. The PAT teams needed to know about and act with respect to political, social, economic and cultural matters and they also had to carry guns and know how to use them. Furthermore they needed a revolutionary outlook. This they never quite had or were unable to hang on to because of differing priorities on the part of other U.S. and South Vietnamese power elements.

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The "Task Force" approach will have increasing appeal because of its ability to mobilize rapidly high talent to deal with a particular challenge in a rational and programmed fashion, cutting across traditional bureaucratic lines as necessary. Its effectiveness will depend upon the degree to which political leadership, particularly the President and his appointees, assign weight and priority to its work.

2. As the elimination of Big War becomes increasingly accepted as a primary objective, the function of the military will change. While its major role will be the maintenance of force for massive deterrence and the provider of components to an international police force, it seems likely that the Department of Defense will continue its expansion into other jurisdictions such as those included in the term "civic action". It will seek to take advantage of its superior administrative form and discipline and its access to funds to include within its purview the work of weaker and more confused organizations such as AID.

3. The singular weakness of many foreign governments to effect change (i.e., development) in their own jurisdictions and the difficulties inherent in any attempt by the U.S. government to make them do so, will result in some basic shifts in the organization of foreign aid. The bulk of the U.S. non-military contribution to political, economic and social development, which will total about $30 billion a year, will be made through international institutions: development banks, United Nations agencies and international organizations of labor and cooperatives. More direct efforts and contributions will be made through U.S. profit and, more especially, non-profit corporations and groups. These will have close liaison with government for planning purposes but will be operationally independent of it. These corporations, centers and institutions

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will comprise a highly varied complex of national and multi-national
components. They will work in various forms of partnership with U.S.
and foreign governments, individuals, organizations and groups.
U.S. government funding for some of their more strategic activities
will be handled through a government financed Foundation, the trustees
of which will represent the Congress, the Executive Branch and the
public in general. This Foundation will be particularly important
in financing the research and teaching activities of U.S. universities
in Latin America, Asia and Africa. AID as we know it today will
be greatly reduced. Embassies will have small development advisory
staffs and the State Department will include a small coordinating
staff to keep track of the numerous independent non-governmental or
international assistance operations.

4. Decline of traditional nationalism in the developed and less developed regions of the world will be attended by pain and violence. The task of those with power, especially the United States, the Soviet Union, Europe and Japan, will be to keep the violence minimal and under international control. A central question of 2000 will be: How do you develop international, regional organizations before the nationalizing process within nations has been completed? The hastening of this process through a variety of non-governmental engines of change will assume high priority. At the same time steps will have been taken to create a practical and acceptable system of world conflict arbitration. U.S., Soviet, European, Japanese and Chinese scientists and academicians will start working on the formula for this machinery in 1970 and by 2000 a model should be in operation. A central deterrent to the success of this process will be the governmental bureaucracies of the developed countries which will be naturally conservative.

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5. The United States and the world will be particularly perplexed in 2000 by questions of ideology and philosophy. Semantics also will continue to pose a major obstacle to communication and understanding. Old ideological descriptions -- capitalism, socialism, communism -- will have become clearly meaningless and useless. The world's religions will have become increasingly secular and, in the largest sense of the word, political. They will be concerned essentially with questions of justice, ethics and morality rather than with matters of mystery, faith and the spirit. There will thus be a bothersome ideological gap. This will present the greatest single obstacle to integration and synthesis because without it agreement on goals, priorities and criteria for conflict arbitration will be difficult. The demands on philosophers to derive new theories of virtue, government, perception and reality will be enormous. The task will be especially difficult because scientific knowledge will be so abundant. Giving this knowledge order and meaning will be the greatest challenge for 2000. It will be apparent that survival itself depends upon some universal conviction s concerning the purpose of survival. Whether government can be useful in this ideological realm is doubtful. At best perhaps it will have the good sense to see the problem clearly and to acknowledge its importance.

In a sense, this challenge will be no different from our's today. Henry Kissinger, in writing of the problems confronting the nations of the Atlantic community, put it well for the nations of the world as a whole. Their problem, he said, is "to find a way of dreaming together about the kind of world they want to bring about, rather than about the circumstances in which they might wish to blow it up."