THE REAL REVOLUTION IN SOUTH VIET NAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP73B00296R000100040027-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 24
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 31, 2002
• Sequence Number: 27
• Publication Date: April 1, 1965
• Content Type: BOOK

THE REAL REVOLUTION
IN SOUTH VIET NAM
BY GEORGE A. CARVER, JR.
Rsprinted from
FOUIGN
AFFAI1 S
April, 19i6S
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FOREIGN AFFAIRS
AN AMERICAN QUARTERLY REVIEW
The Real Revolution in South Viet Nam. George A. Carver, Jr.
Britain Looks Forward ...................... Quin tin Hogg
The Man in the American Mask ............ Ja4ques Barzun
The Alliance and the Future of Germany ........ Fritz Erler
Essentials for Nigerian Survival ........... Nn,mdi Azikiwe
The French-Canadian Dilemma .............. .;laude Ryan
Health and Population ..................... C 'arl E. Taylor
Which Way Europe? ...................... J H. Huizinga
The Arab World's Heavy Legacy ............ Charles Issawi
Sea-Level Canal: How and Where ........ James H. Stratton
Spain's Discreet Decolonization .............. Rene Pelissier
Kashmir, India and Pakistan ... Sheikh Mohair nad Abdullah
Recent Books on International Relations ...Hurry L. Roberts
Source Material ...........................Donald Wasson
HAMILTON FISH ARMSTRONG
Editor
PHILIP W. QUIGG
Managing Editor
Editorial Advisory Board
ALLEN W. DULLES WILLIAM L. LANCER PUI:LIP E. MOSELY
ALFRED M. GRUENTHER JOHN J. McCLOY ISIDOR I. RABI
GEORGE F. KENNAN HENRY M. WRISTON
58 East 68th Street ? New York 21, Y.
Subscriptions, $6.00 a year, post free to any address.
Copyright 1964, Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
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FOREIGN AFFAIRS
VOL. 43 APRIL 1965
No. 3
THE REAL REVOLUTION
IN SOUTH VIET NAM
By George A. Carver, Jr.
SOUTH Viet Nam, as is obvious to anyone with the most
cursory interest in world affairs, is in the midst of a war, and
equally obvious is the fact that this war is being waged by a
Communist-controlled insurgent movement supported and di-
rected from Hanoi. Less obvious, but equally important in deter-
mining its political complexion and future (including, ultimately,
the outcome of the Communist-instigated war) is the fact that
South Viet Nam is also in the midst of a social revolution.
When South Viet Nam was created in 1954, political authority
was initially assumed by a predominantly mandarinal class,
largely French-educated and foreign-oriented in culture even
though politically nationalistic. Of that class, Ngo Dinh Diem was
both symbol and archetype. Today political power is in the proc-
ess of passing to a more militantly "Vietnamese" group, at least
latently xenophobic and, in some ways, more culturally autoch-
thonous, far less prone to think about politics in a foreign idiom.
Of this group, the students, the bonzes (monks) who lead the
"Buddhist" movement and the military "Young Turks" are
prime examples. This shift in the locus of political power explains
much of the otherwise baffling turbulence on the South Viet-
namese political scene and constitutes the real revolution in South
Viet Nam. The Communist insurgency has contributed to the
climate and circumstances which produced it, but the two are
not-the same. The insurgency is and always has been a con-
trived and consciously directed politico-military campaign. South
Viet Nam's social revolution is something much more formless,
much less the result of deliberate intent and much less amenable
to anyone's control.
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388 FOREIGN AFFAIRS
This revolution is a thing of manifold complexity in which
nationalist sentiments, for example, are complicated by cross-
currents of regionalism and in which contending factions bear
religious labels even though no issue of religious doctrine or prac-
tice is really involved. So far, it has been largely confined to urban
centers and as yet has had relatively little effect on the lives of the
peasantry who constitute the bulk of South Viet Nam's popula-
tion. This fact may condition its outcome and ultimate impact
but does not alter its present importance. Though a small mi-
nority in terms of numbers, the literate and vocal urban populace
has a predominant influence over South Vietnamese politics-a
situation which, so far, has kept the peasantry from feeling a
sense of direct identification with the fortunes of any Saigon
regime and has been one of the Communists' principal assets. To
understand the revolution now taking place and the emotions it
involves, to assess its import and its relationship to the Com-
munist insurgency, one must appreciate the historical context in
which it developed. It was this context which made Diem's
Catholicism a catalytic factor, caused his opponents to rally under
the banner of "Buddhism" and gave the bonzes who direct the
"Buddhist" movement the political influence they exercise today.
II
Contemporary religious animosities in South Viet Nam have
deep historical roots. During the past three centuries, the close
and often causal relationship between Catholic missionary ac-
tivity - and French political encroachment created strong emo-
tional tensions and not always latent hostility between Catholic
and non-Catholic Vietnamese, emotions similar in many regards
to the feelings between Catholic and non-Catholic Englishmen in
the days of Elizabeth I and her Stuart successors.
If we discount an occasional earlier traveler and a few sixteenth-
century Portuguese traders, the Jesuits were really the first Euro-
peans to become systematically and permanently interested in
Viet Nam.' The attention of the Jesuit Superior in Macao was
1 The territory denoted by "Viet Nam" in any historical discourse varies with the time
period under consideration. At the beginning of the Christian era the ethnic Vietnamese were
largely confined to the Red River delta. The coastal plains between the Red River and Mekong
deltas were dominated by the kingdom of Champs, whose seat was originally north of Hu&.
South of the Chain lay the shadowy kingdom of Fu Nan, of which little is known save that it
disappeared around the sixth century A.D. under pressure from the precursors of the Khmers
who were, in turn, the ancestors of the modern Cambodians. The gradual southward ptuh
of the ethnic Vied down the coastal plain and into the Mekong delta constitutes the Woof
of recorded Vietnamese history. It took eighteen centuries to complete. During its course, the
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REVOLUTION IN SOUTH VIET NAM 389
directed to Viet Nam after the priests under his charge were
expelled from Japan in 1614. A mission was established the follow-
ing year at the port of Fai Fo (near modern Da Nang) in the
Nguyen principality. Its success encouraged the Macao Fathers
to expand their work into Trinh-ruled Tongking, and in 1627
Father Alexandre de Rhodes went to Hanoi. The efforts of this
remarkable man (who helped to perfect quoc-ngu, the dia-
critically marked roman script in- which Vietnamese is now
written) materially influenced subsequent Vietnamese history. In
1645 he went to Rome to seek assistance for Catholic mission
endeavors in Indochina and suggested that the work be carried
on by local priests ordained and supervised by European bishops
directly responsible to the Pope. While Innocent X pondered this
ingenious suggestion (politically delicate because it ignored Por-
tuguese claims on ecclesiastical patronage), Father Alexandre, a
Frenchman by birth, went to Paris to recruit personnel and raise
funds to execute his eventually adopted proposal.
His appeals fell on receptive ears, partly because influential
nobles and merchants were already casting covetous eyes at the
Portuguese-Spanish monopoly of Indochinese trade: They ulti-
mately resulted in the consecration of two French priests as
Bishops and Vicars Apostolic, one of Tongking, the other of Co-
chin China (i.e. Nguyen-held Annam), as well as the founding
of what became the powerful and politically influential Societe
des Missions Etrangeres. While pursuing his religious objectives,
in short, Father Alexandre initiated French interest in and as-
sociation with Indochina.
Chams were virtually exterminated (the last vestige of an organized Cham court vanished in
1720) and the Mekong delta wrested from the Khmer/Cambodians. The latter, however, was
a fairly recent development. Vietnamese colonization of the Mekong region did not really
begin until the seventeenth century, Vietnamese suzerainty over the area was not seriously
essayed until the eighteenth century, and not until the early ninenteenth century 08oz) did
a single Vietnamese ruler's writ really run from the Camau peninsula to the China border.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Vietnamese rule extended to the present
province of Quang Nam in South Viet Nam. Though there was a Le dynasty king of what
purported to be a single throne, Nguyen lords actually held'sway south of a line approximately
equivalent to the 17th parallel, while north of that line Trinh Nobles exercised de facto
control. Contemporary writers referred to the Trinh principality as Tongking (Tonkin) and
the Nguyen realm as Cochin China. However, later usage, including French administrative
nomegclature, employed "Cochin China" as the name for the most southerly region of modem
Viet Nam, including the Mekong delta and the provinces immediately north and east of
Saigon. The central portion of modern Viet Nam came to be known as Annam. The remainder
of North Viet Nam retained the name of Tongking. Tongking, Annam and Cochin China
became the three great ky or regions into which the ethnic Vietnamese were administratively
and, in. French years, politically divided. Despite a large measure of cultural homogeneity
among all ethnic Viets, each of these regions has a distinctive dialect, some unique customs and
strong local loyalties.
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During the latter part of the eighteenth century, both Viet-
namese principalities were racked by a series of insurrections and
civil wars known as the Tay Son revolt. In these troubled times, the
pretender to the southern throne-Nguyen Anh-had to flee for
his life. During his wanderings as a fugitive in Camau, he met and
was sheltered by another remarkable Frenchman, Msgr. Pigneau
de Behaine, Apostolic Vicar of Cochin China. The energetic
bishop became the pretender's adviser and champion. In 1787
Msgr. Pigneau went to Paris, accompanied by the pretender's
young son, to enlist official support for the Nguyen cause. With
the somewhat reluctant blessing of Louis XVI (who had mount-
ing problems of his own), a treaty was signed promising French
aid in return for certain territorial and trade concessions. With
the treaty and funds obtained in Paris, the bishop eventually
raised a mercenary contingent which tipped the tide of battle in
Nguyen Anh's favor.
With this aid provided through the efforts of a French bishop,
and with the support of Vietnamese Catholics who rallied to his
cause, Nguyen Anh ultimately conquered virtually all of modern
Viet Nam. At'Hue, in 1802, he proclaimed himself the Emperor
Gia Long-founding a dynasty which reigned until its last
member, Bao Dai, was deposed in 1955.
Gia Long himself was grateful for the foreign assistance which
brought him to power and at his death in 182o ordered that there
was to be no persecution of the three religions then established
in his empire-i.e. Confucianism, Buddhism and Christianity.
His virulently anti-foreign successors, however, ignored this edict.
From time to time they permitted or initiated repressive actions
against French missionary priests and pogroms against Viet-
namese Catholics. These actions, in turn, provoked ever sharper
responses from the French Government. Matters came to a head
during the reign of the xenophobic Emperor Tu Duc (1848-
1883). After an initial period of hesitation, he made the political
blunder of launching a particularly brutal campaign against
Vietnamese Catholics and foreign missionaries at a time when
France was itching for an excuse to seize territory in Viet Nam.
The murder of a Spanish bishop in 1857 prompted a Franco-
Spanish reaction which suffered numerous reverses but finally (in
1862) forced Tu Duc to cede Cochin China's three eastern prov-
inces to France. During this period, a French bishop's relations
with Prince Norodom caused Cambodia to become a French
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REVOLUTION IN SOUTH VIET NAM 391
protectorate in 1864. In 1866, France occupied the remainder of
Cochin China by advancing to the now French-protected Cam-
bodian border. (Further French territorial expansion was not
undertaken until after the Franco-Prussian war, and when it
was, less stress was laid on the raison d'etre of protecting foreign
missionaries and their Vietnamese flocks.)
This whole complex and bloody story developed animosities
which still plague Vietnamese political life. Among Vietnamese
Catholics it engendered a sense of clannishness, alienation from
their non-Catholic compatriots and an understandable fear of
persecution. Among non-Catholic Vietnamese, however, it en-
gendered a sentiment epitomized by the saying attributed to one
of Tu Duc's most powerful mandarins, viz. that Vietnamese Cath-
olics served as the claws which enabled the French crab to crawl
across the land.
French political control over all of Indochina was finally estab-
lished in the last decade of the nineteenth century and was in-
stitutionalized as a five-part whole under the supervisory aegis of
a Governor General. Cochin China remained an avowed colony,
Annam and Tongking were separate "protectorates" (as were
Laos and Cambodia, which we shall henceforth ignore). The
Emperor and Court were maintained at Hue for the sake of form
but without any substantial power and under close French super-
vision. France ruled her Indochinese domains through a com-
plicated combination of direct and indirect controls, the details
of which varied from region to region. In Viet Nam, particularly
Annam, much ostensible authority at the local level-along with
the attendant onus of enforcing unpopular decrees-was left in
the hands of trusted Vietnamese guided by French "advisers."
Lip service was paid to the principle of "association," but since
France never had any intention of preparing her colonial proteges
for self-government, the operative form of association proved to
be "assimilation"-a process whereby certain favored Vietnamese
could become French citizens. (Not surprisingly, "assimilis"
were more common in Cochin China than in Annam or Tong-
king.) Educational opportunities were limited, particularly in
the higher ranges, and as carefully controlled as possible. Higher
education was French education (the traditional Vietnamese
competitive examinations for the mandarinate were abolished)
and hence required a fluency in the French language as well as
an intensive exposure to French cultural concepts. None of this,
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392, FOREIGN AFFAIRS
of course, prevented the rise of anti-French nationalist political
sentiments (virtually all twentieth-century Vietnamese revolu-
tionary leaders have spoken impeccable French). However, it did
produce one easily overlooked but very important result: the
political thoughts of the products of this educational system were
unconsciously cast in a foreign idiom often ill-adapted to the
realities of Vietnamese political life.
The upshot of the various factors outlined above was that dur-
ing the period of French rule, actual experience in even the forms
of exercising political power was limited to members of landed or
mandarinal families (e.g. Diem) and the education needed to
articulate and manipulate political concepts was largely con-
fined, if not to children of mandarins, then at least to scions of
the wealthy or aristocratic bourgeoisie (e.g. Ho Chi Minh). The
Vietnamese political leaders who emerged during the colonial era
-whatever their individual doctrines or programs-tended by
and large to come from the same segment of Vietnamese urban
society. Not that the French encouraged the development of
Vietnamese political leadership. Indeed, they actively discouraged
it. Known or suspected opponents of French rule were kept under
surveillance and often summarily imprisoned. More subtly, but
with greater lasting damage, the French employed the control
tactic of "divide and rule" by encouraging localism, particularism
and squabbling disunity-attitudes to which the Vietnamese
have been inherently addicted throughout their history, often to
the detriment of their political fortunes.
World War II stimulated a surge of nationalism throughout
Southeast Asia. The combination of metropolitan defeat and
Japanese humiliation of the pro-Vichy colonial government did
irreparable damage to French prestige in Indochina. Allied con-
fusion and lack of foresight helped the Communists seize control
of the Vietnamese nationalist movement and profit from the near
anarchy resulting from the precipitate Japanese surrender by in-
stalling themselves at least temporarily in power. De Gaulle might
have had the perceptivity to assess the force of Vietnamese na-
tionalism and the acumen to cope with it. His successors, who
acted as if nothing had happened in Indochina between May
1940 and August 1945, were not equal to the task. French
intransigence on the question of even considering eventual in-
dependence helped assure a Viet Minh victory. The French at-
titude also stifled the growth and development of genuinely
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nationalist but anti-Communist political leadership and left anti-
Communist nationalists with the unhappy choices of exile, the
Viet Minh or sterile attentisme.
In the aftermath of French defeat, foreign fiat at Geneva
created the-state of South Viet Nam, drawing its borders to in-
clude Cochin China and the southern half of Annam. Ngo Dinh
Diem became South Viet Nam's first Premier, and, in 1955, its
Chief of State. Diem's personal ethos was a blend of traditional
Vietnamese values and devout Catholicism. Although a member
of the class of Vietnamese Catholic mandarins who had prospered
under French rule, he himself was an intense nationalist and life-
long opponent of French political domination. (His nationalist
sentiments had led him to resign from Bao Dai's cabinet in 1933
and refuse the Premiership when it was offered him in 1948 with
what he considered unacceptable French restrictions.) When he
came to power he had a general reputation for patriotism and
personal integrity, but his active, organized supporters were
primarily Catholics from Central Viet Nam. This group remained
one of Diem's two principal sources of support. The other con-
sisted of militantly. anti-Communist-though, again, predomi-
nantly Catholic-refugees from North Viet Nam. Diem's early
years in office were full of promise and marked by significant
accomplishments achieved in the face of innumerable difficulties.
The course of his later years evolved in the manner and eventually
with the inexorability of a Greek tragedy, only one aspect of
which need be dealt with here.
In non-Catholic Vietnamese eyes, the Catholic cast of Diem's
regime increased rather than diminished with the passage of time.
Its quasi-covert political organization, the Can Lao Party, was
controlled by Catholics; its official philosophy of "personalism"
(developed by Diem's brother Ngo Dinh Nhu) owed obvious
extensive debts to French Catholic thinkers and was expounded
to government officials at an institute presided over by another
brother, Archbishop Thuc. In 1958, a law actively sponsored by
Diem's sister-in-law Mme. Ngo Dinh Nhu imposed on marriage,
divorce and family relationships strictures consonant with Cath-
olic doctrine but very much against the grain of Vietnamese tra-
dition in these emotionally charged areas. (The adverse political
impact of this "Family Bill" was augmented by a widespread
suspicion that its primary object was to stop Nguyen Huu Chau
from divorcing Mme. Nhu's sister.) In 1962, a similar "Law for
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the Protection of Morality," also sponsored by Mme. Nhu, gen-
erated additional resentment over what was widely construed as
governmental imposition of narrow and puritanical "Catholic
morality" on non-Catholics who constituted the overwhelming
majority of South Viet Nam's population. (This resentment was
heightened by subsequent edicts banning such things as tradi-
tional, and popular, "sentimental songs.") In 1959, the Diem gov-
ernment sponsored a country-wide series of elaborate Marian
Year celebrations culminating in a solemn ceremony in front of
the Saigon Cathedral at which South Viet Nam was formally con-
secrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The extent to which
Catholics appeared to obtain preferment in civil and military life
-something actually due to many causes, frequently including
better education-generated the widespread belief that at least
nominal conversion to Catholicism was a requirement for ad-
vancement. There was very little actual religious persecution, but
the religious sensibilities of non-Catholics were often slighted,
sometimes as a result of excessive zeal on the part of subordinate
officials, more often as a result of thoughtlessness rather than
deliberate official intent to harass. Furthermore, though non-
Catholics were not persecuted, there were many signs that could
be construed or misconstrued as evidence of disproportionate
official partiality for Catholics and Catholicism.
Bit by bit a plethora of incidents, events, practices and policies
-many of them almost certainly unintentional or accidental-
laid the groundwork for a "religious issue" on which non-Com-
munist but also non-Catholic opposition to Diem could, and
eventually did, focus. This was not something that suddenly
happened in the spring of 1963. Instead, it was something that
had been gradually building up almost from the day Diem took
office.
The historical context sketched above may help explain why
anti-Catholicism, once surfaced, can arouse such strong emotions
in non-Catholic Vietnamese. It does not explain why Diem's
opponents rallied behind the standard "Buddhism," particularly
since the number of devout, actively practicing Buddhists in
South Viet Nam probably does not greatly exceed the number of
practicing Catholics. To understand this phenomenon, and the
present political strength of South Viet Nam's "Buddhist" move-
ment, we must briefly trace another current in Vietnamese
history.
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III
Though there is some dispute over the precise dates, Mahayana
Buddhism appears to have come to Viet Nam from China during
the middle of the period of Chinese domination which lasted from
III B.C. to 939 A.D.' Along with Buddhism, the Chinese intro-
duced other religious doctrines including Confucianism and
Taoism. All of these imported beliefs underwent considerable
modification in Viet Nam, however, and all were in large measure
compounded with animism and primitive spirit worship, partic-
ularly among the rural population. The future religious structure
of Viet Nam was significantly influenced by the fact that the
rulers of the first stable and independent Vietnamese dynasty-
that of the Ly (Ioo9-1225)-were ardent Buddhists. Under their
reign, official sponsorship of Buddhism and cooperation between
Viet Nam's rulers and the Buddhist clergy reached a high point
never subsequently equalled. The identification of the Ly with
Vietnamese Buddhism is not without current political signifi-
cance, for the Ly were among the greatest nationalists in Viet-
namese history. They successfully fended off the Chinese to the
north, pushed back the Chams to the south and curbed foreign
(i.e. Chinese) political influence. Even in modern Vietnamese
eyes they have a legendary aura, some of which extends to the
Buddhist faith with which they were so intimately identified.
The downfall of the Ly initiated a long period of decline in
Buddhism's political fortunes. During the ensuing centuries there
were occasional revivals of Buddhist influence, though these were
generally followed by repression. One of the strongest such re-
vivals occurred during the seventeenth century when Catholicism
was rapidly winning converts as a result of energetic Jesuit ac-
tivity, and, for a time, Buddhism was more or less officially en-
couraged as a "nationalist" counter to this foreign doctrine. From
the fifteenth century onward, however, a form of Confucianism
was the official state or court cult-a fact which inhibited the in-
stitutional development of Buddhism. In principalities such as
Ceylon, Burma, Siam and Cambodia, where Therevada Bud-
dhism enjoyed centuries of status as a state religion, it evolved an
effective and fairly disciplined hierarchical structure. For both
doctrinal and political reasons, Mahayana Buddhism in Viet Nam
a Virtually all ethnic Vietnamese Buddhists adhere to some Mahayana sect. The Khmer,
however, were converted to Therevada (Hinayana) Buddhism in the early thirteenth emttery.
There are Therevada Buddhist sects in present-day South Viet Nam, but the overwhelming
majority of their followers are ethnic Cambodians, known as Khmer Krom.
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followed the opposite course and became increasingly marked by
organizational weakness and doctrinal diversity.
At various times, particularly during the second decade of this
century, attempts were made to form regional and national
Buddhist associations, but these never became much more than
the loosest of affiliations between essentially autonomous local
pagodas. The surge of nationalism throughout Asia after World
War II produced, among other things, a revived interest in Bud-
dhist unity and cooperation which contributed significantly to
the founding of the World Buddhist Federation in 1951. In that
same year, a General Association of Vietnamese Buddhists was
organized in Viet Nam. This organization provided an insti-
tutional mechanism for a reciprocal exchange of Buddhist views
and at least adumbrated the idea of religious unity among the
various Buddhist sects, though it was far more impressive on
paper than it ever became in fact.
The doctrinal diversity and weakness of organizational struc-
ture in Vietnamese Buddhism, however, both contributed to and
obscured certain latent strengths and potential emotional appeal.
When Buddhism was banished from the court it subsided into
the ranks of the people and, over passing centuries, there de-
veloped an autochthonous character and aura. Furthermore, hav-
ing been rejected by the court, it was not involved in, nor were its
fortunes adversely affected by, the court's eventual decline and
dissipation. Buddhism, in short, became something uniquely
Vietnamese, adapted to local situations and free of foreign politi-
cal taint. Despite the relatively small number of Vietnamese ac-
tively engaged in Buddhist affairs, "Buddhism" developed into
a religious idea with which the overwhelming majority of the
Vietnamese populace had at least some vague sense of emotional
identification. The rise and activities of the Cao Dai and the
Hoa Hao sects gave some indication of the potential poli-
tical strength of religious ideas in tune with local attitudes and
aspirations. Buddhism, with its much broader base, was an even
stronger latent political force.
As indicated above, certain historical factors, combined with
the character and practices of the Diem regime, laid the ground-
work for a "religious" issue over which political opposition to the
Ngo family could swiftly coalesce. The spark which ignited the
powder was struck in Hue on May 8, 1963, under circumstances
whose details will probably always remain matters of controversy
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REVOLUTION IN SOUTH VIET NAM 397
but whose general outlines are sufficiently well known to require
no rehearsal here. In the ensuing months of political struggle, the
Buddhists displayed hitherto unsuspected organizational and
political talents. Using the shell of the aforementioned General
Association, an "Inter-Sect Committee" was swiftly formed,
partly to negotiate with the government but primarily to co-
ordinate anti-government political activities. The name of Thich
Tinh Kiet'-a revered octogenarian" bonze and president of the
General Association-was invoked as the "leader" of the move-
ment, but it soon became apparent that the real leadership was
in the hands of militant younger bonzes including Thich Duc
Nghiep, Thich Tam Chau and, above all, Thich Tri Quang, the
bonze from Hue who had been intimately involved in precipi-
tating the May 8 incident. The Buddhist leadership was never
free from discord or cross-currents of personal rivalry, but it
proved sufficiently cohesive to contribute significantly to the
downfall of the Diem regime.
The "Buddhist" movement was and remains considerably more
concerned with political issues than matters of religious doctrine.
Its leaders have displayed an instinctive touch for public rela-
tions, and in the anti-Diem campaign took full advantage of their
generally favorable foreign press. Sure theatrical hands have
almost certainly stage-managed much ostensibly spontaneous
protest and agitation. The breadth of the Buddhist leaders' actual
political mandate is open to question. (The political aspira-
tions of the participants in any mass movement are often at
variance with the articulated opinions of their self-appointed
leaders.) Granting all this and more, however, the fact remains
that the "Buddhist" movement has become one of the most
potent political forces in South Viet Nam. Accidents of history
and circumstance have made "Buddhism" the focus and rallying
symbol not only of political opposition to Catholic dominance but,
more importantly, of inchoate nationalist aspirations, including
a desire to be rid of alien doctrine and to find a "Vietnamese"
solution to South Viet Nam's political problems.
Iv
The mounting pressures which, in November 1963, had their
by then inevitable result did far more than depose Diem, his
family and regime. They also brushed aside the frail constitu-
a T'hich means literally "the Venerable"--a religious tide roughly equivalent to "Revere?d."
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tional edifice established by that regime to institutionalize its
rule, and, further, broke the monopoly of political influence to
which the class whence Diem came had fallen heir in the
aftermath of the French departure. In so doing, they threw South
Viet Nam into a still continuing state of political ferment and
precipitated a social revolution in which new figures and factions
have emerged to contend for power; the position of formerly pre-
dominant groups has been radically altered.
The most complex and enigmatic of the emergent new forces
is the group of militant bonzes who lead the "Buddhist" move-
ment. Their formidable present political power-whose exercise
they have found so heady and habit-forming-has derived from
a masterful skill in directing the articulation of emotionally
charged protest. It has yet to be tested in the more difficult field
of constructive advocacy. These bonzes will certainly remain
hypersensitive to any real or fancied recrudescence of "neo-
Diemist" or "Catholic" political authority and to any potential
threat to "Buddhism," which they are prone to identify with their
own prestige and wishes. They seem anxious to avoid the respon-
sibilities of political office but determined to have a veto over
government policies and choices of personnel. Factionalism and
personal rivalries among the Buddhist leaders make their positive
goals harder to ascertain, particularly since, as in most protest
movements, no contender for primacy will let a rival appear more
"militant" than he.
At the moment, Thich Tri Quang seems to have outmanoeuvred
his colleagues and become at least primus inter pares within the
Buddhist movement. His many enemies call him a Communist
or, at best, pro-neutralist; he himself denies these charges and
claims to recognize that Buddhism would get short shrift under
any Communist regime. He is obviously ambitious and national-
istic to the point of xenophobia. Significantly, he is the first major
Vietnamese political figure to emerge in 50 years who makes a
point of professing not to speak any foreign language. There is
little question that over the long run he would like to see Viet
Nam free of all foreign influence. How this long-range aspiration
will affect his short-term tactics and attitudes remains to be seen.
November 1963 left many Catholics dismayed at their sudden
loss of governmental protection and patronage. A few were un-
willing to accept the fact that the old order had changed; many
more were understandably nervous at their now exposed position
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REVOLUTION IN SOUTH VIET NAM 399
amidst a non-Catholic majority that in some instances proved
more than potentially hostile. Though not a monolithic bloc, by
and large the Catholics are apprehensive, distrust the Buddhist
leadership-particularly Tri Quang-and fear a neutralist settle-
ment that would deliver them into Communist hands. Most of
their leaders recognize the delicacy of their present position, but
some militants are undoubtedly considering preemptive moves
and will become increasingly inclined to think in such terms if
they see the Catholic position deteriorating or become personally
desperate. (Militant Catholics, particularly Army officers unable
to reconcile themselves to the Diem regime's ouster, played a
prominent role in the abortive coups of September 1964 and
February 1965.) The other religious groups generally welcomed
Diem's downfall. The Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao have emerged
from nearly a decade of political insignificance to play influential
roles, particularly in the provinces where their adherents are
concentrated. Neither group has very much influence at the
national level, though Chief of State Pham Khac Suu is a Cao Dai.
The now volatile and intensely nationalistic students (rela-
tively docile and quiescent until the summer of 1963) have con-
tinued to experiment with the pleasures of political agitation. In
weighing their aspirations we must recognize that 11 years have
passed since the spring of 1954, hence the present student genera-
tion has spent at least its adolescence in a Vietnamese, not a
French-dominated, educational system. By and large they tend
to identify themselves emotionally with the "Buddhist" cause,
but they are subject to manipulation from many quarters. Most
of all, they seem to be potential followers searching for new leaders
with Vietnamese answers to Viet Nam's difficulties.
Diem's erstwhile civilian political opponents-at least those not
too openly tainted with Communist or French associations-have
emerged from jail, exile and obscurity to plunge into the political
melee. Old party and factional labels have been dusted off and
quarrels shelved during thie Diem era enthusiastically renewed-
though these labels and quarrels now have an archaic aura and
bear little relevance to current political realities. A few civilian
politicians have served honorably-albeit sometimes briefly-in
high office. Many have displayed the unfortunate effects of early
habits patterned after the examples of Third- and Fourth-Re-
public French politicians and have been unable to dissipate the
miasma of opposition or emigre salons. The old political personali-
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400 FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ties vary widely in ability, popular appeal and the esteem of their
peers. None has yet sparked any real mass enthusiasm and when
new leadership emerges it will probably not come from this quarter.
The political influence of the groups mentioned above derives
in no small measure from the fact that they are articulate and
visibly active. Urban society also includes other elements, how-
ever, whose sentiments and aspirations are less well known, especi-
ally to foreign observers, but who can easily play key roles at
critical junctures in political life, particularly in the present fluid
situation. Beyond the limits of the towns are other significant
groups-the montagnards and, above all, the ethnic Vietnamese
peasantry-who have not been directly involved in urban fer-
ment but whose loyalties and actions, over the long run, will
probably determine South Viet Nam's political future.
The military establishment actually executed the 1963 coup
and has since retained ultimate political power, a fact which has
conditioned all subsequent civilian political activity. The military
establishment itself, however, has not been free from the revolu-
tionary ferment that its actions set in train. In civilian life, the ex-
aristocrats, wealthy landowners and French-educated intelligent-
sia have suffered a loss of status. In military circles, the past year
has been marked by rising tension between "older" officers (mean-
ing those past their thirties), who received their training and
early command experience in French Union forces, and younger
officers whose careers have been almost entirely spent in the U.S.-
advised South Vietnamese military establishment.
Most of the senior officers who deposed Diem were, in turn,
themselves ousted by General Khanh. For a time, military fac-
tionalism seemed to polarize around Generals Khanh, Khiem and
Duong Van Minh. The events of August and September 1964 put
Khanh out of political office but left him firmly established as
Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, with Khiem and Duong
Van Minh out of the country. During 1964, however, a new and
younger military group began to emerge, unfortunately if in-
evitably labeled the "Young Turks." In the spring and summer
they seemed to be one of General Khanh's main sources of
support; in September, they proved his salvation. After that,
however, they became-collectively-his most potent rivals.
Though they prevented the February 1965 coup from succeeding,
in its wake they led the move to strip Khanh of his military
authority.
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REVOLUTION IN SOUTH VIET NAM 401
Below the Young Turks an even more junior group may well
be forming. This restlessness within the military establishment is
of course not the product of any single or simple cause. Personal
ambitions play a role; so, too, do religious beliefs, concern over-
or emotional identification with-the activities of various civilian
groups, irritation at the lack of political progress and frustration
over the course of the war. As yet this restlessness does not seem
to have produced any element of defeatism or desire for accom-
modation with the enemy. Instead, an ardent and truculent na-
tionalism and touchy sense of national pride seem to be traits
common to all significant military factions.
The attitudes and politics of the military and civil groups men-
tioned above are all complicated by sentiments of regionalism,
which are easy for a foreign observer to overlook but almost
impossible for a Vietnamese to escape. With one brief exception,
the Vietnamese people have never really been united since
Nguyen Hoang left Trinh-ruled Tongking in i6oo to found a prin-
cipality that subsequently became Annam. (The exception is the
6o-year interval between Nguyen Anh's accession as Emperor in
i8.o2 and Tu Duc's secession of Cochin China's three eastern prov-
inces to France.) Even when the Annamite Nguyens reigned in
Hue, Viet Nam was divided into its three great ky, with separate
and powerful viceroys governing Tongking and Cochin China.
History and geography have interacted among the Vietnamese
people to produce what in effect are three regionally oriented sub-
cultures. It was in the Red River delta of Tongking that the
ethnic Viets emerged as an identifiably separate people; and the
Tongkinese are still inclined to think of themselves as the natural
leaders of all Viet Nam, an attitude resented by both Annamites
and Cochin Chinese. Annam had the least amount of direct
French governance and has remained the most traditionalist of
the three regions, as well as the area in which religious emotions-
both Buddhist and Catholic-are probably strongest. Cochin
China is unique in several respects. The ethnic Viets who began
settling there and wresting its possession from the Khmers in the
seventeenth century bore a relationship to their northern kinsmen
similar in many respects to the relationship between homeland
Europeans and the colonists who were settling the eastern sea-
board of the United States at about the same period. Cochin
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402 FOREIGN AFFAIRS
China was the first region to come under French control and it
became the area most culturally influenced by direct French rule.
The influences of regionalism have had and still have a pro-
found effect on Vietnamese political allegiances and programs.
Often they provide a rationale for developments that foreigners,
unaware of their importance, find inexplicable. The energetic, in-
dustrious and predominantly Catholic Tongkinese refugees who
came south in 1954 are still regarded by their Annamite and, par-
ticularly, Cochin Chinese cousins much as seventeenth century
Englishmen regarded the Scots who came south with James I.
Rivalry within the Buddhist movement, for example, is sharpened
by the fact that Thich Tam Chau's supporters are primarily
Tongkinese refugees, whereas Thich Tri Quang's followers
are predominantly Annamite (though Tri Quang himself is
from Tongking). Cochin Chinese, Annamite and Tongkinese
cliques exist in every politically significant group: the Buddhists,
the Catholics, the students, the civilian politicians and the mili-
tary establishment. Everywhere they produce a jealous watchful-
ness over the regional balances struck with regard to advantage,
preferment and influence.
Vietnamese politics are further complicated by the lack of any
unifying traditional symbols or accepted institutions capable of
channeling disagreement and containing tests of relative strength.
There is, to begin with, no tradition of loyalty to a government in
Saigon in the sense that there was some tradition of loyalty to an
Emperor in Hue. Diem's constitutional edifice was patently pat-
terned on a French model and had no roots in Vietnamese soil.
The various patchwork facades constructed for the sake of ap-
pearances since his demise have been equally artificial and no
more substantial. Nor are there really any organized political
parties in the Western sense of the word. Party names abound,
including ones of honorable lineage, but what are claimed to be
parties can be described more accurately as the relatively small
personal factions of rival politicians, none of whom seems to have
any extensive following. Indeed, though Tran Quoc Buu's trade-
union confederation (the C.T.V.) may be an exception, only the
Buddhists now seem to have any effective mass organization.
A myriad of emotions, ambitions and loyalties swirl through the
currents of conflict we have sketchily charted. Many Vietnamese
are undoubtedly secret Communist sympathizers, others prob-
ably mourn the departure of the French, and yet others certainly
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REVOLUTION IN SOUTH VIET NAM 403
still resent the toppling of Diem and all that he symbolized. Frus-
tration, fatigue and weariness of unending civil war are obviously
abroad in the land. So, too, is some neutralist sentiment, though
this is hard to measure and easy to exaggerate. (Foreign observers
in any country must avoid confusing the articulate with the repre-
sentative.) Much more pervasive, probably, is the caution devel-
oped through a lifetime of turmoil which inhibits too strong a
commitment to any side and, for self-preservation, reinsures
against all contingencies. Yet resolution is present too, along with
direct awareness of what the Communists are actually like, what
life under their control can be, and what their version of "neutral-
ism" or "negotiation" really means. Fear and the fanaticism it can
breed are also in evidence, particularly among refugees who have
already fled from Communist rule and know what a Communist
victory will hold for them.
In all of the groups we have mentioned-particularly the Bud-
dhists, the students and the younger military officers-politically
portentous and potentially explosive nationalist emotions are
rapidly rising: inchoate, complicated by regional perspectives,
but none the less intense, and at least latently xenophobic. Basic-
ally these emotions derive from a desire to find and assert a Viet-
namese identity. They are impelling a confused but profoundly
significant quest for a set of political arrangements tempered to
Vietnamese needs, adapted to Vietnamese realities and consonant
with Vietnamese traditions. To date, this rising nationalism has
not been focused as anti-Americanism, though the danger of such
a development will always be present and will probably be height-
ened from time to time (as it has been already) by, short-sighted
tactical manoeuvres on the part of sometimes recklessly ambitious
contenders for power. As in the past, the Communists will en-
deavor without surcease to transmute nationalist emotions into
anti-American feeling and will do everything possible to foment
and exacerbate tensions between South Viet Nam and her princi-
pal ally. Yet the Communists must know what we should never
forget: it is they who have the most to fear from genuine national-
ism which develops in a manner they cannot contain and control.
Since November 1963, South Viet Nam has witnessed a succes-
sion of coups, demi-coups, demonstrations and governmental
changes bewildering to the casual observer and suggestive of an
inherent incapacity for self-government. This surface turmoil has
not been entirely aimless or feckless, however, and the kaleido-
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404 FOREIGN AFFAIRS
scopic sequence of recent events does have a certain inner logic.
What we are witnessing is a fundamental shift in the locus of ur-
ban political power and a basic realignment of political forces-
in short, a revolution. The development of this revolution has in-
volved a testing of relative strengths and tentative trials of new
balances amidst the pressures of civil war and in a context where
no traditional symbols or institutions can channel or contain po-
litical disagreement. This process has been chaotic and untidy,
and will probably so continue, since the revolution responsible for
it has probably not yet been completed. This revolution is not
presently subject to any group's conscious control and is probably
beyond anyone's power to stop. Its eventual outcome will deter-
mine South Viet Nam's political future for decades to come.
The revolution we are witnessing in South Viet Nam should
not be confused with the Hanoi-directed Communist insurgency,
though the Communists will labor mightily to ensure that it is so
confused (particularly in foreign eyes), will take credit for it and
will try to turn it to their advantage. The insurgency contributed
to the climate which precipitated this revolution, has complicated
its issues and heightened its pressures-but the two are not the
same.
The present insurgency is but the latest phase in the 4o-year
campaign which the leadership of the Indochinese Communist
Party' has waged to acquire complete political control over all of
Viet Nam, hegemony over Laos and some form of suzerainty over
Cambodia. This campaign has been carried on relentlessly, ruth-
lessly and with great tactical. flexibility. It has been waged
through a protean variety of organizational forms and has made
extensive, effective use of successive "front" devices-the Viet
Minh League, the Lien Viet, the Fatherland Front and, currently,
the "National Front for the Liberation of South Viet Nam"-each
of which has been successful in deceiving Vietnamese and, espe-
cially, foreign observers.
During the 19308 the Communists were weak and their organi-
4 Over the years, this leadership has (so far) been remarkably stable. The Indochinese
Communist Party was virtually the personal creation of one man and has always faltered
when his guiding hand was not at its helm. That man, of course, was bom with the name
of Nguyen Van Thanh (or, possibly, Nguyen Van Cung), took the pen name of Nguyen Ai
Quoc ("Nguyen the Patriot") while in Paris at the time of the Versailles Cod and ie
z 4a, while wader arrest in Nationalist China, adopted his present pseudonym of H Miub
("the one who enlightens").
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REVOLUTION IN SOUTH VIET NAM 405
zation small, but they were the unintended beneficiaries of savage
French repression against their most potent nationalist rivals, the
V.N.Q.D.D. With the witting if short-sighted assistance of the
Nationalist Governor of Kwangsi, the Communists took over the
Vietnamese independence and resistance movement which the
Chinese Nationalists were sponsoring during World War II in or-
der to harass the Japanese (who moved into Indochina in 1940) .
This movement, which became the Viet Minh, even received some
American assistance and support on'the strength of its supposed
intelligence-collecting activities and guerrilla operations against
the Japanese. Actually, efforts of the Communists during this pe-
riod were devoted primarily to readying themselves for postwar
contingencies and they were very careful not to provoke Japanese
action which might interfere with these longer-term preparations.
Most of such Communist military activity as was then under-
taken was directed against bands of Vietnamese nationalist rivals.
In the confused aftermath of the Japanese surrender, the Com-
munists temporarily assumed power and for about a year con-
ducted stalling negotiations with the returning French. During
this interval, the Communists relentlessly carried on-their efforts
to liquidate all nationalist rivals, betraying many to the French
police, murdering others themselves (e.g. Huynh Phu So, founder
of the Hoa Hao, and Diem's brother Ngo Dinh Khoi), and, with
tacit French blessing, mounting military operations against anti-
French resistance groups not under absolute Communist control.
By the time country-wide hostilities broke out in December 1946,
the Communists had usurped the nationalist cause and acquired
complete domination over the independence movement. In a text-
book example of Lenin's two-stage theory, they led this move-
ment to victory by stressing the theme of national independence,
then established a Communist regime in that portion of Viet Nam
given over to their control by the 1954 Geneva settlement.
In mid-1954, the leaders of the Indochinese Communist Party
(now called the Lao Dong) had installed themselves in Hanoi as
the rulers of the "Democratic Republic of North Viet Nam." Like
most observers, they expected South Viet Nam to disintegrate
politically and fall inevitably under Communist domination via
the Geneva-directed elections scheduled for 1956. They were in
no hurry and had other immediate claims on their attention,
e.g. the problems of consolidating control over the North and
restructuring North Vietnamese society along Communist lines.
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406 FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Diem, however, accomplished the impossible, successfully de-
fied the election deadline and made it obvious that South Viet
Nam had a chance to survive. Accordingly, in 1957 Hanoi insti-
gated a small-scale program of insurrectionary subversion in
South Viet Nam in order to give the inevitable course of history
a helping hand. This campaign built up slowly but steadily until
the fall of 1960, when Hanoi apparently decided that something
more would be required. In September 196o at a Lao Dong party
congress in Hanoi, First Secretary Le Duan called for the creation
of a "broad united front" to achieve Communist objectives in
South Viet Nam, though he did not put it quite that candidly.
Soon thereafter the National Liberation Front appeared on the
scene, with a manifesto which embodied a virtual paraphrase of
Le Duan's speech. At that point, the scale and intensity of the
Communist subversive campaign began to increase by quantum
jumps, and within a year became what it is today-a full-fledged
civil war supported and directed by the Communist leaders in
Hanoi in order to further their political ambitions.
The Communists, naturally, have never admitted that this was
the real sequence of events. Instead, they have tried to portray
the insurgency in South Viet Nam as a spontaneous and in-
digenous (i.e. South Vietnamese) continuation of the nationalist
revolution which ousted the French but could not be completed
because the French were replaced by the American "imperialist
aggressors." Communist tactics, military and, especially, politi-
cal, have been skillful and successful.
The Communists took full advantage of the disorder in South
Viet Nam and the shortcomings of the Diem regime. To date they
have had relatively little success in selling the line that the Ameri-
cans are successor imperialists to the French, but they have made
headway by concentrating on the peasantry and stressing the not
entirely inexact theme that all Saigon governments have been
urban-oriented instruments of the rich and landed. Regionalism
is particularly powerful among the Vietnamese peasantry, where
in fact it appears in the even more restricted form of localism. The
average peasant's horizons are bounded by his village, his rice-
fields and the tombs of his ancestors. Wherever possible, the Com-
munists have made this deep-rooted emotion work to their ad-
vantage by employing cadre and troops native to the areas in
which they operate. This sentiment, by and large, has worked
against Saigon regimes-particularly Diem's-which have usu-
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REVOLUTION IN SOUTH VIET NAM 407
ally assigned provincial administrators with regional backgrounds
different from those of the peasants under their charge.
The turmoil of the past year engendered by South Viet Nam's
urban revolution and its attendant governmental instability has
obviously been to the Communists' short-term advantage and
has been exploited by them on every possible occasion. Further-
more, the Communists have almost certainly penetrated at least
some of the contending groups and factions. Nevertheless, the
Communists did not start this revolution, nor do they yet control
it. It is also a development of which they have every reason to be
mortally afraid.
This revolution involves a quest for Vietnamese answers to
Viet Nam's political problems. No answers could be less Viet-
namese, none could be more alien to everything basic and deep-
rooted in Vietnamese tradition, than those offered by Communist
doctrine. Vietnamese mores and values evolved over the centuries
in a culture based on the cultivation of rice-a seasonal thing, re-
quiring many hands at certain times of the year, though at other
times these essential workers have little to do and represent
mouths that someone must feed. In response to these needs, the
Vietnamese developed a society whose strongest institutions are
the extended family and private property. The latter is a reflec-
tion of the peasant's immemorial attachment to the land he tills.
The former provides a social institution to support otherwise idle
hands which are needed at seedtime and harvest.
Communism is doctrinally committed to the abolition of both
of these institutions and hence runs directly against the grain of
the most elemental and basic of all Vietnamese traditions. Hanoi's
Communism, furthermore, is under Chinese patronage, and op-
position to Chinese domination is one of the great, continuing
themes of Vietnamese history. In short, if those involved in Viet
Nam's present revolution should or could ever look clearly at the
real issues involved, they would realize what some, indeed, seem
to have already realized: that Communism and a Communist-
controlled government involve the negation of everything for
which they are consciously and unconsciously striving.
VII
Predictions are rash, particularly when the subject is contem-
porary South Viet Nam, and may be proved wrong tomorrow.
The fragility of the present situation would be hard to overstate.
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There are real dangers that the revolution now in process will
tear South Viet Nam apart or be halted, if not ended, by a Com-
munist victory materially aided by the turmoil it has generated.
The participants in this revolution are impelled by a variety of
motives, not all of them idealistic or ingenuous. Some may be ac-
tively working for a Communist victory even though they loudly
profess otherwise. Others may make the error many have made,
and endeavor to form an alliance with the Communists with the
intent of outwitting them or using them "temporarily." Political
division and strife may enable the Communists to gain a military
advantage virtually impossible to overcome. Viet Nam could be
on the verge of repeating the Chinese experience of 1948 and 1949.
Yet despite all these undeniable and persuasive arguments for
pessimism, the fact remains that Viet Nam has always had a way
of confounding both domestic and foreign prophets. If the revolu-
tionary process now in train should somehow work itself out and,
in so doing, produce a political balance arrived at by the Viet-
namese themselves-a balance embodied in an institutional
framework adapted to Vietnamese needs and realities and sup-
ported by the rising emotions of Vietnamese nationalism-then
this revolution could eventually hold hope for more genuine
stability and strength than any South Vietnamese government
has ever known. If regeneration of the urban center could then
somehow be carried outward to the provinces by a Saigon govern-
ment able to enlist the support of rising nationalist sentiments-
one with which the peasantry could identify its fortunes-the
counter-insurgency program would be well launched on the road
to genuine progress. In sum, if South Viet Nam's real revolution
does not destroy the country first, over the longer term it may
prove the eventual undoing of Communist ambitions and produce
a real national entity where none has heretofore existed.
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