Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

When Diem became president in 1955, after the deposition of the pro-French Emperor Bao Dai, the country had just received 800,000 refugees from North Vietnam which the Geneva Conference of 1954 had yielded to Ho Chi Minh’s Communists. The overwhelming majority of these refugees were Roman Catholics, and their arrival raised the Catholic population of South Vietnam to over a million in a total population of about 14 million. Nevertheless, President Diem made these Catholics the chief basis of his power, chiefly by recruiting the refugees into various police forces dominated by the Diem family. By 1955 these were already beginning to persecute the Buddhist majority, at first by harassing their religious festivals and parades but later with brutal assaults on their meetings. An attempted coup d’état by army units which attacked the Royal Palace in November 1960 was crushed. From that date on, the Diem rule became increasingly arbitrary.

In the middle of all this disturbance, American aid tried to revive the country’s economy, and American military assistance tried to curtail the depredations of the Communist guerrillas. The two together amounted to about $200 million a year, although economic aid alone was originally twice this figure. The intensity of the guerrilla attacks steadily increased, following President Diem’s reelection, with 88 percent of the vote, in April 1961. As these attacks slowly increased, the American intervention was also stepped up, and gradually began to shift from a purely advisory and training role to increasingly direct participation in the conflict. From 1961 onward, American casualties averaged about one dead a week, year after year. The Communist guerrilla casualties were reported to be about 500 per week, but this did not seem to diminish their total numbers or relax their attacks, even in periods when their casualties were heavy.

These guerrilla attacks consisted of rather purposeless destruction of peasant homes and villages, apparently designed to convince the natives of the impotence of the government and the advisability of cooperating with the rebels. To stop these depredations, the government undertook the gigantic task of organizing the peasants into “agrovilles,” or “strategic hamlets,” which were to be strongly defended residential centers entirely enclosed behind barricades. The process, it was said, would also improve the economic and social welfare of the people to give them a greater incentive to resist the rebels. There was considerable doubt about the effectiveness of the reform aspect of this process and some doubt about the defense possibilities of the scheme as a whole. The American advisers preferred stalking-patrols to seek out the guerrillas rather than static defenses, stressed the need for night rather than only daytime counteractions, and the use of the rifle instead of large-scale reliance on air power and artillery. Moreover, most observers felt that very little of America’s economic aid ever reached the village level but, instead, was lost on much higher levels, beginning with the royal palace itself. By the summer of 1963, guerrillas were staging successful attacks on the strategic hamlets, and the need for a more active policy became acute. Unfortunately, just at that time, the domestic crisis in Vietnam also was becoming acute.

This final crisis in the story of the Diem family and its henchmen arose from religious persecution of the Buddhists under the guise of maintaining political order. Restrictions on Buddhist ceremonies led to Buddhist protests, and these in turn led to violent police action. As public support for Diem dwindled, an American-encouraged military coup overthrew and killed the Diem group (November 1963). Over the next four years a series of unstable governments ruled until, in September 1967, under a new constitution, General Thieu and Air Vice-Marshal Ky were elected president and vice-president. During the same period the American military involvement was increased by the Johnson Administration from 15,000 “advisers” to about half a million combatants, while the cost to the American taxpayer rose to over $25 billion a year, and casualties increased in proportion. The chief step in that “escalation” was the beginning of American air attacks on North Vietnam in February 1965 on the justification that this was the only way to force North Vietnam to negotiate a settlement. Instead, it intensified the North Vietnam will to resist, shattered social and economic life in both Vietnams, and alienated the South Vietnam countryside from the Saigon government. The Johnson Administration’s preoccupation with Southeast Asia weakened its influence throughout the world, reopened the Cold War with the Soviet Union, prevented any American role in the Israeli-Arab War of June 1967, and may dangerously split the American people in the election year 1968.

The Red Chinese intervention in southeast Asia, except perhaps in Burma, was generally indirect and through intermediaries. Elsewhere in southern and eastern Asia, this was not true. But in all areas, from 1960 onward, it was evident that the increase in Chinese influence was not so much at the expense of the United States as it was at the expense of the Soviet Union. In North Vietnam and Burma, the Chinese influence was direct before 1960, but after that date it grew stronger in Laos, South Vietnam, and Siam, while Cambodia vainly sought to obtain a guarantee of its neutrality from all concerned. In North Korea the change was dramatic, since the dominant Soviet influence there was replaced by open Chinese influence in 1961. A similar process could be observed in southern Asia, especially in Pakistan, and even in India.

The Chinese invasion and crushing of Tibet in March 1959 revealed that they had constructed a military road from Sinkiang to Lhasa. The Dalai Lama, in exile in India, accused the Chinese of genocide, and it seemed clear that a third of a million Chinese had moved into southern Tibet after resistance was crushed. Many Tibetans were compelled to work on a 1,500-mile railroad from China to Lhasa and on a road system toward the borders of India, Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan. Thousands of Tibetan refugees crowded into these countries, while others were machine-gunned by the Chinese as they fled. Many Buddhist shrines and lamasaries were destroyed.

By October 1962, Chinese-Indian border incidents, on territory claimed by both, erupted into open war. The consequences were startling: Indian forces collapsed almost at once and were revealed to be almost wholly lacking in supplies, training, and fighting spirit. As the responsible official concerned, the minister of defense and vice-premier, Krishna Menon, a close adviser of Nehru, an open sympathizer with the Soviet Union, and a skilled and sardonic baiter of the West, was removed from power. India’s appeal for aid was answered by the United States with five million dollars’ worth of weapons by November 10th, but the Soviet Union found itself in the cruel dilemma of either abandoning its long efforts to win over India or contributing to a war on its nominal ally, China. It abandoned the former by suspending arms shipments already committed. Most ominous of all, by the end of November 1962, the Indian military collapse was so complete that it became clear that China could achieve in three months what Japan had sought to achieve without success, throughout World War II: a breakthrough with ground forces onto the Indian plain.

Such a breakthrough was, apparently, not China’s aim. Its chief concern seems to have been to secure control of the Aksai Chin area, where the territories of China, India, and the Soviet Union converge. Chinese domination of this inaccessible area and improvements of Chinese communications there is a threat to the Soviet Union rather than to India, which has generally ignored the area. The Chinese desire to hold the region may be part of a scheme to relieve Soviet pressure on the Chinese borders farther east, near Mongolia.