Great Decisions 1963; 6; Laos and Vietnam: Southeast Asia in Danger?

The National Educational Television presents Laos and Vietnam, Southeast Asia in danger. This is one of a series of eight television programs concurrent with Great Decisions 1963. During Great Decisions 1963, citizens in more than 1,000 communities throughout the United States study and discuss leading issues of foreign policy. Each of our guests on this program has had considerable firsthand experience in various Southeast Asian countries and hence is in a position to give us an accurate assessment of the successes and failures of United States policy in Laos and Vietnam.

Our guests are Robert A. Scalapino, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley. In my opinion, this is the 11th hour for Southeast Asia. For a decade, there has been drift and chaos. Unless more adequate solutions are found to the problems of integration and development, I think there will be an accelerated movement toward authoritarianism and war. Gijong Poker, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley. On the staff of the Ren Corporation, Santa Monica. We don't have an integrated policy for Southeast Asia today. We disengaged in Laos in the last two years. We get more heavily involved in Vietnam at present. We are drifting with relations to other countries in the area. And yet, the role of the United States in Southeast Asia at this point is crucial as we have to feel much of the vacuum that was created by the events following World War II.

Claude Bus, Professor of History, Stanford University, Palo Alto. Former United States Foreign Service Officer in Asia. Neither Laos nor Vietnam has the same sense of immediacy or urgency that we find in Cuba, Latin America, or Europe. We are not as emotionally as worked up about our problems, but actually Southeast Asia is just as vital as any area in the world to our own security and to the future of the entire world. Our program host is William Winter, author, lecturer, and radio and television news analyst for the American Broadcasting Company. Good evening. We're discussing tonight Southeast Asia, an area about which most of us know altogether too little. And before we meet our guests more informally in a greater length and hear their views on the problems of the area,

let's find out what we're talking about. What is Southeast Asia and for that matter what is Asia? Asia has never been adequately defined, everybody's satisfaction. It isn't a continent. There is this continent of Eurasia. Europe being part of it. Europe being a commentary off the eastern end or the western end of this continent of Eurasia. Where Europe ends and Asia begins, nobody has ever agreed. Some have felt that maybe the Europe mountains here in the Soviet Union are the dividing line. But then when you extend that line far the south, you'll find that Turkey would be in Europe and so it's Syria and Iraq or at least would not be in Asia. This has been called Asia Minor. Southeast Asia is definitely down in this region here. But then a few years ago the United States became involved in a military pact called Seattle. The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization and that includes Pakistan which is way over here. But the Southeast Asia we're talking about tonight is this region down here. Now this area which includes Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam used to be before World War II

until shortly after World War II, French Indochina, a colony. Before the United States got into World War II, the Germans of course over ran France back in 1940 and they set up a Vichy puppet government. Japan was allied with Germany and under the Japanese German alliance the Vichy government granted to Japan the right to occupy French Indochina. So the Japanese moved troops in here. This was back in 1940, over a year before Pearl Harbor let's remember. They occupied this whole area and then to understand the military strategic importance of the region we can recall that Japan used this staging area later on for her expansion in Southeast Asia. From here after she knocked out the American fleet, crippled the American fleet at Pearl Harbor and to cover that naval victory she drove from Indochina into Thailand and into Burma and then down here through the peninsula of Thailand into Malaya and Singapore

and into what was then the Dutch East Indies now Indonesia. So that this is a very important area for a military strategic standpoint. Now when the war ended the Japanese left but while they were still there an underground movement developed and an underground movement continued after the war. After the war there was the demand for nationalism among various of the colonial areas in Asia. India became independent, Pakistan was created. Ceylon, Indonesia got its independence, the Philippines became independent. And people in Indochina who wanted independence from the French had only one place to go. And that is to follow a group which was under the leadership of a man named Ho Chi Minh who had been trained in communist areas. He was a trained revolutionary and a trained military leader and an avowed Marxist. Ho Chi Minh led the group of anti-French nationalists

and in all the speeches that he made in those days to the people to urge them to follow him he never once called himself a communist nor did he talk of dialectic materialism or Marxism or the theory of surplus values or any of the other aspects of Marxian philosophy. He taught nationalism, land for the landless schools, houses, irrigation on the farms and so forth but above all nationalism. So then anybody in what was then in Indochina who wanted to join a militant movement that was against the colonial power found the Ho Chi Minh's movement was the movement to join. And so he achieved a great deal of success. The French spent a great deal of time and a great deal of effort fighting the war in Indochina for a long, long time, seven long years. And finally the French had to give up. The United States supported the French not because the United States felt we wanted to perpetuate colonialism but because the United States felt that the French were maintaining an anti-communist stand. Ho Chi Minh being a communist, it was felt would set up a communist foothold in Southeast Asia.

In one year the United States contributed some $700 million to the French war but money was not enough. The French were finally defeated in the Battle of the Indian Fu and in 1954 remember when Pierre Mendes France became the premier of France. He said to the French National Assembly, I will bring peace to Indochina within 30 days and if I don't, I'll quit. Because by this time the French people had become tired of the war. The casualties were heavy and the cost was considerable and the war was far away from the French homeland. Within 30 days he lived up to his word and there was peace. Peace in the sense of an armistice being written in Geneva and in this armistice it was agreed that the French would leave Indochina that Indochina would be divided into four states. The original states of Laos and Cambodia and the long state of Vietnam. This is Laos here and that's Cambodia, this is the original Indochina

and this was the long state of Vietnam. Now what the armistice decided was that since the communists held a strong position in the, let me get a shorter point here, in the northern part of Vietnam. This northern part of Vietnam shall be under Ho Chi Minh's rule. This is North Vietnam called the Viet Minh and a dividing line was drawn around the 17th parallel near a town called Huay. And the area to the south of that dividing line South Vietnam was in the hands of the government which developed there which is now under the presidency of Gaudin Gien. And this is Cambodia and this is Laos. It was agreed that Cambodia and Laos were to be neutral states and that South Vietnam might receive military support. North Vietnam was to be an independent country under the communists. Well now and also it was agreed that those people

who wanted to leave one area and go to the other could leave or length the time and there were these exchanges. Now as we know the United States poured a great deal of money into Laos. As a matter of fact we spent more money in Laos per capita than we had spent in any other foreign aid program in our history. There was something like three million dollars a month than Laos has only about two million people. And there were congressional investigations of the fraud, the corruption, that went on in Laos and the misappropriation of funds indicating that the money we spent did not reach the people or the purposes for which it was intended. Thailand right next to Laos is very much concerned. And it happens that Thailand currently is under a military dictatorship under a Marshal Sarit. And Marshal Sarit is very much concerned about what happens in Laos because we can see they have a long frontier between the two countries. As a matter of fact the people who live in Laos, some of them have gone over into Thailand and up here in the northeast section of Thailand there are a lot of Laosians.

And so the government of Marshal Sarit is concerned about these Laosians coming under the influence of an anti-tie or an anti-conservative government in Laos stirring them up to start a rebellion. So Thailand is very much concerned about what happens in Laos. Now we also see that in the war that is currently in progress in South Vietnam there is concern about what happens in Laos because of this frontier. Now the frontier between South Vietnam and North Vietnam here is rather heavily fortified. And there have not been too many people crossing from North Vietnam into South Vietnam to support the Viet Cong, the guerrillas, fighting against the government of South Vietnam. But there have been a number of people crossing here. Now this is about 44 or 45 miles wide. This territory here, this frontier between Laos and South Vietnam is about 150 or so miles long. And there were really no markers there, no fences and people can cross the frontier and the many of them do.

Cambodia maintains a neutrality of sorts except that the headman of Cambodia is believed to be rather friendly to China. But at the moment we have the problem of Laos and Vietnam and the South Vietnam for tonight's discussion. And the question is have we made any serious errors as Americans in Laos from which we can learn lessons which might be avoided in Vietnam? The money that was spent there did not produce the kind of government the United States had supported which was a conservative government and it ended in a coalition headed by a neutralist prince, a conservative right wing prince and what is generally called a left wing prince. This neutral coalition may or may not survive. The question is has American policy there been effective to what end, what purpose did we have in mind? Was the purpose achieved if not why?

Did we have any justifyable right to pursue that purpose? And now what about our war in South Vietnam? The United States has been spending something like 12, we have about 12,000 troops in South Vietnam and we're spending a good deal of money. The exact amount is not known because the cost of the military equipment is not revealed. Also the cost of transporting all the 12,000 troops and the supplies there is not added up. But a considerable expense the United States has been training and supporting the government of Nguodinjiang of South Vietnam. And the question is whether this is the kind of war that we are justified in supporting whether it will achieve its purpose and really what our purpose is. Strategically I mean from an economic standpoint the area is extremely important because South Vietnam is one of the rich rice producing regions of Southeast Asia and rice is of course the staple diet. Here we find in Laos the right wing prints, the left wing prints

and in between prints, neutralist prints, Savannah Puma, who incidentally had been the sole premier of Laos some years ago and was deposed by a coup which was generally attributed to American support at the time. That is the American people in the area, the military people, did not like this prints in power and they encouraged so the story goes encouraged the overthrow of this man who then fled to Cambodia. The conservative government did not last. In 1962 in July an agreement was signed among the nations which had signed the original agreement plus a few others, the original armistice, setting up this coalition government of the neutralist, the left wing and the right wing prints in a coalition. There is also a king in Laos and the king has been making a trip around the world visiting the various signatories to the agreement setting up the neutral country of Laos. Now the question in South Vietnam concerns the political picture there as well as the military.

The president is Nagodin Ziam, who has been accused of being despotic, nepotistic, dictatorial, has little respect for democratic processes, suppresses the opposition. Now the question is whether his leadership is adequate to inspire the people to fight. The army of South Vietnam, the official army, looks something like this. It is easily definable. One of the difficulties is that while people can tell the Vietnam army when they see it coming, you can't tell what the anti-Vietnam army is like, the Viet Cong. These are people from various parts of what used to be Indo-China, from Laos, North and South Vietnam. You can't distinguish them by looking at them casually. They can be villagers, they can be meeting on some street corner. Any of these might be pro-government, and any of them might be anti-government, fighting with the guerrillas, particularly at night.

The French used to say when they were in Indo-China, Indo-China is ours by day, but it belongs to the guerrillas at night. Any of these people might be guerrillas who would operate at night. The area is mountainous. It is also prairie, with rich rice paddies. And this is a broad highway going through the jungle, the main highway, leading through Vietnam. This then is the area, and these are some of the problems. The question is just exactly what is United States policy in Laos and in Vietnam? Southeast Asia in danger, question mark. The question now is, what kind of danger is there in Southeast Asia? If there is any, and are we concerned about it? Dr. Scalapino, why don't you begin, if you will, and tell us what you think of, whatever danger exists in Southeast Asia? Well, if political disintegration or political disunity is a danger, then Southeast Asia is in danger, or if political disunity a danger to us.

I think it is, in the sense that we believe that only through some form of political and economic development and stability can we get the kind of responsible leadership, the possibilities for an open society, the avoidance of alignment with the chief authoritarian governments, China, Red China, or Russia, that we want. And political disunity, political chaos is more likely to lead to authoritarianism and some kind of alignment perhaps with these communist states. Dr. Poker, do you agree? Well, the problem we face in Southeast Asia and for that matter in other parts of the world is that these countries were colonies until very recently. They finally achieved independence as part of the movement which is sweeping the whole globe today. And conceivably, they could give themselves many years to reach higher levels of political and economic development.

This in itself would be a worthwhile cause for us to support but what complicates the issue is the fact that we can never be sure that if we let a vacuum, either political or economic develop in any of these countries, this vacuum will not be filled immediately by the communist parties or the communist movements active in the area which would then create a kind of society which is irreversible what is sometimes called the most top theory of political development. Once you achieve the establishment of a totalitarian regime, then can they develop further? And this puts certain pressures on our policy which otherwise would not have been probably facing us at present. Well, Dr. Bust, do you feel that the United States has an immediate stake in Southeast Asia to the extent of this being of primary concern to us or should there be other countries as much concerned if there was any concern to be experienced at all?

All these countries are of concern to us but primarily they are of concern to themselves. We tackle problems of Southeast Asia thinking in terms of our own security and we wonder about totalitarian government whether it's going to be frozen and we think what this means to us in our place in the world and yet the thing that always strikes me when I'm in that part of the world is how far away the United States seems to be. The evidences of our power are there but somehow or other we do not seem to be penetrating deep into the life of the people. And what worries me about our policy is how we might send helicopters there, we might send guns there and we might be able to win a military victory as our admirals and generals assure us that we can do. But this does not seem to me to solve fundamental problems of Laos or Vietnam as the people themselves see them who live there.

You mean that you can't shoot communism? You can't destroy a theory by a bullet. You can destroy a person but I don't get a great deal of consolation out of seeing these people like you showed us on photographs. Maybe we can kill 60, 100, 200 of these a day. But I'm just not sure that this is going to do anything toward making our way of life more acceptable there or making them more willing to follow our leadership in world affairs. You disagree with that, Mr. Winter? May I follow what Mr. Boss has said by raising at the outset what I think is one of the fundamental problems of this region. Namely, the fact that there really are no nations. We talk about Laos, Vietnam, because these are convenient shorthand terms. But in fact, of course, within an area, geographic area like Laos, you have the male tribesmen who have no real allegiance to the king

whose picture we saw a moment ago. The difference between the male peoples and the Laos, for example, is a profound difference. The difference in Vietnam between the mountain peoples, such as the mountain yards, and the Vietnamese is a very great difference. One of the first problems that needs to be kept in mind by all of our listeners and by ourselves is that none of these societies has had yet any thorough political integration and that the problem of nation-building, which here in the west took a good many centuries, has only begun in Southeast Asia, so that these countries, as we refer to them, in many cases, do not have the support, the loyalty of their own people in terms of the central government. And this problem of nation-building is complicated, of course, enormously today, because at the same time that you're trying to develop a nation, you're also forced to enter into both regional and international political life. I think they have an enormous problem.

Well, the same problem, of course, exists in Africa as a tribalism. Now, the question then arises, is it important for these various tribes and these various ethnical groups of people to be members of a nation? Yes, this is a problem, and I suppose the answer is that we're still experimenting everywhere with ideal political units. What makes the most sense from a standpoint of the economic and social development of a people? Why should we experiment, Dr. Poker? Why are the United States? What is there about these problems that makes them particularly American concern? Well, part of it is simply a historical accident. It happens that this process of decolonization took place in the period in which the United States achieved world supremacy. And the former empires, the former colonial powers, were forced both by the weakening of their respective capabilities and also by the pressure to get out of these areas

and to... Tans for wittingly or unwittingly, much of the responsibility for what is going on in the non-communist part of the world to the United States. Much of this happened without our asking for it. Remember in 1947 when the British put us on notice that they were not able to hold on in Greece and Turkey and therefore the decision that President Truman had to face was will he let these areas go communist by default? Or will the United States step in and do something about it? This is much of the problem we face today in other parts of the world. Well, in carrying out this purpose in answering this problem, are we then making of the southeastern Asian areas pawns in the Cold War struggle? Or are we concerned about the condition of life of the people there primarily? More than we are of their strategic position. Well, this is obviously not an easy question to answer, but if we believe that in the light of higher values, these people are better off not to fall under communist governments,

then of course the strategic interest and the philosophical ideological interest somewhat mish. Although these are questions of very great complexity and whether the United States should be present in Southeast Asia or anywhere else, is of course for the democratic process of the United States to decide. Nobody can as an expert state we should be there, we should not be there. Well, now assuming that the United States feels that it is to our interest as well as to the interest of the major part of the world, that the United States have some policy in Southeast Asia. Do you feel that what the United States is doing now in South Vietnam is the proper way to stop the spread of communism? Well, anybody who has some familiarity with the problems of South Vietnam or allows for that matter would have very serious doubts and it is very easy to be critical about what's going on in an area like South Vietnam. One sees that the communist movement is gaining adherence year after year

that are able to recruit more and more guerrillas, that we face very serious military and political problems there. And therefore the question is why don't we do better? But one question which is not easily answered refers to the whole technique to the whole approach by which one can cope with what is probably a much more powerful weapon in the 20th century than nuclear weapons, namely revolutionary war techniques. Revolutionary war really creates no targets for conventional military approaches. It involves a wide variety of operations of a sort that are extremely difficult to come to grips with. And in the case of South Vietnam, for instance, the experts are likely to debate for years to come whether they've yet come as the communists are called in the area recruit supporters primarily by the use of terror or by the ideological appeal that they can exert on these people

or alternatively whether these people who are fighting for the vietcong in South Vietnam are really infiltrated across the border from the northern part of the country, possibly through laws. Now, if such questions cannot be answered satisfactorily, obviously it is not easy to tackle the problem, what is the best way to go about it? Well, then is it a police problem? Is it an ideological problem or is it a problem of border control? I think it's a very tricky combination of a variety of things. The vietcong probably recruits some young people because they really see in the communist nationalists the symbol of the nation as they understood it. Others may have been terrorized into joining and there seems to be an indication that a constant traffic is going on across the border from North Vietnam into South Vietnam through the Lausanne corridor. How do you cope with these kind of problems? We are newcomers at this game.

I would agree with Mr. Parker that an area like Viet Nam represents an intricate combination of factors, political, social, and economic. It was my own impression when I was in Vietnam not so terribly long ago that, for example, if one tried to assess the position, the political position of the villagers on the basis of available open information, it would seem that a very considerable number of villagers, as you might expect, were simply interested in keeping themselves and their families alive under the most terrible conditions, where if they gave any assistance to the vietcong, they were in trouble with the government, but if they gave any assistance to the government, they were in trouble with the vietcong. It was very interesting to follow Vietcong propaganda. I had chance to see some of this and I think that it weren't at least one or two sentences. Vietcong propaganda in the South is directed almost wholly at the issue of nationalism, not communism.

The Vietcong are putting out leaflets, pamphlets, and other materials in which, in fact, they are saying, join the National Liberation Front to free your country from foreign imperialist control. Very much as it was in the end of China days and the French. Yes, and I would also say very much as it was during certain periods of the Chinese Communist rise to power in China. The issues of land reform, of getting rid of corrupt officials, of instituting freedoms. These are all played up in vietcong propaganda. And nothing is said about Marxism, Leninism, or Communism in the leaflets that are put out. It's not so long as the government of Premier Jim is not very democratic and does not tolerate maintained freedoms in the country and does not provide for the people the land and the food and the schools and the hospitals and other things they clamor for, do you feel that there is an effective answer

to this Communist propaganda in South Vietnam now? I think we shall be at a continuous political and military disadvantage unless the ZM government can encompass both reform and military progress in technological terms. Well, the problem is this. A few years ago, maybe about a year, a year and a half ago, the United States pressured ZM into introducing reforms. Remember our representative, our ambassador, they have made a speech urging it to be reforms. And even suggesting that American aid might be cut off if reforms were introduced. Well, then ZM countered by having in his control newspapers in Saigon and the U.S. propaganda, which was to affect the same sort of thing the communists were saying against the United States. The United States is in a position where we can't very well pressure this man into introducing the reforms you gentlemen all agree or necessary. How then are they going to be brought about? Well, I don't think there's any easy answer to this question, but my own personal position for what it's worth is this,

that certain aspects of American assistance and aid ought to be conditional, in my opinion, upon reform. I think we should get much tougher with the ZM regime than we have. American boys are dying in Vietnam. American equipment has been expended at an enormous rate. This does not mean a program whereby we tell ZM what he's got to do in every sense, but we have got to see some positive results. It seems to me in the social or political sphere. So, deadly, the Viet Cong just not so many months ago drew up a policy paper in which they tried to assess their own position. It's my understanding of what they said was, we are in a militarily inferior position today, but politically, we are in a dominant position. We are going to play up on our political dominance, meanwhile waiting for the military capacities of the enemy to disintegrate. Now, the Viet Cong are following.

It seems to me very much the same policies that Chinese come out of phones. Exactly. Surround the cities. The city in this case is Saigon, not Peking, Nanking, and Shanghai. Surround the cities, try to build rural bases, and in the meantime, seek to carry the political war forward, waiting for the enemy's citizens to disintegrate. I'm not saying that we necessarily will have the same end result. Viet Nam and China are not the same geographically or in many other ways, but there's a striking parallelism and beyond this, I think. The problem of the peasant, the young peasant, is partly fear. I agree with Guy. It's partly terrorism. It's partly a decision that the ends are possibly worse than the unknown out, so the in-out issue can play a role. It's partially also, it seems to me, who's going to capture the real nationalist movement in this area? You know, Ho Chi Minh is a communist. There's no question about this, but he also has a certain nationalist symbol.

He's also considered a father of his country against the French. Ho Chi Minh has a certain charismatic appeal, even to some non-communist elements. In the final analysis, it's my feeling that the issue of nationalism is critical. And that on the one hand, we do have to pursue a policy which doesn't vitiate a non-communist regime's claim to nationalism. That is, we do have to avoid a stance that will make it appear that we are directing Viet Nam and all that is there. But on the other hand, it seems to me, it would be foolish to think that with an unpopular regime that is making no progress in the social and economic and political spheres, we can win military victories. I don't see anything to indicate that can be done. Well, Dr. Busch, what do you think can be done if anything toward introducing or forcing the reforms that are obviously so needed in South Viet Nam? In view of the fact that people can never be enthused into fighting against something, they have to fight for something as was demonstrated in general.

Right? We have two strikes against this, and we try to force anything in Viet Nam or anywhere else in Asia. And this is going to be a long range problem, as I think has been very clearly intimated on how the people in Viet Nam whether they are Viet Khan or whether they are followers of the regime of Jim, it's going to be a long problem to raise their economic level and to give them more of the decent things of life. But it's a cruel reality that the conduct of military war is not satisfying basic needs of life. All that you are doing is preventing somebody else from giving that possible satisfaction. And critics in Saigon are not slow to point this out. I heard many times that 1953, the French were here in 1959 or 1963. The Americans are here and it's still a case of foreigners being here. And really we are bearing the brunt of a great deal of this anti-Farn national sentiment

which the Vietnamese have thrived on for the period ever since the beginning of World War II. Do you suggest the United States should pull out its forces? I'm very hesitant Bill. We have a lot of people that are studying this. And I'm not going to play down the views of very capable men. This can are of ugly Americans down in that part of the world. It's grossly unfair. There are people who are devoted to our interest and they are studying this situation. And they believe that the best thing that we can do now is to carry out the policy which we are trying to carry out. To sink or swim with Jim? Yes. And it's a very grave thing to say that this is wrong and that there are some things that we ought to be doing differently. But I do think that it's our business to show the American people the limits of what a winning a war can be. We might win. Admiral Felt says that we can win in so many years.

But what have you got in? What's the best you can do? Is it that you're going to try to isolate the country of Vietnam and prevent infiltration from Laos or Cambodia or from North Vietnam? Is it to build a cordon sunny tear there? Is this what we're after? But even if we win the war and if we're able to bring about a complete armistice, it seems to me then you're only ready to begin this problem of trying to help Vietnamese people raise their own level of living and seek the better things of life which they want. This is long term business that we're after. Well the problems are certainly not similar in many respects. There is a general similarity, wouldn't you agree, between our relations to Laos and our relations to South Vietnam. Do you feel that we made mistakes in Laos that can be avoided or from which we might have learned some lessons that we can now apply in South Vietnam, Dr. Poker? Well, let me first pick up the last statement that Dr. Buss made and agree with him wholeheartedly that this is long term business and probably the most important single ingredient is patience.

We are new at this game, we are facing very serious problems all over the world. If we just pick up our marbles and go, the world will go by default to the other side. We can't expect quick or easy solutions. And therefore there are no quick and easy solutions which doesn't mean that at any one moment I would be smug about what we achieve for instance, I think that we made very serious mistakes in Laos. In Laos we fell between two stools. We first got so jittery about the fact that communists were added to a neutralist government that we initiated political operations that led to a complete reversal of the trend and a very conservative and very poor American government was established. Of course, if we were decided to go in that direction we should have been prepared for the counter move from the communist side which came on avoidably as night follows day.

But at that point we were no longer prepared to hold our own and the result is that in the last year or so we have disengaged from Laos that present the country is nominally ruled by a coalition of right wing, left wing and neutralist forces as you explained it a moment ago. But in reality this is not what's happening in Laos. In Laos these three forces have not missed each of them is in control of some part of the territory. It is a sort of stance still or armistice and the crisis in Laos can erupt again any moment and for that moment I'm not sure we have a clear policy. Now take Vietnam on the other hand. In Vietnam we were hoping for the best from about 1955 when the government of North India was created and we started pouring a quite substantial amount of economic aid into the country until about two years ago when the communist started stepping up the revolutionary warfare techniques. And now we are beginning to cope with the problem of how to deal with the revolutionary warfare aspect of the Vietnamese problem.

Now which is only the beginning which is only the beginning. If we win again as you said Claude then and as you also stressed Bob then we face the problem what kind of a society do we want to build in that part of the world or what kind of society should we build in those countries where we do not yet face revolutionary warfare problems. It can be a tyrant tomorrow. It can be some kind in the Middle East or in Latin America. These are all new problems for us. Don't you think too that it's a ticklish decision that you almost have to take every day. How far do you go in taking initiative? See when you come along and say here's your reform I would like. Then you suggest that this reform should be made or should not be made. It might be the kiss of death. It might be a perfectly good reform but if that reform gets labeled as an American reform it might be very difficult to put that reform across. And you just got to know how far you can go in taking initiative and how far did you mistake a vaccine. And I'm not sure in either Laos or Vietnam if sometimes we haven't been as guilty of overpressuring and perhaps moving a bit too fast and too far.

But as I said what I had in mind when I said that patience is the key word in this. What would you pay for assuming that the options exist to slam down the thought of a local government a certain reform movement which it would only implement because it has been threatened by withdrawal of American support or would you rather have our embassy there. Carry its short of hair for a couple of years until the local government sees the wisdom of our initial suggestions. Will it eventually see the way I don't know. I would have some difference of opinion here though I think this is let me start by saying I think we all agree this is an enormously complicated matter. But my own feeling is this that for example we were in an earlier period very much in control of the economic resources that were going into Korea both military and otherwise.

We knew that massive corruption was taking place that this was not being put into the constructive development of that economy. And I might say in Laos also we knew that our economic aid was building a certain small number of novel reach. People who were using our money for personal grandestment economic policy of the United States created certain kinds of political and social problems. Now the issue I think is should we use our funds our assistance program to actually augment the problems that lead to communism. This is not merely suggesting reform incidentally it's a question of the interrelationship between our funds and the strength of the enemy. In many cases it's precisely this because if aid is misused or if you have in power corrupt or inefficient governments you your own money is paving the way for the strength of the communists.

As a matter of fact when the communist marched into Shanghai and China or in many cases when they have marched into certain areas of Southeast Asia they've marched with Western equipment given under a context in which the system that we were supporting broke down completely. And so if we do nothing I agree with Guy that in many of these situations we are want to try to move to fast that that's true. Americans think that if we can produce so many thousand automobiles in 20 more hours we ought to be able to produce a foreign policy. But this is still a basic issue. May I raise this question when you speak of communism or the communists let's consider just exactly what we're talking about. Are we talking about the spread of Chinese Empire or the spread of Soviet Empire? Are we talking about the establishment of a communist or a Marxist type of independent government if there is such thing a socialist government?

What is it we're opposed to really and for what reason? I should think I think we ought to define that. Well I should suppose that our primary concern as a nation and the people today is with the kind of nation-state power that the Soviet Union and communist China represent. In other words the spread of their empire is what we consider. In effect the spread of their influence. I think empire may be an old-fashioned word unless we define it properly because I do not anticipate personally that the Chinese communists are likely to move armies across boundaries in the near future and such a fashionist to take over and to actually incorporate areas like Vietnam and Cambodia and so forth into greater China. What I do envisage and what I do think represents the kind of danger this region faces is that they will give ever-growing support to movements like the Patat Lao, the Viet Cong, the Indonesian Communist Party and so forth and enable these forces to take over their own societies and yet coordinate with China or with Moscow I think we must be clear of course.

How do you see the Sino-Soviet conflict in Southeast Asia? Do you think that we can take any consolation in our own policy and can we afford to be less concerned about Vietnam and Laos because of potential Sino-Soviet conflicts there? Yes, well I think that this is a complicated problem on which one would have to drop a balance sheet because there are pros and cons. Let me say this, I think one of the most interesting developments of the last year has been the increasing struggle between China and Russia to get control of Asian communist movements with China at the moment ahead in this matter, primarily in my opinion, because the Chinese interest today is in revolution much more than the Soviet interest. These are the words of liberation I think.

And China cannot compete with the United States at this point in terms of nation to nation production, nation to nation power. The shortcut to competition with America is precisely revolution in Vietnam or in Guatemala or in Africa. And so the Chinese national interest coincides with the revolutionary interests of Asian communist movement. Yes, well wouldn't the Chinese interest call for their dominating these areas to the extent of using the rich rights production from Burma and Thailand and South and Laos and Cambodia? Well certainly I think Chinese communist interest encompasses the economic and certainly there would be an interest in the resources of this region. But in my own opinion, the Chinese at this stage are much too sophisticated, the communist, to attempt 19th century colonialism in a 20th century world. They are going to operate, as indeed they have operated elsewhere, via the local communist groups and organizations. And it seems to me that what the Chinese communist want is what any major power wants in root to power.

It wants a buffer state system composed of friendly or at least neutralist governments. And this it is going to seek to get. Now I would like to just make one sentence comment to Claude's question. It does seem to me that in one sense the breakup of Soviet or communist monolithism, the increasing cleavages within the communist world greatly complicate the problems of the left wing in Asia as elsewhere. There are factions now in each communist movement and in each party. There are allegiances to Moscow to picking and do a third or neutralist force. In this sense I think that those who oppose communism are benefited. On the other hand I think it must be said that most of these communist movements now may have some chance to claim that they are indigenous nationalist oriented movements, holding no supreme allegiance to Moscow or peaking. But in other words, to the extent that they are trying to capture the nationalist movement they may have some advantages.

To the extent that they are dependent upon organization and power they may have some distance. Bob, you just a while ago reminded us that in Laos, yes in Laos, when there was a conservative, an ultra conservative government in power. I think he used the phrase, naturally, the communist reacted, suggesting that in politics as in physics for every action is an equal and opposite reaction. Now if an ultra conservative government is the natural attraction to the other extreme, isn't that then a great danger in South Vietnam? At the very fact that the government is so ultra conservative as the attraction to the communist, whereas if it were more democratic then the extremists would lose power. Do you think that there should be any purpose or any effort made to establish a democratic political regime there? Well, I don't know what the answer to this is at a time when the country is sailing in the midst of a quite large-scale civil war.

I've discussed the question of Vietnam with quite a good many academic experts who are probably as well-trained and as detached as anybody can find in this country. And you'll encounter wide disagreement on whether the communist stepped up the revolutionary war in Vietnam because they sensed that the popular dissatisfaction had reached a level which made it possible for them to use this as fuel for their operations or quite a contrary because the Ziem regime was all its difficulties and imperfections was making progress and things were getting better. And the situation was being stabilized and they couldn't afford to let this go on as such. You see, as I said, in this business we are dealing with problems for which we have not been equipped in the past. And back in 5556 it was heartbreaking for some of us who are academic observers of the scene to see how hundreds of millions of dollars would be spent on a country without the aid and benefit of any professional economist or social scientist looking into the situation and tracing the issue, what is this really supposed to achieve?

Now, policy makers are beginning to realize that social science and economics are valuable analytic instruments that they can tell you something that is an important component of a policy decision. But this is very recent policy wasn't made that way and the results are that years were lost in some of these countries by following a certain lead without even really posing and asking whether this was the right way of achieving what we were seeking. Gentlemen, may I bring up one other question and that is the position of C-8O and all this and what it should be if any. After the French armistice, the armistice was signed ending the war in Indochina in 1954, the United States under Secretary of State Dulles called a meeting in Manila as you remember, which he invited the nations of Southeast Asia to join with the United States Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, the only three Asian nations that showed up, with the nations with whom we already had military packs, Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines and we still are tied with them in C-8O.

Now, this organization is a military alliance to defend against a communist attack. Do you feel that the United States should call upon C-8O or C-8O should take some action and if so, what do you think of C-8O? Well, I don't think very much of it. No. Neither do the members of C-8O. I'm not about to discard it because maybe it's got some possible sources of strength that I don't understand, but the very thing that you point out to bring in the five outside nations and then to stretch the geography of Pakistan to put it in Southeast Asia, this is a little hard to swallow and I think C-8O has been used as an instrument of national policy, particularly by Thailand. And I feel that it's not the answer to the way international action should be taken in Southeast Asia. I'm not sure that we've got fertile soil for regionalism there at all, maybe that we have, maybe we haven't. But I don't think this is the correct answer and it certainly infuriates as many people as it pleases and I think we've got to look for some other machinery.

You gentlemen have all agreed that the government is not doing as much for the people in the way of introducing whatever reforms are necessary as we would like to see done. Do you feel that it is at all possible for the United States or some outside agency or other nations in Southeast Asia or some independent groups in the area to set up models of reforms, model villages, to introduce land reform here and there. By example, to try to win allegiance to this movement, which would suggest this is the kind of movement we will all have once the war is won. Do you think something like that could be introduced either with the cooperation over without the cooperation of the government? Not on a governmental level, but as some private project. Well, may I say, Bill, that I agree with Claude in his evaluation of Sito, it seems to me that at this particular moment in history, if we are concerned, and I believe we must be, about the military defense of Southeast Asia, we would be much better advised to engage in bilateral military agreements with those countries that are interested because Sito is an artificiality. There is an artificiality in which the only real power is American power that is willing to commit itself.

And in which only the more peripheral Asian societies are represented at the moment, it is an instrument therefore of division more than the unity it seems to me. I just wanted to say on the matter of other forms of inducing change and reform, a question you raised, it seems to me we do have the beginnings of some possibly meaningful regional international programs in Southeast Asia, for example, the Colombo Plan. Well, the United Nations Commission for the Far East and Economic Development. These are programs operating under international auspices which actually are conducting some important changes, WHO, the World Health Organization is doing a great deal. Do you think, in a word, that more interest, more support should be given to these efforts, as they means of achieving the goals you all agreed to? Well, I think it's very important to support these efforts, not exclusively there. We have also got to support in terms of American assistance too. I feel very cruel and uneasy at this moment because our time is just about up.

We have just about three minutes time left for the end of the program. And I wonder if each of you, gentlemen, in turn would, if you can and will in about one minute, sum up some comments you have on your position, Claude will start with you. As I've listened to my colleagues here, two or three things I would like to leave with you. I think Laos is one problem, Vietnam is another problem, and we might get more confusion than clarity in trying to figure out one policy for Laos and one policy for the same policy for Vietnam. The two countries must be dealt with separately. The other thing I would like to say is that when the military job is finished, then we get at the basic problem of what the Asians very frequently call their revolution. Well, time will not permit me to go into the problem whether Laos and Vietnam should be treated as one policy or separate policies. And this I can only say that if the neutral controlled coalition in Laos disintegrates and Laos becomes a channel for communist infiltration from North to South, then obviously it is directly relevant to what's going on in South Vietnam.

But what I really would like to say in concluding my remarks here tonight is that the final test of our policies is really whether the people in the area without us or with the opposition with the other side. And that's where I think scholars and detached observers have a lot to contribute. One can tell. I would simply say that I agree very much with these last remarks. I think economic, political and military policies must be integrated that one of the great challenges we face is how to help in the development of what I would call an enlightened elite for these areas and elite that is cognizant of the 20th century and its problems and elite that is actively willing to experiment in social and economic reform while it fights a war. Because I think that military victory will only come with popular support. The communists know this and we've got to learn it. I hope not the hard way.

Well, thank you very much gentlemen for this very informative, stimulating, provocative and enlightening discussion of Laos, South Vietnam and is Southeast Asia in danger. Good night. Good night. Great Decisions 1963 is based on topics selected for nationwide discussion by the Foreign Policy Association.

This is NET National Educational Television. Thank you very much.