Foreign News: INDO-CHINA A War of Gallantry & Despair

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Vietnamese officer, high in the armies trained by the French, told us in Saigon: "Of every 100 people in this country, 90 are waiting and have no opinion, two are Viet Minh and eight are for us. The 90 fear the two Viet Minh and give them information, or do not inform on them. They fear the French too, but they do not fear us. We must become stronger. Bao Dai must act . . ."

Except for a few Vietnamese, no one seems to have a good word for Bao Dai, Viet Nam's French-backed chief of state—not the Americans, not the French. They say he is intelligent or clever—but that he will not act; that he is Slave No. 1 to the national habit of attentisme, or wait-and-seeism; that he will not give necessary power to politicians who would be strong enough to rally the country, but prefers to balance off sycophantic, corrupt and bickering politicians while relying on the U.S. and France to save his skin. He hunts big game while villages burn.

The French say that they are ready to give Bao Dai's government complete internal sovereignty, insisting only that it stay within the French Union. The favored commercial position which the French would like to maintain, if fairly negotiated and not imposed, seems reasonable in view of the lives the French are asked to lose on behalf of a free Viet Nam. Yet certain doubts will not die. The policy may be sincere—and so may be the conviction that Bao Dai's government is incapable of governing with honesty and vigor.

"We must be trusted to govern ourselves," a schoolteacher said with earnest conviction. "That is the only way. We look at India and the Philippines, and think that if the Americans or the English had occupied our country we would be free now. But we do not hate the French any more. We would like them to stay here as our big brothers but not as our masters. The masses of the people here work their lands and worship their ancestors and do not think about politics. They obey only the ones they fear. But we intellectuals, we have all changed. At first we thought that the Viet Minh were nationalists, but now we know they are Communists and we do not want them. Now we realize that the French must stay here and advise us. But it is a hard thing to explain to the people that the only way they will get their independence is to join with the French."

The schoolteacher used to live a few hundred yards from a high-school teacher of French and history—who is now General Giap, the Moscow-trained commander of the Viet Minh forces. When they look at Giap, the French recognize that the Vietnamese not only make good soldiers but are good officer material. "Giap is first-rate," said a high French officer. "If we had him, we'd put him in charge of the Vietnamese army." Everyone agrees that the French are making a genuine and energetic effort to create a Vietnamese army, but they started 28 months ago and they should have started five years ago. The result is an inevitable shortage of field-grade officers. The misdeeds and mistrust of past years hang everywhere over Indo-China.

THE FRENCH A Special Kind of Pride