South Viet Nam: To the North?

• Share

"He is getting to be a puppet that pulls its own strings." So runs the latest joke in Saigon. South Viet Nam's Premier Nguyen Khanh, not exactly an American puppet, certainly is the Vietnamese leader in whom the U.S. has shown its greatest confidence, and in whom it has placed its highest hopes. Last week, Khanh moved well ahead of official U.S. policy by saying, in effect, that the war against the Reds cannot be won so long as it is restricted to the south, that the only solution is to move against North Viet Nam.

At a rally marking the "Day of National Shame," the tenth anniversary of the Geneva accords partitioning Viet Nam, Khanh told 60,000 of his country men: "This is not only an urgent appeal of a million refugees from the north, nourishing the dream of liberating their native land. This is not only the ardent wish of thousands of families in the south with relatives who went to the north. This is also the fervent wish of the religious sects, and of the students . . . The push northward [is] an appropriate means of fulfilling our national history." Then the little general led the throng in loud shouts of "Bac lien!" ("To the north!")

ToughTalk. Lower-echelon officials took up the cry. A government declaration urged that the war be pressed "until total victory liberates our whole national territory." Toughest talk of all came from Khanh's air force commander, mustachioed Commodore Nguyen Cao Ky, who packs a bone-handled six-shooter in a Texas-style holster. At a news conference, Ky embarrassed his U.S. advisers by openly confirming that for three years South Vietnamese sabotage teams have been slipping into the north on the ground and by air. "I myself dropped special-forces units into North Viet Nam," boasted Ky. Actually, his disclosures added little to what was already known. The raids were begun under Diem, with U.S. approval, and apparently are continuing sporadically but with scant success.

Ky also argued that his air force should be allowed to "attack the north and even Communist China," claimed that 30 of his pilots are getting jet training, although the Vietnamese air force does not yet have any jet aircraft. Said Ky: "We are ready. We could go this afternoon. I cannot assure that all North Viet Nam would be destroyed, but Hanoi would certainly be destroyed."

One flustered American adviser at the press conference hastily suggested that perhaps Ky did not have a complete command of English. But Ky's words were clear enough, as were Khanh's.

Brass to Brass. Surprised and uneasy, new U.S. Ambassador General Maxwell D. Taylor paid a brass-to-brass call on Khanh, firmly reminded him that he was out of line with American policy. Khanh, in effect, replied that he was enunciating South Vietnamese policy, not U.S. policy—a specious argument, since no South Vietnamese thrust northward could possibly succeed without massive U.S.involvement.