VIET NAM: The Exotic Mob

In their mustard-colored uniforms and jaunty green berets, the Binh Xuyen of Saigon are probably the most exotic mob of hoodlums in Asia. Four thousand strong, they are the shock troops of the Saigon police, an empire of their own within the South Viet Nam state.

Each day the Binh Xuyen (pronounced bin soo yen) pays the Vietnamese government about $10,000 in "taxes," and gets in return the monopoly control of Saigon's brothels, gambling casinos and opium dens (which are called "clinics of disintoxication"). The Binh Xuyen's enterprises are one of the main sources of revenue for Chief of State Bao Dai, who lives in luxury on the French Riviera. The Binh Xuyen is greatly feared in Saigon: its policemen recently beat a Vietnamese army contingent in pitched street fighting. The Binh Xuyen is also respected for its efficiency. One day last fall the mob closed down the city's small brothels, roped in the free-lance prostitutes and set up one monopolistic establishment, a great maze of mirrored cubicles called "Paradise."

The Binh Xuyen's concession expires Jan. 15. South Viet Nam's austerely Nationalist Premier Ngo Dinh Diem, a Roman Catholic who is appalled by Saigon's immorality, is determined to clean up the city. But in doing so, Diem would have to sacrifice a steady source of government income and risk a show of strength with the armed hoodlums of the Binh Xuyen. It would be a hard decision, but word leaked out at week's end that Diem was steeling himself to take it: not to renew the Binh Xuyen's golden concession.