The French colonials make their own~ contribution to chaos. Some, hoping to maintian privileges in the rubber-rich South, are encouraging the Vietnamese generals to intrigue against Diem; other Frenchmen want to replace Diem with Buu Hoi, 39, a left-wing leprosy expert who has not lived in Indo-China far 20 years. In the Communist North, a 20-man French mission hopes to keep "the French presence" in the Viet Minh~ state, and do business there; there is even talk of French help to rebuild the vital strategic
railroad from Hanoi to Langson on the Red China frontier.
In Saigon, some of the French are nonchalant. "Of course the whole country is gone," said a French journalist. Others are bitter. "These people have no appreciation, no understanding of all we have done for them," said a Frenchwoman on a terrace, sipping lemonade. Commissioner General Paul Ely is faithfully working with the U.S. to strengthen South Viet Nam, but others are not. "They treat Indo-China," complained an American, "like a Frenchman treats a mistress in whom he's losing interest. He doesn't want her for himself. but he gets sore if anyone else shows interest."
"Cork in the Bottle." The U.S. was certainly late in getting interested. In the dosing days of World War II, President Roosevelt denounced the "shocking record" of French colonialism, and the U.S. later stipulated that its aid to France must not be used in the colonial war in Indo-China It took Americans some time to realize that the French, for all their colonial faults, were fighting an enemy that for all its anticolonial pretensions, was
Eisenhower, of Indo-China Said Vice President Nlxon, -amid the sullen thunder
of Dienbienphu: -"If, to aoid further Communist expansion in Asia, we must
take the risk of putting our boys in, I think the executive branch has . . . to do it." But though the U.S. was spending about $800 million a year in Indo-China by war's end, it kept out of the shooting.
Now the U.S. was once more involved. President Eisenhower last week sent General J. Lawson Collins, onetime Army Chief of Staff, to South Viet Nam to see what could be done. "Lighting Joe" Collins found himself in a devil's brew of cynicism, intrigue and despair. His own role was difficult. He would not be able to give orders; he would only be able to recommend, pressure and persuade U.S. officials on the scene would like the French to: recall their mission from Hanoi and quit dealing with Ho Chi
Minh, to call the Vietnamese generals off Diem, and to get rid, once and for all, of
Bao Dai. Only then could Diem tackle Nam's basic problems: speed land reform, strengthen the army and restore confidence.
The U.S. itself is plagued with doubts Pentagon does not want to get bogged
down upon the Asian mainland; the State Department is unwilling to commit U.S.
prestige too deeply in South Viet Nam if the cause is already lost, Under the terms of the
Geneva truce, all-Viet Nam elections are scheduled to be held in 1956, with the winner to take the entire country. As of today that winner would be Ho Chi Mmh. The Communist North, organized by tyranny, would easily outvote a South disrupted by chaos.
People on a Sandbar. In Hanoi week, honoring the 37th anniversary of
Russia's October Revolution, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed: "Today we have here
in the East more than half the people in the world, together with the Soviet Union
in the struggle . . . This is an extremely mighty force, which becomes mightier and
mightier." Yet from North Viet Nam, Geneva, about 450,000 Vietnamese escaped through
chinks in the new Viet Minh monolith, leaving the antiseptic tyranny of Uncle Ho for the South's chaotic freedom. The articulate among these huddles of refugees complain that the Viet Minh has destroyed the customs and friendlinesses of the past, and has spat upon family ties and religion.
In crude rafts, sampans and Western warships, with all that was left of their lives wrapped in cotton bundles, the refugees headed south -- aware that their very act of leaving might be their death warrant if Uncle Ho ever caught up with them. Last week several thousand refugees, fleeing from the Communist interior, got trapped on a sandbar off the coast of North Viet Narn. Before them lay the sea. Behind them lay the Communist land of compulsory joy. In frail craft,the stronger ones made it out to the three-mile limit where a French aircraft waited to pick them up and take them south to freedom. But the others, it were doomed. If any ship came inside the three-mile limit to pick up the refugees, the Viet Minh coldly-made it known, then that ship would be fired on.
In the Asia of victorious Ho Chi Minh and his big brother Mao, there are millions marooned upon desolate sandbars: the act of rescue, if these Asians this late
are considered worth saving, will take power, humanity and a steely nerve.
