Report from Viet Nam

Over a ticker in the White House basement last week clacked the somber words that may help to decide the fate of embattled South Viet Nam--and perhaps all of Southeast Asia. They were in a preliminary report from President Kennedy's chief military adviser, General Maxwell D. Taylor, fresh from a seven-day fact-finding tour of South Viet Nam. Though the U.S. had sent five earlier fact-finding missions to Viet Nam, Taylor's mission was to be the final, decisive survey of the situation before the U.S. decides what course to take to save its ally. Holed up in Bangkok at week's end for talks with Thailand's Premier Marshal Sarit Thanarat, who fears that his country may be next if South Viet Nam falls, Taylor did not wait for his scheduled return to the U.S. on Nov. 3, shot off his impressions to Kennedy with the promise of a more complete and detailed report later. Among Taylor's findings:

> South Viet Nam's President Ngo Dinh Diem has internal political problems far greater than Taylor had supposed--and those problems are hampering effective military action against the Communist Viet Cong. The people surrounding Diem are undercutting him, creating internal strife that gets in the way of U.S. efforts to bring some order out of the situation.

> Civil disaster caused by the recent floods is appalling, far greater than most outsiders had realized. Before anything else is done, the delta region must be rehabilitated to keep the country running.

> Diem's army is badly in need of improved communications, better transportation, more training and equipment, and a decent logistical base. Taylor recommended more radios and helicopters as a starter. He found that the army often does not get U.S. equipment to the right place at the right time. Guns often reach troops without ammunition, or ammunition without guns.

> Larger Communist units from North Viet Nam are beginning to appear in the south. Taylor argued that a way must be quickly found to stop this steady stream of Communist troops and supplies.

In his preliminary report, Taylor did not deal with the single vital question that is haunting the Administration--whether or not the U.S. should send in troops--but he plans to take it up in his final report. As of now, the Administration is opposed to sending G.I.s to fight in the Vietnamese jungle (as is the Vietnamese government), nor does the U.S. have enough trained guerrilla fighters to do the job. In any case, reported Taylor, South Viet Nam needs six months of hard work just to straighten out the country before the U.S. should even seriously consider the question of sending in its own troops in force.

Before he left Viet Nam, Taylor urged a "national mobilization'' of South Viet Nam's political, economic, military and psychological assets "to really get this nation and its friends to realize that here we have indeed a major threat, and the willingness to put everything necessary to win into this operation.'' Apparently moved by this implied criticism of his regime, President Diem told his nation that "we must sincerely acknowledge that we have not fulfilled entirely our duties. Neither have we made all the necessary efforts to meet appropriately the exigencies of war."

Next day, President Kennedy gave renewed assurances that the U.S. "is determined to help Viet Nam preserve its independence, protect its people against Communist assassins, and build a better life through economic growth." But the decision the President must make on Taylor's return is whether the U.S. can afford to wait six months to tidy up Viet Nam. Last week, in an area where U.S. special forces have been training Vietnamese rangers. Communist Viet Cong guerrillas slipped over the border from Cambodia and brutally fell upon the civilian population, decapitating dozens of villagers. Seventy miles away, they searched out the father of a Vietnamese district chief to wreak a special vengeance for his cooperation with U.S. instructors. When villagers found the old man, he had been beheaded.

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