A Change of View

Among his major campaign promises, South Viet Nam's President Nguyen Van Thieu pledged himself to root out government corruption at the national and provincial levels. Last week Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Refugees and a recent visitor to Viet Nam, delivered his own progress report on Thieu's efforts. He painted a grim picture. "The government of South Viet Nam is infested with corruption," Ken nedy told the World Affairs Council of Boston. "It is almost impossible to go to Viet Nam and speak with any can did American or South Vietnamese citi zen without instantly becoming involved in a discussion of the corruption of the central government."

Bribes & Bootlegging. Kennedy's observations were based on an intensive, twelve-day tour of refugee camps and talks with hundreds of peasants and government officials. "Government jobs," said Kennedy, "are bought and paid for by people seeking a return on their investments. Police accept bribes. Officials and their wives run operations in the black market. Army vehicles are used for private purposes. Supplies disappear and show up in the bootleg stores on the street."

Recently, officials caught a South Vietnamese army unit that was actually running hot goods to Saigon's black market in an ambulance, complete with blaring siren. Even the chief of staff of South Viet Nam's 5th Division was caught using government trucks to transport U.S. rice to areas where it could be sold to the Viet Cong.

Nepotism remains particularly virulent. Kennedy cited the case of a recent U.S. effort to bring Vietnamese war veterans to the U.S. to study at American universities, and learn about the country. "We asked the government of South Viet Nam to select some qualified men," Kennedy recalled. "The list they gave us consisted mainly of relatives of government officials." So a new list was demanded. "But all the new applicants," said Kennedy, "had been made to promise a percentage of their scholarship payments to the officials who chose them."

Kennedy also deplored the treatment of South Viet Nam's 2,000,000 refugees, who, he said, are becoming increasingly anti-American. "Only a handful," he said, "claimed that they were driven from their homes by the Viet Cong." Kennedy's speech represented a major turn-around of his views since 1965, when he last visited Viet Nam. "Continued optimism cannot be justified," he said. "The objectives we set forth to justify our initial involvement, while still defensible, are now less clear and less attainable than they seemed in the past. The pattern of destruction we are creating can only make a workable political future more difficult; and the government we are supporting has given us no indication that it can win the lasting confidence of its own people."

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