![]() ![]() Behind the facade of the cities and deep in the minds of “ Westernized” Vietnamese, the village remains the archetype, the perfect closed circle of the community. 1ĪT THE base of Vietnam lies the village. What is the relationship between man and society in Vietnam? What are the traditional modes of political expression, and how have they changed under the impact of the West? How do the Vietnamese view American policy and the American military piescnce Ĭulturally, as geographically, Vietnam is hall a world away from the United States an American travels to Vietnam only through a vast eflort of translation. To discuss solutions to Vietnamese problems it is first of all necessary to understand the problems as they occur to the Vietnamese. In 1962, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said, “Every quantitative measurement we have shows that we are winning the war.” His remark was a warning signal that the failure of prediction has not stemmed from mere overoptimism. With these simple assertions the United States has drawn a design which does not correspond to the pattern of political forces in Vietnam. In recent months President Johnson has offered to withdraw American troops from South Vietnam on the condition that North Vietnam withdraw its troops, presumably on the assumption that the South Vietnamese government could settle its own domestic problems were it not for Northern aggression. They assume that South Vietnam is a nationstate, and that with a certain amount of assistance it can develop a non-Communist government which will satisfy the needs and aspirations of its population. Policy-makers assume, first, that the 17th parallel dividing North and South Vietnam corresponds to the frontier between Last and West Germany in that it divides Vietnam into two parts, each of which has a separate identity. policy-makers have yearly had to revise their estimates about the course of the war and the need for American intervention raises the question of whether or not these assumptions conform to reality. The United States is fighting a war in Vietnam on the basis of certain assumptions about the nature of Vietnam. As they used the same words, they had assumed they were speaking the same language. ![]() Though the Vietnamese, a former Viet Minh commander, had emphasized the political component of the revolution more strongly than had the American, there had seemed to be no reason why the two should keep circling and retarding around the subject, as if in argument, impatiently illustrating their views on the tablecloth. They had spoken in terms of a social revolution and a democratization of the administrative structures. For the past few hours the two had been engaged in a heated discussion about economic development in Vietnam. The American had drawn a system of rectangles with arrows leading from one box to another, while on his side of the table die Vietnamese had drawn a scries of ellipses beginning and ending at the same base curve. LATE at night a Vietnamese officer and his American civilian adviser rose from the table and parted in agreement, leaving behind them on the tablecloth two designs. ![]()
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