U.S. Assistance Programs in Vietnam
_______________
Wednesday, July 21, 1971
House of Representatives,
Foreign Operations and
Government Information Subcommittee
of the Committee of Government Operations,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, at 2:40 p.m., in room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William S. Moorhead (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives William S. Moorhead, Ogden R. Reid, Frank Horton, and Paul N. McCloskey, Jr.
Staff members present: William G. Phillips, staff director; Norman G. Cornish, deputy staff director: Harold F. Whittington, staff consultant; Dale E. Moser, supervisory auditor, GAO; and William H. Copenhaver, minority professional staff, Committee on Government Operations.
Mr. Moorhead. The Subcommittee on Foreign Operations and Government Information will please come to order.
This afternoon the subcommittee will hear testimony from two former AID personnel. We will hear both witnesses together. I understand there is a message from a third witness who is too ill to appear.
We will first hear from Mr. Richard S. Winslow, who served at Binh Duong, a Province of South Vietnam, and following that we will hear from Mr. Theodore Jacqueney, who completed an 18-month tour of duty in Vietnam with the Agency for International Development, assigned to the CORDS program.
Mr. Winslow and Mr. Jacqueney, we normally swear the witnesses, but we do that when we have at least two members present, and so you can anticipate that you will be sworn retroactively and prospectively.
Mr. Winslow, would you like to proceed?
Statement of
Richard S. Winslow,
Former AID Employee
Mr. Winslow. This committee is responsible for a continuing review of the economy and efficiency of U.S. economic assistance operations in Southeast Asia. The most important factor in such a review is accurate information. Therefore, I would like to comment today on the quantity and quality of information which the committee receives. Since my experience is in Vietnam, I will refer specifically to information which is gathered at a low level by CORDS personnel in the field and to the eventual fate of that information. {p.244}
I will start off by saying that large numbers of the U.S. civilian and military officials in Vietnam laugh at the U.S. Congress. They laugh, because, in their words, “It’s so easy to fool the Congress.” They are referring to a variety of practices, the simplest of which is the changing of a word or phrase instead of the substance of a policy which has come under congressional criticism.
The most notable example is that of “free-fire zones,” areas where any Vietnamese seen moving were automatically considered Communist and could be bombed or shot on sight. Then came publicity over incidents such as Mylai and over large-scale civilian bombing casualties, and the whole concept of free-fire zones was heavily criticized for not taking into account the many legitimate reasons why non-Communists or noncombatants might be in a certain area. As a result of that criticism, I was told, there are still free-fire zones in Vietnam, but they are not called “free-fire zones” any more. Now they are called “specified strike zones,” or “restricted civilian access” areas. The U.S. Congress seems satisfied with this change.
There have been similar changes in the terminology of the Phoenix program, the now well-known United States/South Vietnamese effort to identify and destroy the Vietcong infrastructure. For instance, a Phoenix adviser explained to me how some Congressmen had complained about the Phoenix program’s “blacklist,” composed of the names of confirmed and suspected Vietcong in a given area. The critics, it seems, objected to the word “blacklist,” feeling that it carried the sinister meaning of being out to get individuals. Therefore, in documents, reports, and most conversations, pacification officials now use the term “special list of Communist offenders.” The new name, needless to say, has not prevented Phoenix personnel from “getting” whomever they suspect of being a Vietcong or a Vietcong-sympathizer. But, I was told, few Members of Congress have complained much lately.
Another CORDS Phoenix advisor enlightened me on the word “neutralization.” Previously, he explained, the major goal of Phoenix was the “elimination” of the VCI. “Elimination,” however, gave the unfortunate impression to some Congressmen and to the interested public that someone was being “eliminated.” Now the major goal is “neutralization” of the VCI. Of course, the same proportion of VCI are being killed in combat, and killed or captured by the mobile teams established for that purpose. But Congress seems mollified now that suspected Vietcong are “neutralized,” rather than “eliminated.”
Aside from verbal tricks such as these, I wish to speak about the two principal ways in which information gathered by CORDS personnel in the field does not reach the Congress. I will focus on the information collected on South Vietnamese corruption, such as that discussed by Los Angeles Times reporter, George McArthur, in his excellent article entitled, “Embassy Has Corruption File,” printed in the Washington Post on July 12, 1971.
First, information gathered by CORDS personnel goes through a sifting process as it passes up the U.S. hierarchy. Reports on topics ranging from community development to corruption in districts and Provinces are rewritten, and frequently made more optimistic, or softened, as they go up the line. {p.245}
As regards reports on the corrupt activities of GVN officials, what I mean by the word “softened” is, specifically, the deletion of material which is not fully provable. In Vietnam I wrote up a number of instances involving corruption of Binh Duong Province officials, basing my reports on information I collected from reliable Vietnamese and American sources. I was informed by my superiors that such reports. and the reports of dozens of others like myself, were interesting but were not substantiated with enough evidence from enough witnesses, and would therefore not get past the military region 3 office or, at most, the Saigon headquarters. In reply, I frequently asked if the CORDS and Embassy officials in Saigon and the State Department in Washington wanted legal briefs against specific South Vietnamese individuals, or if they wanted to know of the widespread unpopularity of the provincial GVN officials because of their corrupt financial activities, as reported to Vietnamese-speaking Americans by Vietnamese friends, acquaintances, and informants. In turn, I was told simply that the higher-ups did not wish to hear of corruption unless it was fully substantiated.
I found it hard to believe that high-ranking U.S. officials would not wish to hear of the probable extent of corruption and its effect on the attitudes of the Vietnamese populace toward their Government. So, in a long conversation I had with a political analyst working for the Embassy in Saigon, I asked: “How much of what the Embassy knows or suspects of GVN corruption gets sent on to State Department officials in Washington?” He replied, “Not much.” I then asked why high U.S. officials, with all we now know about our inadequate analyses of the Vietnamese situation during our involvement, would wish to ignore or downplay such a significant part of the Vietnamese reality. The analyst replied: “The capacity for self-deception should not be underestimated.”
It is quite possible, then, that our highest State Department and Defense Department officials in Washington have not read extensively from the Embassy’s “corruption file” and are therefore not as impressed with the seriousness of the problem as are the lower-ranking personnel in the field.
I would be outright surprised, however, if any U.S. Congressman has read the “corruption file” (as Reporter McArthur calls it). And this brings me directly to the second way in which information gathered by CORDS personnel fails to reach Congress.
For no matter how extensive the internal sifting process within CORDS, and I believe that it is extensive, a lot of solid, documented information on GVN corruption reaches the highest levels of U.S. officialdom in Saigon, if not Washington. Nonetheless, the simple truth. as you of the committee must know much better than I, is that the State Department and Defense Department do not go out of their way to give Congress the fullest and most accurate reports available. And there are indeed full and accurate reports with the U.S. mission in Saigon on hundreds of GVN officials and their involvement in corrupt activities.
There are good reasons, of course, why the Embassy would not make such files public: It would be difficult to deal with Government officials while publishing information on their reported corruption. But the information contained in such files is absolutely vital to an assessment {p.246} of the viability or nonviability of the present South Vietnamese Government.
Many so-called experts on Vietnam claim that the practice of corruption by officials is culturally acceptable to the Vietnamese people, and that we Americans, therefore, should not worry about it. That claim is very misleading, for in fact there are two kinds of corruption differing greatly in their acceptability to the Vietnamese. First there is the payoff routinely taken by a policeman, a clerk, or a low-ranking Government administrator, who quite literally do not receive a high enough salary to feed their families. This payment is made by the Vietnamese citizen who passes a checkpoint, or who needs a birth certificate, or who wants a vendors license. This kind of payoff is considered acceptable by the Vietnamese citizen, who understands that a man must feed his family, and that the salary of Government employees is not adequate for survival.
Secondly, however, there is the corruption engaged in by higher-ranking GVN officials — district chiefs, deputy district chiefs, Province chiefs, Province administrators, military corps commanders, and other military officers, and Saigon officials of all kinds throughout all the ministries. A large percentage of these officials are making an enormous financial killing off of the war. They get their money by several means: By taking a cut from the lower-ranking officials who have taken a payment from the ordinary citizen; by taking a healthy portion of money and materials meant for community development, refugee relief, or school improvement; by operating organized bands to steal from American PX’s and selling the items on the black market at high profit; even, unbelievable though it may sound, by selling supplies and weapons to the Vietcong, or taking a payoff from someone who does.
The profits of such activities are not necessarily kept discretely hidden. Many district chiefs and Province chiefs live in opulent dwellings, built with tons of U.S. cement originally meant for schools, health dispensaries, or local militia defense fortifications. It is not rare to see such officials driving around in a Mercedes-Benz or another expensive automobile, while the citizen, who, in the most profound sense, has paid for it, walks by the roadside carrying unclean water on a pole across her shoulders.
None of this is secret, none of this is news to the South Vietnamese people; they see the results of official corruption every day, and they do not like it. They know who the honest officials are, and who the dishonest ones are. They know that the Americans know, too, and they wonder why the Americans choose to continue unqualified support of those corrupt officials in power.
I can say this because, even during my 4 brief months in Vietnam, I was able to talk about such matters, in Vietnamese, with dozens of simple, urban citizens — taxi drivers, shop owners, clerks, low-ranking Government functionaries. I must concede that Vietnamese farmers are much more reserved and wary, and except for very rare occasions, I did not feel I could put them on the spot with questions of a political nature. But urban Vietnamese, who now account for perhaps 50 percent of the nation, do not fit the stereotype which Americans have of the Vietnamese people: That is, that of a quiet, soft-spoken man or woman, always concealing his or her true thoughts and feelings. {p.247}
Urban Vietnamese are frequently very outspoken and frank, and I learned from them immensely.
Because I was in South Vietnam for only 4 months, the specific tales of corruption which I could toll would be only a tiny fraction of 1 percent of the full story. However, I do wish to confirm, without reservation, that CORDS files and Embassy files do include a vast amount of specific, documented evidence on the subject of corruption. As George McArthur put it succinctly in his article:
Over the years American advisors have funneled into the Embassy a mountain of detailed charges, all labeled top secret in the interest of maintaining relationships with the Saigon Government. These have been compiled by military officers, civilians working in the police and pacification programs and representatives of the Central Intelligence Agency.
They include reports on everyone from district officials to generals in the joint general staff, and advisors to President Nguyen Van Thieu.
The reason why it is important for Congress to know the extent of corruption is much more than just to satisfy Its curiosity. The overriding reason is that the corruption of the present South Vietnamese Government is a main cause of its unpopularity and its consequent inability to govern effectively by rallying the populace to its cause. The key issue, then, is to decide if the current South Vietnamese governmental system has a realistic enough chance of surviving in the coming years to justify a continued substantial human and monetary sacrifice on the part of the United States.
I was told recently by a nationally-respected newsman that Dr. Henry Kissinger considers it likely that a Communist-dominated government will eventually rule South Vietnam. In that case, his goal, and the administration’s, is not to prevent such an event but rather to provide, in Dr. Kissinger’s words, a “decent interval” between the time of U.S. disengagement and the time a Communist-dominated government comes to power.
So perhaps the question which Congress must ask, and which this committee with its powers of review over U.S. foreign spending must ask, is this: Is it worth the additional enormous sums of money for military and economic assistance, to say nothing of American lives, in order to delay a Communist-dominated government in South Vietnam until, let us say, 1975 or 1976 instead of 1972 or 1973?
I would say urgently that the committee, in answering such fundamental and difficult questions, deserves access to a much fuller range of the information gathered by our pacification officials in the field. You, like the public, have been getting only a small, carefully sifted fraction of that information during the past several years. And if the Congress has in many ways been left behind in the Indochina decisionmaking process, it is in large part because the information gathered in the field, at great expense to the U.S. taxpayer, has simply not been passed on to Congress for its consideration.
Mr. Moorhead. Thank you very much, Mr. Winslow, for a very helpful statement.
Immediately following Mr. Winslow’s statement I should like to include in the record the article about the “corruption file” that he referred to as published in the July 12, 1971 issue of the Washington Post.
Without objection, it will appear immediately following your testimony.
(The article follows:) {p.248}
________________
[From the Washington Post, July 12, 19711
Embassy Has Corruption File
(By George McArthur, Los Angeles Times)
SAIGON — The U.S. congressional charges that South Vietnam’s Maj. Gen. Ngo Dzu is directly involved in drug trafficking has caused a severe case of the jitters among ranking Americans in Saigon.
The charges come at a time when, the Embassy is once again pushing a drive against corruption among South Vietnamese officials, high and low.
The Embassy is uneasy about the Dzu case — and all the rest — because U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker and his military counterpart Gen. Creighton Abrams have detailed knowledge of enough hanky-panky to cause an uproar if it was published.
Among the most closely guarded secrets in the Embassy’s files are detailed reports covering the financial misdeeds of a vast array of South Vietnamese generals and civilian officials.
In an unguarded moment, one ranking American with many years in Vietnam once reported there were only two honest generals in the South Vietnamese army. One of them has since been killed and the other is Maj. Gen. Ngo Quang Truong who commands the IV Corps area comprising the Mekong Delta region.
And another American with access to the files added, “They are all in it and if they are not personally involved their wives are.”
While such sweeping statements are probably overdrawn, they do reflect accurately the views of knowledgeable people who have long grappled with the problem of corruption in South Vietnam.
MOUNTAIN OF CHARGES
Over the years American advisors have funneled into the Embassy a mountain of detailed charges, all labeled top secret in the interest of maintaining relationships with the Saigon Government. These have been compiled by military officers, civilians working in the police and pacification programs and representatives of the Central Intelligence Agency.
They include reports on everyone from district officials to generals working in the Joint General Staff and advisers to President Nguyen Van Thieu.
Privately, Americans will sometimes point the finger at individuals — such as the current chief of Baclieu Province in the delta who is a distent relative of the president and renowned for corruption.
Officially, however, the American establishment has refused to name names.
In the early days of the war the frequent excuse was that it was useless to get a man removed if his replacement would be worse — and that was frequently the case.
In later years it has become Embassy policy to avoid getting into any public discussions of corruption beyond admitting that it was a problem supposedly getting continuing study.
This policy was strengthened within the establishment by the belief that a public airing of corruption charges would upset the Saigon regime without necessarily getting rid of anyone.
President Thieu has been notably cautious in moving against any general on corruption charges and although some have been removed they have almost inevitably cropped up again somewhere else.
NOTABLE STIFFENING
The mounting narcotics problems in Vietnam, however, has caused a notable stiffening within the U.S. Embassy and also within President Thien’s official establishment.
American officials say that the Saigon Government has been told that heroin trafficking is the one crime that cannot be tolerated. There is some evidence that the South Vietnamese generals and other officials have gotten this message.
One American official who admits that some generals may have been involved in past heroin smuggling says that they have now dropped it.
This official says that some Vietnamese officers, particularly in the air force, have always been involved in a certain amount of opium smuggling — which was more or less socially acceptable in Vietnam. They did not initially realize that raw heroin would eventually touch a very raw American nerve. {p.249}
About 6 months ago, one official says, the South Vietnamese also began to realize that heroin was a threat to their own people.
Now, the embassy claims it is getting full support from President Thieu and lesser officials in a major, nationwide drug crackdown.
This crackdown has been impressive in terms of heroin and other drugs seized and’ minor pushers and smugglers arrested. It has not, however, resulted in arrest or charges against anyone of importance.
Whether Dzu was involved in drug trafficking cannot be proved by any evidence made public, despite the charges made by Rep. Robert M. Steele (Republican from Connecticut).
Dzu, who commands the 12 Provinces making up what is known as H Corps {sic: II Corps?} in the Central Highlands area, denies the charges.
Dzu has been supported by his American adviser, John Paul Vann, who has more experience in South Vietnam than any other senior member of the American establishment. Vann said he had “every reason to believe he is innocent” of the drug charges.
It is a fact, however, that the city which is corps headquarters, Nhatrang, is the center of drug trafficking in South Vietnam. This is possibly because it is the major headquarters for the South Vietnamese air force — an item that has been used in the past to link Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky, the former air marshal who still retains de facto control of the air force, with the heroin traffic.
Though Ky has vehemently denied this, it is widely accepted in South Vietnam that he was involved in the old opium trade until he decided to brush up his public image.
Dzu was already on shaky ground when the drug charges cropped up. He was well aware of this and flew to Saigon to seek a personal meeting with President Thieu.
Only 3 weeks ago Dzu was the target of some widely publicized anonymous letters charging him with accepting bribes, looting U.S. supplies and making grandiose battle claims.
At that time, Dzu sent a transport plane 200 miles to Saigon to pick up a party of newsmen and fly them to Nhatrang for a news conference.
Flanked by his staff officers, Dzu denied everything.
Representative Steele, in making his charges, predicted that the Saigon Government would crack down on Dzu. Steele said his information came from intelligence reports that were also in the possession of Ambassador Bunker.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Charles Bray replied to this that the South Vietnamese were in possession of any information about drugs which the embassy had.
While making no direct comment about Dzu, Bray implied that it was now up to the Saigon Government to take action.
In Saigon, U.S. press spokesmen would say nothing beyond Bray’s noncommittal remarks.
________________
Mr. Moorhead. Now, Mr. Jacqueney.
Statement of
Theodore Jacqueney,
Former AID Employee
Mr. Jacqueney. Before I begin, Gerald Roback, who worked with AID in the Binh Duong Province in 1960, who was also scheduled to testify at these hearings, telephoned me yesterday to explain that he was unable to send a telegram to the subcommittee regretting his inability to appear today because of the telephone workers’ strike. He asked me to read this statement on his behalf. This would have been his wire:
I regret that I am not able to testify at the hearings of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations and Government Information on Wednesday, July 21. I am currently recovering from intestinal disease contracted in Vietnam and I am unable to travel. I have information concerning CIA intervention in Vietnamese presidential elections and I would be glad to testify concerning this information at some later date.
Mr. Moorhead. Before you proceed, Mr. Jacqueney, would you and Mr. Winslow arise and let me administer the oath to you retroactively and prospectively. {p.250}
(The witnesses were sworn by the chairman.)
Mr. Moorhead. You may proceed now, Mr. Jacqueney.
Mr. Jacqueney. I have recently completed an 18-month tour of duty in Vietnam with the Agency for International Development, assigned to the CORDS pacification and development program. I had responsibilities for community development programs, and for political reporting for the Danang City Advisory Group.
I resigned from AID this past February because I felt that U.S. policy in Vietnam supported President Thieu’s reelection. I felt then, and I continue to feel now, that, rather than upholding a particular candidate, American resources should support only the fairest possible elections in the lower house elections scheduled for August 29, and in the presidential election scheduled for October 3.
One important instance of American partisanship in the Vietnamese elections of which I am personally aware involves the Pacification Attitude Analysis Surveys run by CORDS in Vietnam. As the New York Times reported from Vietnam on February 2:
National surveys of Vietnamese public opinion are prepared and analyzed by the United States Mission here, are being used to assist President Nguyen van Thieu in his reelection campaign this year.
Mr. Moorhead. You quote the New York Times, but in an earlier sentence you say “of which I am personally aware.” Are you personally aware of the accuracy of the quotation?
Mr. Jacqueney. Yes, and I am also aware of the situation as it exists.
Mr. Moorhead. Thank you, Mr. Jacqueney.
Mr. Jacqueney. The article disclosed that:
Special questions in the surreys are now being asked to enable President Thieu to measure more clearly his own appeal with the Vietnamese voters, the popularity of his political rivals, and what issues most concern Vietnamese.
Although I played no role in leaking this story, I can personally attest to its accuracy. Months before it appeared, I was told by the men who ran these surveys at the CORDS MACV Pacification Studies Group in Saigon that the only Vietnamese officials permitted to see the new political surveys were in the presidential office. The political survey results were for the eyes of Thieu supporters only.
Another example of American partisanship in Vietnamese domestic political affairs involves the political propaganda services lent the Saigon government by the U.S. Information Agency’s Vietnam organ, the Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office, at a time when that government is denying freedom of the press to many Vietnamese nationalists. My Vietnamese friends often discussed the arrest or threatened arrest of newspaper publishers and the confiscation of newspapers. One of my closest friends — the best man at my wedding — was the Danang correspondent of a popular Saigon newspaper which often criticizes the Government. He had been jailed at least once for his journalistic activities. Although had long since stopped signing his real name to his articles, he lived under constant threat of return to prison. Another close friend was a prominent conservative political opponent to President Thieu who had repeatedly requested, and repeatedly been denied, permission to publish newspapers. Without that permission, he could publish only by pseudonym, in other papers, covertly, fearing Government retaliation all the while. {p.251}
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on March 19, 1970, Mr. Edward J. Nickel, Director of the Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office in Saigon, stated that:
JUSPAO’s principal mission was to assist the Vietnamese Government in developing means of communicating with the electorate and to provide technical and professional advice.
To accomplish this mission, Mr. Nickel revealed, JUSPAO spent more than $12 million in fiscal 1970. According to official U.S. Government figures:
During 1968 the Government of Vietnam indefinitely suspended an average of six newspapers. Sixteen others were temporarily suspended, for an average of 35 days per suspension. During 1969, through March 23, 1970, the Government of Vietnam indefinitely suspended 12 newspapers. An additional 14 received temporary suspensions, ranging from a few days to almost 11 months, for an average of 46 days per suspension.
A few weeks ago, Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky criticized President. Thieu’s corruption and suggested Communist participation in the coming elections as a possible peace concession to Hanoi. Fourteen papers carrying his speech were seized. In a Time magazine survey, 23 out of 25 editions of Ky’s newspaper, Lap Truong, were confiscated (Time, June 14, 1971). Thieu’s major presidential opponent, Buddhist-supported Duong Van “Big” Minh, has had the same problem with the press. He is endorsed by the liberal Catholic newspaper, Tin Sang, the most popular Saigon daily. According to a spot survey by the Washington Post, June 8, 1971, Tin Sang has been confiscated 141 times in the last 18 months. Its publisher is Ngo Cong Duc, Thieu’s most outspoken critic in Vietnam’s National Assembly.
Last month the Washington Post and the New York Times reported Deputy Duc’s arrest on trumped-up charges, at the time when the Thieu government was ramming through the Vietnamese Legislature a new law limiting possible presidential opponents. On July 8, the Washington Post reported from Saigon that Duc had been prohibited from running for reelection.
I wrote in my political report of the June 1970, Da Nang City Council election, that “arrest without warrant or reason” was a major local complaint by the people of Da Nang. I have personally witnessed poor urban people literally quaking with fear when I questioned them about the activity of the secret police in a past election campaign. One poor fisherman in Da Nang, animated and talkative in complaining about economic conditions, clammed up in near terror when queried about the police, responding that he “must think about his family.” After many personal interviews in Vietnam on this subject, I came to the conclusion that no single entity, including the feared and hated Vietcong, is more feared or more hated than the South Vietnamese secret police.
The U.S. funds the police, intelligence, and prison systems which — however the Saigon Government may use these against the Vietcong — are also used in the widespread arrest and detention of non-Communist critics of that government. During the month of April, 1971, the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that U.S. expenditures in advisory support to the Vietnamese police network will total $27.3 million for 1971, an increase of 25 percent over 1970. According to one article, this figure includes only the South Vietnam- {p.252} ese national police force, leaving unsaid the amount allotted by the CIA for special police force assistance. Through these programs national police strength has increased from 16,000 in 1960 to 97,000 today, with a goal of 120,000 for 1971, and 147,000 thereafter.
The American contract firm RMK-BRJ has received an AID contract for $400,000 to build 288 new isolation cells on Con Son Island prison. One year ago when Representatives William Anderson, Democrat, Tennessee, and Augustus Hawkins, Democrat, California, visited Con Son, they called these cells “tiger cages” and described what they termed “savage mistreatment” of prisoners in those cages. Political prisoners now are being transferred from prisons on the mainland to Con Son Island apparently to make them less accessible during the election campaign.
In every province in Vietnam there is a Province Interrogation Center — a PIC — with a reputation for using torture to interrogate people accused of Vietcong affiliations. These PICs have a CIA counterpart relationship, and in some cases also have a relationship with the AID police advisor. Not in all cases, however — last year the senior AID police advisor of the Da Nang City Advisory Group told me he refused, after one visit, to ever set foot in a PIC again, because “war crimes are going on in there.”
One wealthy old man I knew in Saigon was arrested and accused of being a Communist spy. Two American officials who knew this man intimately later told me that they believed that the man had actually been a VC. Both of them on separate occasions told me that once arrested, the old man had wanted to confess, but had been tortured horribly anyway, simply because it was standard operating procedure to torture prisoners.
One torture that both American officials described to me, on separate occasions, as having been administered to the old man is called “rock and roll” — huge quantities of rice and water are forced down a prisoner’s throat, and then a smooth stone is rubbed over his belly, producing days of intense pain and continual vomiting. Both men stressed, also separately that compared to some other tortures, this act was comparatively mild. Whether the old man was a Communist spy, a Vietcong soldier, or an innocent political critic, he deserved decent treatment at the hands of the police. The United States is supplying funds and advisors on a massive scale to a police force that commonly uses these methods.
In the fall of 1969, Allard Lowenstein, then my Congressman, visited Vietnam. I introduced him to a number of nationalist political figures. One of the men to whom I introduced Mr. Lowenstein was arrested soon afterwards. Kept incommunicado under house arrest for months, he later told me:
They accused me of being a Communist, but all they ever questions me about was how I knew “dove Congressmen.”
The celebrated Phoenix program is not at all successful in its American purpose of eliminating Vietcong political cadre, but it is widely used to arrest and detail {sic: detain?} non-Communist dissidents. I can remember, for example, one conversation with two Phoenix advisors in Da Nang, who had come to me for additional information about some Da Nang city councilmen who Phoenix was planning to arrest on what seemed to me to be very questionable knowledge. The plan was {p.253} scotched — but I am convinced that if I had not been available to spend that afternoon talking to those men, at least one more innocent critic of the Saigon government would have been arrested and abused. Another friend, himself a Phoenix adviser, was ultimately removed from his position when he refused to compile information on individuals who would, he felt, inevitably be “targeted,” however weak the evidence might be. While I was serving in Vietnam at least one Province senior adviser, in Thua Thien Province, was suggesting doing away with the Phoenix program altogether. I agree with him.
Some time ago a high official of the Vietnamese Government called U.S. Senator George McGovern a “Communist” and threatened to take action personally should Senator McGovern ever visit Vietnam. If George McGovern were a Vietnamese Senator instead of an American Senator, surely he would now be in a Vietnamese jail, accused as a “Communist” or “neutralist” under the kind of flimsy charges that have already permitted the arrest and detention of leading elements of the non-Communist opposition to the Thieu regime.
I am speaking about men like 1967 presidential runner-up Truong Dinh Dzu, who campaigned on an outspoken peace platform and denounced the military government of South Vietnam as corrupt and repressive. Shortly after denouncing the election results as a wholesale fraud, Dzu was arrested. The South Vietnamese Government frequently releases Vietcong political cadre captured under the Phoenix program after 1 year on good behavior, but the dangerous Mr. Dzu, a non-Communist who advocated peace, is still in jail.
I speak also of the distinguished An Truong Thanh, former Economics Minister in Nguyen Cao Ky’s Cabinet, who was disqualified from candidacy in the 1967 elections after he announced that his platform would be the word “cease-fire” and that his election campaign symbol would be a canceled-out bomb. Information was soon developed that Thanh was a “Communist.” He was jailed, then placed under house arrest incommunicado, and ultimately escaped to Paris, where he now lives.
Here in the United States, a Vietnamese Buddhist hero, General Nguyen Chanh Thi, has been living in exile since 1966, when Buddhists all over Vietnam rose up to protest his dismissal as I Corps commanding general.
As further publication of the Pentagon papers will reveal, the highest American officials counseled the Vietnamese to remove the popular general, just as the highest American officials played key roles in the downfall of Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, and, 3 months later, that of General Duong Van “Big” Minh Thi, a staunch anti-Communist critic of the current Saigon Government and an outspoken proponent of a speedy peace settlement, is now actively petitioning the Vietnamese and American Governments for permission to return to Vietnam. His name is frequently mentioned in Vietnam as a popular potential presidential candidate should “Big” Minh choose not to run and Thi be permitted to return — but this permission is unlikely to be granted.
The shabbiest case of direct American involvement in political prisoner questions is that of the former third-ranking member of the Vietnamese Lower House, Trail Ngoc Chau. In 1965, after years of separation, Chau had been contacted by his Communist brother, Tran {p.254} Ngoc Hien, and asked to provide introductions for meetings with high American officials. Chau reported his contacts and was asked to maintain his renewed relationship with his brother by prominent American officials, including high CIA officials. By 1969 Chau had become an outspoken advocate of a peace settlement that included political representation for the National Liberation Front. Chau argued that to make peace the Vietnamese Government would ‘’have to be realistic and make concessions.” John Paul Vann, presently director of the second military region in Vietnam, has stated publicly that Chau was not pro-Communist, but a dedicated nationalist. Nevertheless, Chau was arrested, literally dragged out of the Vietnamese National Assembly, early in 1970, on charges of being in contact with his brother, Hien. Vann testified last year before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Chan’s contacts with Hien were approved by Americans and reported to the Vietnamese Government as early as 1966. Only after Chau became a peace advocate was he arrested.
Three times the Vietnamese supreme court has ruled that the special military tribunal that charged Chau was unconstitutional, and three times the Vietnamese Government has ignored the court’s ruling. American officials in Saigon have consistently refused to acknowledge American responsibilities for encouraging Chau.
Shortly before his arrest, Tran Ngoc Chau said these words to an American official who has since become well known, Dr. Daniel Ellsberg:
The United States has to support the democratic system in Vietnam. It has to make clear to the generals and to the Government of South Vietnam that it will support the principle and practice of the current Constitution of South Vietnam. Right now there is some degree of danger in being a member of the legislature as I am and attempting to bring about reforms and changes in the central Government. You will recall the assassination of one leading figure of the constituent assembly. I will try, but I won’t try too hard because I realize that if I am arrested, I am not doing anybody any good, least of all myself. For me it is very important that I know that the United States will support, not me personally, but the principles of legislative government in Vietnam should anything happen to me. There are many other people like me who are more likely to be willing to take chances in attempting to reform the system if they believe that the United States will support the constitutional system.
Less than 1 day after the U.S. Senate voted not to send official observers to report on the Vietnamese elections, President Thieu, on June 23, signed into law the bill he designed to prevent opponents from running against him in the October 3 presidential election. With the critical eyes of the American Congress upon him, Thieu might have softened the restrictions. The defeat of the Stevenson-Mathias amendment to the draft bill, however, revealed that the Senate wished to take no action to encourage fair elections in Vietnam.
I ask the members of this subcommittee of the House of Representatives if this body will also be indifferent to the kind of government for which so many Americans have already been sacrificed. Separate resolutions regarding the Vietnamese elections have been introduced by Representatives Lester Wolff, Democrat, New York; Donald Fraser, Democrat, Minnesota; and Donald Riegle, Republican, Michigan. These proposals to encourage fair elections in Vietnam still languish in the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Although some 50 Representatives of both parties have cosponsored the resolution which Congressman Wolff introduced on March 3, 1971, hearings have never even been held. {p.255}
Potential Vietnamese presidential candidate “Big” Minh has accused American Ambassador Ellsworth T. Bunker of supporting Thieu’s reelection. Thieu apparently thinks he has received the same message of support not only from the American Embassy, but from the American Congress as well: He can continue to rig the elections as he pleases; the United States will pay only lip service to fair elections in Vietnam, while continuing to prop up his government and fund his war.
Right now the Vietnam war is winding down only for Americans — the miseries of the war-weary Vietnamese go on and on. The present Vietnamese Government now opposes a political settlement because it expects unending U.S. support. The war will grind on as long as U.S. material, financial and air combat assistance continues, despite the desire of the Vietnamese people for peace. Vietnamese believe that the United States still wants a military victory, without U.S. troops fighting, and that it is trying to reelect the only presidential candidate willing to prosecute the war. As I have discussed, despite declarations of U.S. impartiality, U.S. resources have been diverted to assist President Thieu’s campaign.
During his recent trip to Vietnam, Presidential Advisor Henry Kissinger, went out of his way to confer with Vietnamese opposition leaders, as well as with Government officials. However, as these Vietnamese reportedly told Kissinger, such “gestures” are not enough. They told him — and I repeat — that the United States must take active measures to support the fairest possible elections in Vietnam, or shoulder the responsibility for fraudulent elections and years more needless war.
I have three specific suggestions which I respectfully submit for the Members of Congress to consider for purposes of legislation about Vietnam:
(1) A full-field congressional investigation of JUSPAO operations and press freedoms in Vietnam should be launched. If Congress finds non-Communist Vietnamese leaders cannot disseminate their views freely, then the United States ought not to be involved in helping the Government in Saigon disseminate its views either, and the entire JUSPAO operation should be dropped.
(2) The Vietnamese political prisoner and exile issue should also be thoroughly investigated. Every congressional effort should be made to urge President Nixon to use the full weight of U.S. persuasion in Vietnam to affect the release of non-Communist political prisoners and the return of non-Communist exiles in time to participate in the October 3 election. If this cannot be accomplished, Congress should cease to fund all aid to the Vietnamese police and prison systems, or the United States will be supporting the very sort of police state that we went to Vietnam to oppose.
(3) Most important of all, if Congress should determine that the Vietnamese elections are a fraud, then all U.S. military and economic assistance to the Government in Saigon should cease. For nearly a generation, the one consistent theme in American policy in Vietnam has been to assist the people there to choose their own Government freely. If, in these elections, opposition candidates are disqualified; if opposition political leaders are jailed; if opposition leaders are kept in exile; if opposition candidates are not permitted to campaign or organize or propagate their views freely; if press freedoms are {p.256} denied; if political parties are not permitted to hold public rallies; if opposition candidates are denied access to Government-controlled broadcast facilities or Government-controlled transportation; if representatives of opposition candidates are not permitted to be present when voter lists are drawn up and voter cards are validated; if these representatives are not permitted to witness ballot casting and counting procedures and the transportation of ballot boxes between the village and district and provincial and national levels — then there will be grounds to make reasonable judgments about whether an election fair enough to reflect the views of the Vietnamese people did occur.
I respectfully suggest, therefore, that Congress end American aid to a regime that comes to power through phony elections. A government that deprives the Vietnamese people of a fair election does not deserve our support. After more than 55,000 dead and the expenditure of $200 billion to support self-determination in Vietnam, the American people have a right to say that if the 1971 Vietnamese elections are a fraud, then the United States should not send another bullet or another dollar to the Government in Saigon.
Mr. Moorhead. Thank you both very much, Mr. Jacqueney, and Mr. Winslow. You have given us a horror story which is not pleasant to hear, but which this subcommittee, the Congress, and the American people are entitled to hear. We appreciate very much your coming forward to help us.
Mr. Jacqueney, do you speak Vietnamese?
Mr. Jacqueney. Yes, I do.
Mr. Moorhead. Mr. Winslow made reference to that in his statement. Mr. Winslow, you made one statement — which I would say is the understatement of the year as far as this subcommittee has learned from its hearings — when you say:
The State Department and Defense Department do not go out of their way to give Congress the fullest and most accurate reports available.
The plain, simple fact of it is that they go just as far the other way to keep information from us, as is possible.
Mr. Winslow, you talk about corruption in Vietnam. How much do you know about the black market in currency? When you answer questions, if you can tell us when you are answering of your personal knowledge and when you are answering from generally accepted knowledge and reputation in the area, it would be helpful.
If I ask some questions that sound critical. I am trying to narrow down when it’s your personal knowledge and when it’s general gossip, you understand. Now, on the black market in currency—
Mr. Winslow. I never sold or bought money on the black market in Vietnam, nor did I try. as I know even some visiting Congressmen have done, to make a token purchase to show how easy it is to do.
I do personally know both Americans and Vietnamese who have bought or sold currency, be they American green dollars or the American military payment certificates, the MPC’s, which is what all of the personnel over there are paid in. I do know Americans and Vietnamese who — some of them occasionally, some of them frequently and some regularly — do deal in the black money market.
The exchange rate over the years has always been at a great disadvantage to a person holding American money or American—
Mr. Moorhead. You mean the official rate? {p.257}
Mr. Winslow. The official exchange rate has been at a great disadvantage and therefore allowing, of course, the black market to flourish. I don’t have any special personal revelations that I think would help you on that.
Mr. Moorhead. Is that a good device for a Vietnamese official, who wanted to make some money, to go about doing it?
Mr. Winslow. Yes.
Mr. Moorhead. Do you have any comment?
Mr. Jacqueney. No, I have nothing to add to that statement.
Mr. Moorhead. Mr. Winslow, have you ever seen this corruption file that you refer to in the Washington Post article?
Mr. Winslow. I myself have written a handful of reports which eventually ended up in the corruption file. In other words, there really are a large number of persons in the CORDS system who are charged with collecting from Americans and Vietnamese in their districts or Provinces information on corruption and sending it in to both the military region headquarters and corps and Embassy headquarters in Saigon.
So I have definitely not seen the Embassy files in Saigon. I have seen a very small number of the papers kept in military region three headquarters at Bien Hoa.
And I myself have formulated some of those kinds of reports at the very lowest level.
Mr. Moorhead. I think both of you in your testimony referred to unnamed American officials. I can understand why you wouldn’t want, in some instances, to repeat these names in public testimony. Would you be willing to give at least some of these names to the committee privately so that we could see if we could learn more information from these individuals?
Mr. Winslow. By that do you mean the names of American officials who know about what is going on, or do you mean the official who told us certain things?
Mr. Moorhead. Yes, where you referred to an official of AID who “told us” certain things, and you don’t name him. I understand why you wouldn’t want to name him publicly. Can you help us privately or is it so delicate you don’t want to do that?
Mr. Winslow. I could give you the names of a couple of people privately to whom it would be interesting for you to talk. Whether they would feel free to talk to you is a different thing. Needless to say, if I may add, the people with the greatest amount of information about all of this are some of the highest officials at the military region level and the Saigon level. Many of the types of people who have come in to testify before you previously.
Mr. Moorhead. Mr. Jacqueney, you describe yourself as having done political reporting for the Da Nang Citizens Advisory Group. What do you mean by political reporting?
Mr. Jacqueney. Every province in Vietnam has at least one officer designated as a political reporter. In I Corps, for example, we submitted spot reports, monthly reports. We had monthly meetings with the American consul in Da Nang to discuss political situations, problems that went on that month.
For example, we reported on the June 1970 city council and province council elections. We reported on the August 1970 senatorial elections. {p.258}
I submitted a number of other reports, for example, concerning student demonstrations in Da Nang, a war veterns demonstration in Da Nang and things like that.
Mr. Moorhead. In reporting on prospective senatorial elections, for example, did you report that Senator “X” stood a good chance of being elected and Senator “Y” not?
Mr. Jacqueney. Yes.
Mr. Moorhead. So that the higher ranking people to whom you reported could decide whether they would back Senator “X” or Senator “Y”? — if they chose to do so? I am not saying they did, of course.
Mr. Jacqueney. I can’t make a judgment about what they did with that information. For example, I would report things such as in my opinion the government of Saigon is terribly unpopular in Da Nang and consequently the most anti-Government Buddhist-endorsed pro-peace senatorial candidate will come in first in Da Nang. That in my opinion at that time was Vu Van Mau. Actually, this was a common opinion, not just my judgment. Vu Van Mau in that election came in with 51,000 votes. The next highest vote after him was 26,000 votes. Again, the following slate was the second most anti-Government slate. The third slate of the candidates to come in in Da Nang was a moderately anti-Government slate. The fourth slate of candidates to come in in Da Nang was again a vociferously anti-Government slate. Finally, the fifth slate of candidates, accorded something like 17,000 votes, was a pro-Government slate. The approximation of 57,000 votes in comparison to 17,000 votes, or approximately three to one, was something that we generally said was going to happen and it did.
Mr. Moorhead. Mr. Jacqueney, have you received any commendations on your political reporting? Do you have any papers either your reports to superiors or their comments on your reports?
Mr. Jacqueney. Yes, sir, I have a number of them. One that I have here of which I will give you a copy, is a commendation from Ambassador Colby. Would you like me to read it?
Mr. Moorhead. Is it classified?
Mr. Jacqueney. No, sir. It’s a commendation from Ambassador William Colby who at the time was the head of the CORDS pacification program for all of Vietnam. He wrote—
I wish to thank you for the outstanding job of reporting you did on the city council elections. It is obvious to anyone who reads your report that you devoted many, many hours to it. Such excellent work deserves commendation. Therefore, I am sending a copy of this letter to your personnel officer to be included in your file. ¶
With very best wishes, sincerely, ¶
William E. Colby, ¶
DEPCORDS, MACV.
Mr. Moorhead. What was the subject of the report that he commended you for?
Mr. Jacqueney. This was my report on the June City council elections in Da Nang. Again, it was a report where I said the Government in Saigon was terribly unpopular and I explained why the city council elections were swept by the anti-Government Buddhist candidates.
Mr. Moorhead. Mr. Jacqueney, you state that you are personally aware of pacification attitudinal surveys run by CORDS in Vietnam. ¶
To your knowledge were there any similar surveys or polls run by JUSPAO or the U.S. Information Agency?
Mr. Jacqueney. I have heard that there were. ¶
I have also heard that there were CIA reports. Again, I have heard that those CIA {p.259} reports were done by the Quayle organization. How accurate this information is, I don’t know.
This is common Saigon table talk and table talk back here in Washington among people who talk about Vietnam and who have been there and know something about it.
Mr. Moorhead. I have served in this House for 12 years and I have never been able to afford a political poll. ¶
I would certainly like to have one in the future if you can arrange the financing for me.
Mr. Jacqueney. They take a partisan side, sir. ¶
In Vietnam, as you know, the CORDS poll is given only to one candidate and not others. ¶
Unless you are approved by the CIA and the pro-Government sources, you might not be able to get one.
Mr. Moorhead. Of your personal knowledge do you know the questions that were asked in this pacification attitudinal analysis survey?
Mr. Jacqueney. I do.
Mr. Moorhead. Can you summarize them or if its going to take some time, would you prefer to submit that for the record?
Mr. Jacqueney. Well—
Mr. Moorhead. Can you give us an example of a revealing question?
Mr. Jacqueney. Yes. Frankly, sir, this seems almost silly. Now it looks like I am revealing something to you, and one of your subcommittee staff people-gave me the thing I am now giving to you. I will read it but I didn’t provide it.
Question No. 54 of the November Pacification Attitudinal Analysis Survey.
Mr. Moorhead. What date is that?
Mr. Jacqueney. November 1970. The question is: ¶
“What do the people of the community think about the quality and ability of the National Government?” ¶
And then the responses are supposed to be, ¶
“The government is strong and capable and strives hard to assist the people; the government strives hard to help the people, but is not yet strong or capable enough to do much; the government is capable and good, but cannot control lower echelon officials; the government is strong and capable; the people in it think about themselves before the people; the government is not yet strong and capable and the people in it think about themselves before the people; does not know; or does not want to respond?{”}
Another example, ¶
“What kind of man should he elected next September?” “A man capable of bringing unity to South Vietnam; an independently minded man, not subject to U.S. or VC/NVA influences; a neutralist; a man responsive to the needs of the people; a man who can restore peace to South Vietnam; a man who can solve the economic problems facing the nation; a man who can cure social problems and social evils in South Vietnam; does not know; or does not want to respond”
Question: “What issue will you consider most important in deciding who to vote for in the next elections?” ¶
Responses: National unity; social reforms; organization of construction and loyal opposition: stable economy; anti-communism; nationalism; coalition government; other; does not know; or does not want to respond.{”}
Question: “Which three of these people, are most likely to run for election in September?” ‘’Nguyen Van Thieu, Nguyen Cac Ky, Duong Van Minh, Tran Van Huong, Ha Thuc Ky, Vu Van Mau, Tran Van Don, other, does not know; does not want to respond.” {p.260}
Mr. Moorhead. Without objection the full questionnaire will be made a part of the record.
(The material follows:)
