"Necessary Measures" in Saigon

Some 100 South Vietnamese newsmen and 20 foreign correspondents assembled in Saigon last week on command of Premier Nguyen Ngoc Tho. For three hours Tho castigated the performance of the very newspapers to which his government had pledged full freedom. He fumed at what he called their unconquerable tendency to print lies and "sensationalism." His criticism even extended to the character of some of the editors. One, he suggested, was an opium addict; another was playing footsie with the Communists. If the country's press did not mend its ways, concluded Tho, "the government would have to take the necessary measures."

Those measures began the very next day. Charging that three of Saigon's 44 new dailies (TIME, Dec. 13) had "cynically slandered the army and thus damaged the morale of the soldiers," the Ministry of Information closed all three "until further notice." The charge did not describe the newspapers' true offense--which was to criticize South Viet Nam's Premier Nguyen Ngoc Tho.

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