State of the Union

President Nguyen Van Thieu rode through the hastily cleared streets of Saigon last week in his black Mer cedes and pulled to a halt inside the barbed-wire compound that Viet Nam's national television station shares with the U.S. Armed Forces network stu dios. Inside, he settled himself behind a green-cloth-covered table, permitted a makeup man to powder his high forehead, but refused to straighten his loosely knotted tie. "It will look more nat ural," he said. Then the cameras rolled and the President of South Viet Nam delivered his first major policy address to the South Vietnamese people.

It was, in effect, a hard-hitting post-Tet State of the Union message, prom ising many of the sweeping reforms that the U.S. has been urging over the past two months. The program, beamed to 170,000 TV sets within viewing range of 76% of the country's population, would, if carried out, go far toward solv ing the worst of South Viet Narn's problems. Among President Thieu's major concerns:

>MOBILIZATION. "We must make greater sacrifices because this is our coun try," said Thieu. "I have decided to increase the armed forces by 135,000." The President said that the new troops would be created mainly by mobilizing 18-and 19-year-olds and by recalling veterans under 33 with less than five years of military service.

> AUSTERITY. "I have severely forbidden the construction of sumptuous houses in order to reserve labor and resources," announced .Thieu, adding that he had given "strict instructions to close def initely the dancing bars and other dis guised nightclubs that are harmful to our good moral traditions and deprave our youth." Outdoor markets for smug gled and stolen goods were also or dered out of business.

>CORRUPTION. "It hinders every im provement in society and the progress of the nation," said Thieu. "Its eradica tion is a very difficult task that re quires much courage, many efforts and patience, but I am determined to push vigorously the anticorruption program." Punishments, he said, would range from disciplinary measures all the way to imprisonment or even death.

> REFUGEE RIGHTS. To help ensure that corrupt officials do not dip into the aid for the refugees of the Communists' Tet attacks, Thieu spelled out exactly what each refugee family was entitled to get. In Saigon it was $83, ten large iron sheets and ten bags of cement. In Hue the aid was the same except that, because of the excessive damage, each family should get 20 iron sheets. Elsewhere, each family was due $41.50, ten sheets, ten bags of cement. Thieu reported that the refugee rolls had already been reduced from the initial 700,000 created by Tet to 405,000. > REFORM. Thieu announced that he intends to create two advisory bodies to his government, made up of leading Vietnamese: a National Planning Council and a Committee for Administrative Reforms to overhaul the creaking Saigon bureaucracy. Though he did not say so in his TV speech, Thieu also intends to continue replacing corrupt province chiefs, and hopes to cut the civil service of 220,000 people to half that number within a year. If those cut loose have trouble finding jobs, a high Vietnamese official points out, they can always continue to serve their country by joining the army.

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