Stuff That Box, Fill Those Potholes

DEMOCRACY may be new to South Viet Nam, but some Vietnamese already seem old hands at the more devious electoral arts. To back up complaints that the presidential race was rigged against him, erstwhile Candidate Duong Van ("Big") Minh and a number of disgruntled province chiefs gave U.S. officials several copies of a ten-page sheaf of instructions stamped "Top Secret." Thieu's government, they said, had sent the documents to the country's 44 provincial governments earlier this year. Whether the documents are authentic or not, they have already played a significant role in the election by providing an acceptable reason for Big Minh to withdraw. Even if they prove to be no more than an ingenious fabrication designed to discredit the Thieu regime, the instructions constitute a thorough manual on how to manipulate a national election. And there is one strong argument for their authenticity: some of the measures they recommend for the months leading up to the election have already been taken.

The instructions told province chiefs how to set up campaign staffs to operate on two levels--publicly, to give the appearance of an open election, and secretly, to make sure that the results are tightly controlled. Phase 1 of the secret campaign, a hamlet-level study of trends among the 6,600,000 voters who cast ballots in last September's Senate election, was to be completed in June. When Phase 2 came around last July, each of some 20,000 carefully screened campaign managers was to submit short biographies on the 300 or 400 voters for whom he was responsible. The idea, said the document, was to "help the cadre know the target."

Photocopies of duplicate registration cards made out to a single voter showed how a good pro-government man could make not just one but two trips to the ballot box. Opposition voters could be dealt with in several ways. The manual suggested "dividing the opposition by buying off their leaders," and "arresting elements considered as pro-Communist." Then again, one could always "blackmail a person with a scar"--meaning a person with an unsavory background as a smuggler, say, or a habitue of brothels.

The documents suggested that just about everyone loyal to the government should be pressed into the secret campaign effort in one way or another. Campaign managers ought to be "generally prestigious." They should also have "a strategic sense, initiative, courage, a wide range of acquaintances and not be burdened with a bureaucratic mind."

Certain cadres would, of course, be suited to certain tasks. Popular Forces militiamen should be valued because they "are the eyes and ears of the uneducated who cannot judge for themselves whom they should vote for." Policemen would obviously be useful when it becomes necessary "to divide and neutralize the opposition." Army political-warfare specialists should be recruited for "hanging posters, distributing leaflets, organizing pep talks and passing out rumors." Administrators who can "incriminate" or "temporarily transfer government employees and cadres who campaign in favor of opposition candidates" are handy. (In fact, such transfers have been frequent since June.) But beware of teachers, who are commonly "uncommitted" and therefore useless. Because they are especially prone to "the complexes of an intellectual, they often cannot support the government."

One tactic that has been tried and found true in every city hall in the U.S. is evidently also thought to be promising in South Viet Nam. Public employees, said the document, "should accomplish a number of social tasks in order to increase sympathy for the government. Examples: dig wells, fill up potholes, repair the marketplace, dig canals."

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