Saigon: A Calm Week Under Communism

To restore order, to maintain calm, to remold South Viet Nam into a new socialist image--these were the tasks facing the new Communist rulers of Viet Nam last week. In the ten days after their triumphant entry into Saigon, they wasted no time in starting on them. Reports from the new Viet Nam--some from the Communists' Liberation Radio, but others from reputable Western journalists still in the city--suggested that calm and order had indeed been quickly restored. Unlike the ruthless new rulers of Cambodia (see story page 26), the victors in Viet Nam seemed anxious to win the good will of a population that only days before had been in a state of panic. The Communists gave every indication that they would establish tight, unopposed control over the land and people that had suddenly become theirs. But the mood in South Viet Nam last week was one of relief and calm as the conquerors took their first steps away from the art of war and toward the less spectacular, more complex art of governing.

At a mass rally held at the gleaming presidential palace in Saigon on the 21st anniversary of the Communists' victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu, the new rulers officially introduced themselves. Chief among them was General Tran Van Tra, 57, a onetime peasant from a village near the North-South border who was head of the Viet Cong's armed forces during the war (TIME, May 5). Tra introduced the eleven-member military administration committee that will direct Saigon's return to normality. In his speech, delivered beneath a huge picture of Ho Chi Minn, Tra praised the "fierce anti-American spirit" of the South Vietnamese and promised leniency toward those who had worked for the old government or for the U.S.

Indeed, the rule of the Provisional Revolutionary Government in its first week seemed to combine a surprising degree of moderation and conciliation with some unmistakable moves toward consolidating political control. The 120 foreign journalists who remained in Saigon after the surrender of the old government were at first allowed to move around unrestricted; press communications with the rest of the world --suspended hours after the Communist entry into Saigon--were restored. By week's end, however, the government announced that all foreigners, including newsmen, would have to register with the new authorities and that sensitive areas such as the airport and the harbor would henceforth be off limits. Within the country, news was being carefully managed. All non-Communist newspapers in the capital were suppressed. The city's only sources of information were the government-controlled radio, a new newspaper called Saigon Liberation and a few copies of two Hanoi newspapers.

Stern Warning. There was a similarly controlled return to normality in other areas of life. Within days, Saigon's stores--and a black market well stocked with goods looted from the American PX--had reopened, though banks were still closed and all transactions were ordered to be conducted in the currency of the old regime. Flags of the victorious P.R.G. sprouted from homes, buses, cars and bicycles alike. There was even one small resurgence of Saigon's pre-Communist decadence: on the veranda of the still operating Continental Hotel, long a hangout of foreign journalists, a few "ladies of the night" had reappeared--though no doubt the zealously puritanical Communists would put an end to prostitution. They did move quickly to remove one abuse of the old Saigon regime; on the island of Con Son, hundreds of prisoners were released from the infamous "tiger cages" where many had been kept for years.

There was no evidence so far of the bloody reprisals widely feared before the Communist takeover. There were reports that Duong Van ("Big") Minh, who as South Viet Nam's President (for two days) had handed over power to the Communists, was no longer in custody and had returned to his villa. Also released were 14 other former members of the Saigon government. All army officers and officials of the old regime were ordered to report to the new authorities and were sternly warned that if they resisted they would be "severely punished." One former ARVN captain told Associated Press Correspondent George Esper in Saigon that field-grade officers with the rank of major or higher were being taken off immediately to camps for three months' "re-education."

The conciliatory approach apparently taken by Saigon's new rulers was clearly in their own best interests. Without the gigantic American-supported apparatus that sustained its economy, South Viet Nam will need the help of all its people both to restore basic services and to make the inevitable transition to a socialist system. According to Western observers, the new government did not lack for volunteers. Traffic was being directed by students, inspired, in Hanoi's words, "with revolutionary ardor"; a gigantic cleanup campaign was set in motion to rid the city's streets of the debris of the past few weeks, especially the uniforms and equipment scattered conspicuously on the streets by South Vietnamese soldiers in the hours before the Communists entered the city. The disorder and looting that also marked those hours had abruptly stopped--presumably because the new government made it clear that summary justice, meaning on-the-spot execution, would be dispensed to anybody who violated public order.

There were clear hints of more profound changes to come. The P.R.G. announced that farms, industries, and transport facilities had been nationalized. Although it would take many months before properties could be converted from private ownership to state control, Hanoi-style socialism was the new government's unwavering aim.

Hair Styles. Hinting at another long-desired goal, reunification with the North, the P.R.G. turned Saigon's clocks back one hour to conform with Hanoi time, and sections of the ancient French-built Hanoi-Saigon railway, unused during the war, were reopened. There were also signs that "liberation" of the South might have some impact on the North, especially if residents of one region were allowed to travel freely in the other. Bureaucrats in Hanoi have been studying sketches of different clothing and hair styles, apparently to enliven the drab appearance of the North.

Despite these moves, it is not yet clear when reunification will take place. The swiftness of the Communists' victory left Hanoi without enough cadres to administer towns and villages in the South; many more loyal bureaucrats need to be trained before the country can be governed from a single capital. The capitalist economy of the South, moreover, will have to undergo time-consuming changes before it can be successfully meshed with the centrally planned economy of the North.

The efforts of the P.R.G. to establish diplomatic relations with other countries--at least eleven nations, including the Soviet Union and China, have recognized the new regime--suggest that the South Vietnamese Communists expect to maintain a separate government for some time. Most U.S. experts believe that a formal linking of the two Viet Nams could take anywhere from two to five years.

Whatever the timetable it was clear, as many Southeast Asia experts have long said, that a united Viet Nam could be the dominant power of the area. With a combined population of about 43 million, it would dwarf neighboring Laos and Cambodia and be larger than Thailand (pop. 41 million). During a generation of continuous warfare, the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong allies clearly proved themselves to be among the best-trained and best-equipped fighters in the world. The North Vietnamese army of 570,000 is four times as large as that of Thailand. In swiftly conquering the South, the Communists fell heir to some $5 billion worth of U.S. military equipment, according to Pentagon estimates. Though nearly 200 American-built planes were flown out of Viet Nam to Thailand by escaping South Vietnamese pilots (and then largely recovered by the U.S.), dozens of aircraft fell into the Communists' hands, including 72 F-5s and A-37 jets. In addition, the North Vietnamese military picked up numerous M48 tanks, supersophisticated TOW missiles, Jeeps, trucks and crates of rifles and machine guns.

Clearly, such military might would be worrisome to neighbors of a united Viet Nam. Nonetheless, with a war-devastated economy--and a combined G.N.P. that is only half that of Thailand's--Viet Nam under Communist rule faces an immense task of development; it will probably prefer to carry out that chore before flexing its military muscle. In any event, the Moscow-leaning Communists of Hanoi have a giant neighbor that worries about the stability of the region. China's interest in having secure and stable borders in Southeast Asia may prove to be an effective guarantee against Vietnamese expansion.

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