Inside Story on Vietnam Defeat

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BURMA Hanoi Tony Richardson reviews "Decent Interval-The American Debacle in Vietnam and the Fall of Saigon" by paperback at £2.95.

Communist high command, our intelligence reports quickly registered this development.

By mid-July such indicators 'Decent Interval" is a of a change in Hanoi's policies gripping inside account of had reached seismic proporone of the greatest events of post-war history: the According to agent reports, Communist troops were already defeat of US imperialism in discussing plans for an imminent cessation of hostilities-possibly Frank Snepp, a CIA analyst without Thieu's prior removal.

at the US Saigon embassy CIA circuiting also revealed that during the last days of the Thieu the Chinese had just advised Hanoi to soften its political regime, writes as a man disgruntled not because he is a demands to facilitate an accomodation."

socialist but because he is angered by the way imperialism's agents and supporters in In the Paris 'peace tal Vietnam were let down by the North 1 Vietnamese dele US ruling class. dropped the call for the re His story describes the of puppet President Thieu processes that brought the But as Soviet, Chine defeat of the most modern and Hanoi Stalinists piled sophisticated weaponry and the pressure for a settlement best intelligence network in the the NLF forces in the there were two unre It shows that for all the problems. spying, the bugging, the torture One was that the impe and brutality available to obtain were unable to stabilis information for the imperialists, corrupt and economically what is done with that informa- cated Thieu regime witho tion is a political decision. liquidation of the NLF in the South-thus perpet Too late the civil war.

The other was tha American Ambassador Hanoi leadership was far Martin, tor example, as supreme confident that after a nego Us representative in Vietnam, "compromise" its b believing that the Soviet and would remain safe fro:

North Vietnamese Stalinists imperialist-backed co would negotiate a settlement, brushed aside intelligence For the Soviet and F reports and refused to allow an bureaucracies of course evacuation of US forces by away from the battlegro fixed wing aircraft until it was such problems were incidental interest. They Indeed he refused to allow tinued to press for a deal a helicopter airlift until he personally had been down and How far they were pre seen the impossibility of using to go to stop anti-impe fixed-wing aircraft. struggles in the regio He even instructed Snepp revealed starkly in the bor and other analysts to gear their the Cambodian war intelligence reports along certain Norodom Sihanouk entitle US bombers at Gulf of Tonkin War with the CIA.

Snepp is able to show the indifference to injustice at hom These leaders recognised the He points out that his r intelligence material: but he 1s reality that underlies the political decisions. political decisions that unable to grasp the economic predominate over the revolution can resolve. Now more clearly than ever, th extremes of poverty and wealt demonstrate the irreconcilabl class conflicts that only socialis and abroad is impossible. Now on the balance of class forces for US imperialism would have both in S.E. Asia and on a world profound impact that a defeat led the final North Vietnamese offensive, clearly shows the con- tinuity of Stalinist sabotage of the liberation struggle after the 1954 Geneva agreement. CIA-sponsored Lon Nol gc ment installed, while Siha himself was in Russia. was actually overthrown an Kosygin assured him:

more than ever, each of us i cracy balancing between the And, as a parasitic bureau- situation in 1968 when • He describes for instance fidence in the Soviet Ur "You can have absolute of dissident ex-CIA agents have emerged reveals the crisis of US imperialism. some, such as ›nepp, remam committed to the The very fact that a number Whether to struggle for rea system of minority comfort an forced to make a consciou choice whether to support th privilege with all its securit apparatus and repression, o and the strength of imperialism workers' states on the one hand on a world scale on the other, strength of the masses in the deformed and l degenerated exploded on the nation like a bombing of North Vietnam. bombshell, setting off a wave of Americans had just restarted "His (Nixon's) declaration backing of your struggle the Chinese. They helped while you were in Phnom will support you-to the You will see how it will be like Philip Agee, show that it is to rectify' the CIA; but others, capitalist system while seeking all of society, in the domestic a fair distribution of benefits fo equality of opportunity an the Stalinists fear above all any disruption in their carefully arranged "peaceful coexistence" extend to the Soviets them- public protest. But significantly, the indignation did not seem to but now you are no long will do "you will see what most corrupt agencies of imper- possible for even sections of the well as the international order It's harder now not to realis with the imperialists. was held on schedule, and selves. The summit in Moscow and then asked Moscow Sihanouk went on to C ialism to break from it and Upsurge during the final sessions recognise his governmel reach out towards socialism. that there are two sides, harde Kissinger took advantage of the exile. The Soviet bureau‹ gap left in Snepp's account: "Reforms of the FBI and the Agee is thus able to fill it or not we contribute day ir harder not to recognise that likr not to understand each, an‹ in the immediate post war This could be seen to be true Vietnam. The United States, he cordial atmosphere to mount a new peace initiative on replied that since he wa China it was now up to Chinese to do so first.

remove the problem. American capitalism based as it is on CIA, even the removal of the President from office, cannot taken the decision that they side or to the pther" and day out either to the one US imperialist leaders hac Inside the Company, p.59: revolutionary upsurge and wel- comed the arrival of occupying period, when the Vietnamese Communist Party headed off a pared to halt the bombing of release of all our prisoners, if told the Soviets, was now pre- the North, even before the made by Chou En Lai in N Korea. The Soviet Sihanouk's regime, m spee Peking duly did reco imperialist troops; it was shown Hanoi would back off its anti- d'Affaires then blandly de survive without force-without personal greed, simply cannot exploitation of the poor, with its fundamental motivation in in South East Asia. They were determined therefore to defea could not afford to allow any kind of political independence to be true in the treacherous Geneva Conference agreement the wake of the defeat of which partitioned Vietnam in Soviets were impressed offered to convey the message Thieu plank. As Kissinger had hoped, the that this was recogntion, ! the statements "were not r on Chinese soil". In the event only two a secret police force. The not only the liberation struggle French imperialism at Dien Bien to Hanoi. On I5 June, Soviet European states (Yugoslavia it is capitalism that must be opposed with its CIA, FBI and argument is with capitalism and in Vietnam but also the Sihanouk in Cambodia. bourgeois nationalist regime of Phu in 1953. Though the Vietnamese President Podgorny flew to the North Vietnamese capital with Roumania) recogr Sihanouk's government-in-ey other security agencies under- The mastes of Vietnam and carried through the liberation of Stalinists could easily have Almost simultaneously Com- the new proposal in hand. only refused recognise The Soviet bureaucracy and privilege. determination to retain power stood as logical, necessary mani- festations of a ruling class's Now, more than ever, and Peking. had one vital ally-the Stalinist bureaucracies of Moscow, Hanoi Cambodia refused to submit to such repression: but imperialism of US imperialism in the South. heavily on material from a book instead agreed to the installation the whole of Vietnam they Snepp's book, drawing munist troops in South Viet- settlement. Since the CIA had agents plugged deep into the nam began, receiving detailed briefings on the prospect for a embassy in Phnom Penh the very moment that si from the Khmer Rouge lit tion forces began falling bo LAOS LAND Barrgkok Paili • Ampil KAMPUCHEA Penine • Ho Ch Minh Mile:

KnI 407 tions. world. too late.

costs. lines!

scale. the Crisis the the dilu ks' the egation emoval se and the t onto solved rialists ¡e the •dislout the uating t the from stiated orders m an unterPeking '-well lund -only conat all pared rialist is ok on by id My egime id the overninouk = connion's ÷ We end. : with • you Penh fer in they hina, to nt-incracy as in , the gnise eches forth large enied since nade East land mised xile.

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SOCIALIST FRESS. mainesia: is Jane ISSU Butcher Nixon signs communique in Moscow, 1973 Bitter legacy of US saturation bombing 'Victory to the NLF" and instead to press the call for ¡'Peace in Vietnam"

The Peking bureaucracy held a similar position-throwing its support behind Sihanouk only as a counter to the influence the Soviet Union had acquired over the Vietnamese Stalinists.

Yet despite the efforts of both imperialism and Stalinism a 'compromise' settlement proved impossible. However deformed and degenerated, the social system of the workers' states, based on nationalised property relations, is incompatible with that of imperialism.

Repression

Capitalism in crisis is driven to seek new markets and to intensify exploitation and repression in its existing orbit. It cannot risk an upsurge of the super-exploited masses of Asia.

In response to such moveLiberation forces ride ments the leaders of imperialism are forced to take political decisions of global importance. It is in this context that the politics of individuals (Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Thatcher, keagan) can shape the lives of countless millions.

Snepp's book ably illustrates the way in which the actions of individuals who have never been elected by anyone-such as Kissinger and Ambassador Martin-can be central to the development of world history.

At the same time individuals take their decisions at each point under material and political pressures.

Within the USA, for instance, the mass anti-war movement emerged out of the defeats on the battlefield and the determination of the Vietnamese to struggle against imperialism.

The anti-war movement eventually not only enforced a Us withdrawal. but created the Vietnamese refugees triumph into Saigon in 1975 material conditions for the Watergate revelations.

By 1973 the US imperialists desperately wanted to negotiate a face-saving "peace" that preserved their puppet regime in the South.

But at this point another individual made his presence felt. President Thieu was determined to hang on to as much as possible.

As Snepp points out:

"As the Summer came to an end, he therefore launched several ambitious military operations, ostensibly to clear NVA (North Vietnamese) units out of base camps in the delta and along the Cambodian border north of Saigon, but in fact to eliminate any lingering American doubts about his capabilities.

"With the pressure mounting Hanoi's military leaders, General Giap and his chief of staff General Van Tien Dang, began clammering for a response in kind. But their arguments foundered on the reticence of Hanoi's chief patrons.

Neither the Soviets nor the Chinese would guarantee massive new military aid in the summer and fall of 1973, and though both agreed to increase economic assistance, they insisted on attaching all sorts of strings to ensure it was used wisely.

In view of these constraints, the Politburo decided in early October that it had little choice but to move cautiously and conservatively on the battlefield. Instead of striking at Thieu's army in the months ahead it elected to target Saigon's weakest spot, its pocketbook, launching a series of hit and run attacks-'strategic raids'-to further unsettle the economy and to frighten off foreign investors."

In the next month, as Snepp shows, each move made by the North Vietnamese and NLF forces to strengthen their negotiating position brought them easy victories.

As a result the North Vietnamese were carving themselves out a "buffer" area. As Thieu persisted in his refusal to compromise, they went from one victory to the next.

With the ease of the victories, General Dung proposed a change to the Hanoi leadership.

"The decisions he was urging on the leadership pointed clearly towards a monumental shift in strategy. What had begun only weeks before as a limited military cam paign, focused on the highlands and carefully calibrated not to overprovoke the United States or detract from reconstruction at home, was now being expanded towards the threshold of a multi-front 'general offensive', with all the uncertainties and hazards that implied."

It was this general offensive, spurred on by collapse after collapse of the puppet forces, which eventually brought the fall of Saigon.

But the decision to press forward was not simply dependent on the balance of military forces. The Hanoi bureaucracy had also recognised the continuing threat they would face as long as Thieu or a similar puppet regime held power in the Snepp's book also includes what could be subtitled a "history of evacuations"-charting the spread of panic in towns and cities as the North Vietnamese army approached; the desperate fights for seats in the last planes, as the US took the decision to pull out; and the tens of thousands that were left In Saigon, where. only 140,000 were evacuated, active supporters or collaborators with the puppet regime were estimated to total (with families) some one million.

In the light of such figures, the subsequent numbers of Vietnamese "Boat people" can be seen more in proportion.

"Half measures"

Meanwhile it is important to underline the dangers that also flow from the major defeat inflicted on US imperialism in Vietnam, and the subsequent setbacks for imperialism.

The CIA station chief in Vietnam is quoted as saying that the problem was "niggardly half measures" by the US administration.

Ronald Reagan. with oden talk of using nuclear weapons to enforce US control on a world scale, echoes these views. Carter, too, with his arms build up and cold war offensive shows the harsh reality that a wounded imperialism is no more ready to give up its power and possessions than the far more self-confident imperialism of the 1950s and 1960s.

The only answer to such threats is a revolutionary answer: international action by the working class to overthrow capitalist property relations, and remove the parasitic Stalinist bureaucracies in the deformed and degenerated workers' states.

Imperialism and Stalinism stand together in opposition to such movements: only Trotskyist parties, as part of a reconstructed Fourth International can lead the necessary revolutionary struggles.

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SOCIALIST PRESS, Reiresia: Juri Henry Phillips reviews two current exhibitions of painting in London by Andrew Wyeth at the Royal Academy of Arts, Picadilly until August 31 and by Zoran Muzic at the 12 Duke St Gallery St James's SW1 until the end of June. ige

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Frank Snepp, published by Penguin Books in