The Courier News from Blytheville, Arkansas • Page 10

BLYTHEVILLE fARK.) COURIER NEWS MONDAY, 'APRIL 1954 Bttttlt for Indochina West Must Be Firm at Geneva To Save Indochina from Reds BDITOB'S NOTE WiUiam L. Eyan AP specialist on Communist affairs, has reported the cold WM from the Soviet Union and many other countries on four continents. A few weeks ago he went to tetecUsft to hot war involving communism on one side and the free world on the other. He IbM flew to Singapore to write his findings free of censorship. This is the first of several articles he wtt write week on the eve of the Geneva Conference.

By WILLIAM L. RYAN AP Foreign News Analyst SINGAPORE (AP) In North Indochina today you find it difficult to shake off the feeling fOtt tre standing by and watching a nation slowly die. Viet Nam can be saved, you are told. But all the solutions involve time and time fc running out in Indochina. fci Tonkin la the north and Cochin China to the south, I attempted to sift all thades of opinion Vietnamese and American optimistic and pessimistic, the wishfully thinking and the bluntly realiitic.

I could only conclude: the West holds fast at the Geneva Conference, opening next Monday, Indochina eventually will become another Communist-dominated people's democracy. These questions are uppermost in many minds in Saigon and Hanoi Is Viet Nam to be another Korea? Can it be saved short of powerful military intervention? Is It in fact the sputtering fuse of World War There are some signs on the horizon, but chey are too few to warrant any pleasant optimism. There is long hard road ahead for the French and the Vietnamese if the country is to survive. If it does not. the best American military opinion is the West can write off most of Southeast Asia in the vast political and economic war.

Why are the French and Vietnamese. with so much superiority IB equipment, such vastly greater firepower and such an economic advantage in Indochina still largely on the defensive after 7 years of dreary jungle war? For one thing, Ho Chi Minn and fee other Communists who lead the Vietminh rebellion are fighting the war on three fronts military, political and psychological. On the other side, the French and Vietnamese up to now have been waging only a military war. with little attention to the other fronts. Ho directs powerful propaganda to not yet within his grasp.

other side, the French and Vietnamese up to now have been wag- Ing only a military war. with little attention to the othejr fronts. He powerful propaganda to areas not yet within his grasp. There has been little to counter it. Ho's iron discipline, his rigid control and his total mobilization in Areas he controls are met by the other side with half measures.

Gen. Rene Cogny. French commander in North Indochina, and Maj. Gen. Thomas J.

H. Trapnell, retiring commander of the I). S. Military Assistance Group, seem wholly agreed it is impossible to separate the political and psychological from the military aspects of the Indochina war. Yet little counter-pr opaganda to Ho's promises.

To say Chief of State Bao Dai is a respected leader is to deal in delusion. From all I could gather in Indochina, the most popular thing Bao Dai ever did was abdicate the throne of Annam in late 1945 and join Ho's Cabinet as an adviser. Bao Dai has almost no connection with the people. A peasant in a rice field knows nothing about him. Intellectuals of the country dislike and even despise him.

His following is limited to a most narrow group. He has never been permitted in the past to be anthing but a puppet of the French, never permitted to be a real leader of his country. On die contrary, to many Vietnamese, Ho is a patriotic leader. Only a few know anything about he fact that Ho belongs to Moscow. Some people drifting back from areas under Vietminh control have spread seeds of disillusionment about Ho.

But for the most part, the peasant reaction is one of hope that all foreigners will go home. has been done by the French and Vietnamese. Even the French those who spealc frankly admit Ho has a strong grip on the imaginations of a large number of illiterate, landless peasants and even on intellectuals outside the areas he controls. The Vietnamese masses know nothing about the global war between democracy and communism. To many of them, Ho is a nationalist, a patriot who is going to drive out the foreigner and who is going to give them land.

In-free Viet Nam there is no cohesive force, now bandwagon, no ideal, no leader who can capture the imagination of a whole people. Nor has there been any adequate left to till it in peace. For him all other things are largely meaningless. Talking to him in terms of intangible ideologies is useless. In Viet Nam, the reaction to the war against Ho ranges from apathy to outright hostility.

Vietnamese young men are not happy about being drafted into the army. Many dodge the draft, or buy their way out, or flee to parts unknown when the draft is near. There is much talk of tightening up loopholes, of rationing and clamping down on black markets and graft. It is well known that in Saigon an active black market trade supplies the Vietminh with bod and supplies, for example. But far, the remedies are only in the talking stage.

The French insist the Vietminh already have reached the peak of their effort, that the rebel forces can improve in quality with Chinese advice and supplies but not in quantity. Yet the same French admit that Ho's forces even now remain at full strength, ciespite his steady and heavy losses. With his system of starting at the village level, his pool of reserves seems almost bottomless. The French say they hope by 1955 to develop a Vietnamese army which can take over national defense. There is even some French hope that by nxt fall the Vietnamese can take over large areas in the Red River Delta of Tonkin and elsewhere.

permitting the French to launch an all-out offensive against Ho. The prospects, however, seem dim. In the opinion of experienced American military observers, the will not be will be three Vietnamese readv. They army sav it Viet Nam army as an effective fighting force can shoulder responsibility for the defense of its own nation. Viet Nam.

one of the three associated states of Indochina, has an importance today vastly out of proportion to its size. In 127,000 square is the size of Kansas and Pennsylvania combined. It has 22 million people, or as many as New York and Illinois together. This is not very big in sprawling Asia, but the whole continent is watching naxiously. On tne credit side.of the ledger, the French still control the key delta pie-shaped wedge on the north with Hanoi as its focal point and most of Cochin China in the south.

In the northern delta area some seven million people are nominally under Vietminh control in Tonkin. In all Viet Nam, the French continue to control areas sheltering more than half the population. And the areas which the French control are rich producing ones which feed the land and used to feed much of Asia. On the debit side, the Vietminh are strong inside the French-held Tonkin delta, ready to strike when and if the signal is given. The Vietminh also retain the initiative, choosing the time and place of The rebels have forces scattered all through the French- controlled areas, posing a constant danger to French control.

For the time being the battle is only for Viet Nam. The fighting in Laos and Cambodia is relatively unimportant. The Laotians appear to hate Communists and Chinese with equal fervor. If Viet Nam should if part of Viet Nam should be turned over to Ho and his Asians will be sure they see the handwriting on the wall. They could be expected to try salvaging what they could from what they Would regard as an unstemmable of communism.

Western influence and prestige would suffer and communism's drive through Asia would be considerably eased. "We are over a barrel at Geneva." a high-ranking American told me in Indochina. "If there is an armistice, thepolitical side goes into action. Ho Chi Minh has the only organized, disciplined force in Viet Nam. If this means a coalition government is in the offing, the Communists surely will win out in the long run.

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Main Street INDO-CHINA-The World's Oldest War I Help for Ho from Red China, just as it did for the North Koreans. Thousands of hit troopc wert trained in China by bottle-seasoned veterans, directed by Russian staff officers. Ho's guerrillas got modern weapons automatic is, tanks, artillery. Of i In September, 1950, Ho was ready to strike a major blow. His black-clad Viet Minh forces rolled down from China's I border, capturing one French border fort after another.

In October, an evacuating French garrison and a rescue column of 3500 men were ambushed. Only 600 escaped. Viet Minh forced the French back until by the end of 1950 Ho controlled tr.angle those bose rested on Red China. Its apex a.med ot rhe ice-rich Red River delta ond the c.ty of Hanoi. battlefield.

Soviet propaganda guns are aimed at metropolitan France, playing on its irritation with the costly conflict in Southeast Asia. And in the long run, they say in Saigon, Paris will decide whether the Indochina war is won or lost. Tomorrow: "The everywhere." Vietminh are Do You Know These Facts On Indochina? By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A terse rundown of terms in the news from Indochina: square miles slightly bigger than Texas, 27 million people two million more than Korea. Associated States-The republic of Viet Nam and the kingdoms of Cambodia and Laos, which have been granted theoretical independence within the French Union, an association of French overseas territories. The three states make up Indochina.

Viet Nam-Means "Land of the South," The northern province of Tonkin, the narrow coastal strip of Annam and southern province known as Cochin China make up a nominal republic headed by the former Emperor of Annan and Tonkin. Bao Dai. Annamites are the majority race in most parts of Viet Nam. Viet Nam has most of Indochina's population, about 22 million. of the Millions of Elephants," an inland belt of territory bordering Annan of the west, with about I 1 million people ruled by King Siavang Vong.

Cambodia The southwestern part of Indochina. It has a.bout four million people ruled by King Nordon Sihanouk. Vienminh Means "League for the independence of Viet Nam." A political movement led by Ho Chi Minh, who received his tutoring in Moscow, and which, at the beginning in 1945-46. at least included many nationalists as well as Communists. Tonkinese The people of Ton- Korean Shipping Idled PUSAN Eighty per cent of South Korea's marineshipping has been idled by a government ban on the import of Japanese goods, Puan's largest independent newspaper reported today.

The newspaper, the Kukje Shin- bo, said the South Korean shipping industry faces ruin. kin, the northern part of Viet Nam. There are about 10 million of them in the the size of Louisiana. Tonkin includes tne vital Sed River delta area ana the city of Hanoi, the provincial capital. Tonkin is bounded on the north by Communist China.

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