The task that then, faced the U.S. was the creation of an anti-Communist alternative which would appeal to the peasantry of South Vietnam. A successful "containment" policy would have had to include certain economic measures. First, the government should have sanctioned the status quo for those peasants who had enjoyed the benefits of the agrarian reforms instituted by the Viet Minh. Second, tax and land reforms of a similar character should have been extended to the remainder of the population. Third, trade between the industrial North and the agrarian. South should have been continued, since only Vietnam as a whole constituted a viable economic unit. Politically, the government should have been representative of the overwhelmingly Buddhist and peasant population. Existing parties and religious sections should have been given a part in a coalition government.

In fact, all of the preconditions necessary for such a policy were undermined by the regime imposed by the United States. In June, 1954, Ngo Dinh Diem became the de facto chief of state, possessing dictatorial powers. Diem had been in France during the later years of the war, and owed his appointment to his influence with Bao Dai, under whose regime he served as Minister of the Interior.

Diem's policies in opposition to the requirements of containment reflected his prejudices as an authoritarian, a militant Catholic and a social conservative. In all of his programs, he was actively supported by the U.S. government. In addition, acting in accordance with American interests, he cut off trade with North Vietnam and subjected South Vietnamese industry to the debilitating effect of the influx of competing American textiles and other products under the commodity import program of 1953.

The implementation of Diem's agrarian "reform" measures in 1957 coincided with the institution of a wholesale terror campaign throughout the countryside. These programs reinstated the landlords who had been removed by the Viet Minh, reinstituted rent, and at the same time failed to provide the peasants with any security of land tenure. All those peasants who had benefited from the Viet Minh reforms or who had supported the resistance movement against the French were considered "subversives" and, like Diem's other political opponents, were either murdered or subjected to torture and confinement in concentration camps.

The peasant' victims of this terrorism revolted. They were led by former members of the Viet Minh who lived in South Vietnam and by leaders of other political groups attacked by Diem This movement now controls most of South Vietnam. There is no evidence that the Hanol regime is supplying economic or military aid to the South Vietnamese movement. In October, 1963, the Baltimore Sun reported an official U.S. estimate of the sources of Viet Cong arms, which indicated that only one out of fifty weapons came from the Communist bloc. Most of the equipment was American and had been captured from Diem's army.

According to a New York Times report last month, the latest intelligence data show that there was no northern infiltration into South Vietnam through 1946. Beyond this date, there is no information. (A small percentage of the Viet Cong were South Vietnamese who went. north at the time of the partition and began to return when it became clear that no elections would be held.) Thus, the United States has been bombing North Vietnam presumably to halt the Viet Cong attacks, without having produced tenable evidence that Hanoi actually controls the movement in the South.

The only alternative to Ho Chi Minh which the U.S. has thus far offered the South Vietnamese peasantry has been increasing brutal oppression. If the American government were to withdraw now, the Communist-led peasant movement would gain control of South Vietnam. This move would not only give the peasants what they have sought since 1945, but would also offer the country the possibility of economic development, something that neither the United States nor the South Vietnamese landlords have been able to effect. If the United States is concerned about its "strategic interests" in Southeast Asia, it should offer the South Vietnamese Communists economic assistance either directly or through the agency of France or the United Nations. This would enable the regime to remain independent of support by the Communist bloc and allow the U.S. to force whatever social reforms are needed in the rest of the "free world" in that area