PROFESSOR Samuel Huntington is a "heavy." He is Chairman of the Government Department at Harvard. He is a Fellow of the Center for International Affairs. He is a member of a group called the Southeast Asia Development Advisory Group, a subdivision of the Agency for International Development. He has gone to Vietnam as a consultant to the U. S. government. And most recently he has been in Malaysia, advising the Malaysian government on how to cope with the internal problems that it faces. Huntington is more than a minor figure. His articles are published in the journals of the U. S. foreign policy elite, such as Foreign Affairs.

The public exposure of a semi-secret paper by Huntington is thus worthy of attention, interesting for what it might point out about trends within American political science and within the foreign policy-making establishment. The paper, entitled "Getting Ready for Political Competition in South Vietnam," is a discussion of the political means available to the U. S. for preventing NLF dominance. In it Huntington examines various political settlements and goes on to investigate specific constitutional and electoral formulas.

The paper assumes the desirability of a continued U. S. presence. Huntington is critical of the U. S. for not having coordinated political and military strategies more coherently, and goes so far as to say: "Much of our grief in Vietnam has come as a result of our not becoming deeply enough involved in Vietnamese politics...."

The settlement that Huntington advocates rests on an exchange: local control in certain areas for the NLF, national dominance for the Government of Vietnam, the GVN, The feasibility of this settlement depends on the ability of the U. S. to convince the NLF that it would have a chance for national power, but to at the same time make such an outcome unlikely. In return for local control (no ARVN troops, no reversal of NLF land tenure decrees, local control over taxes, and acknowledgment of NLF military units as legitimate inside the areas), the NLF is expected to approve the following conditions:

"(1) acceptance of the formal authority of the GVN as the national government;

(2) a guarantee of free movement and security in out of and within the designated districts for all civilians and civil officials of the Saigon government:

(3) a guarantee of the free movement and security of goods and commerce in and out of and within the district;

(4) acceptance of the functioning within the district of civilian ministries of the Saigon government such as agriculture, health, and education."

SUCH an agreement is intended as a basis for the destruction of the NLF as a political force capable of assuming national power. Huntington argues that it would reduce NLF power in cities (which he views as crucial to long-run success): would undermine the image of the NLF as a competing national government; and would provide a means of re-integrating NLF-controlled areas into U. S.-Saigon dominance.

The last point is particularly important. If the NLF attempted to isolate the areas it controlled from the rest of the country, it would face severe problems of communication, organization, and transportation, Alternately, if goods from outside NLF-controlled areas were allowed free circulation (the development of a capitalist market), and if the growth of entrepreneurial opportunities was permitted (the development of business elites), then the NLF-controlled areas would undergo social changes that would link them to areas controlled by Saigon. Changing social forces would produce parallel changes in the balance of political forces.

These strategies reflect two basic dicta of U. S. foreign policy, anti-communism and support for the expansion of capitalist relations. The recommendations of the paper are built upon them. Huntington proposes that the U. S. concentrate on the structure of the political institutions and electoral mechanisms that will be developed: "The U. S. can play a major role in shaping rules of the game through its negotiations with Hanoi and the NLF and through advice to the GVN."

District size, electoral qualifications, the size of the upper and lower houses of the national assembly are all discussed. So long as a relatively democratic appearance can be maintained, then the arrangements which will produce long-term stability free from NLF control are viewed as most desirable. One paragraph contains the essence of this line of thought:

"Single-member districts produce less proportional results than multi-member districts. They greatly over-represent the strongest party. If we can be sure that party is not the NLF, the system is fine. But how can we be sure?"

Finally, Huntington lists additional means whereby the U. S. can ensure the outcome it desires. Among these are support of populist non-communist leaders that undercut NLF support (Peron and Rojas Pinilla are cited as examples), U. S. control over national media, and the use of bribes and "perk-barrel" projects.

The paper is a good example of some of the work conducted by U. S. political scientists. It is characterized by a basic acceptance of the structure of U. S. foreign policy; criticisms and proposals are strategic or tactical, and do not challenge the values and assumptions upon which policy is primarily based. It admits little respect for the democratic values it occasionally professes; at times contempt almost bursts forth. (No more idealism; policies are for the protection of interests, not the implementation of ideals; perhaps a reflection of an overwhelming desire to avoid playing the Wilsonian fool.) This is facilitated by the anti-democratic content of the policy goals that it accepts.