South of The 17th Parallel

From Saigon, TIME Correspondent Dwight Martin cabled:

A sodden rot of defeat, surrender and demoralization is eating its way through the fragile fabric of earnest little Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem's hard-trying but still disorganized South Viet Nam government. Diem's power probably does not extend as far as 30 kilometers from Saigon itself, say some knowledgeable foreign observers, and in many instances not that far. At Mytho, at Baclieu, at Vinhlong and numberless other towns and villages in the south, Viet Minh control is complete and recognized--the presence of nominal officials of the Vietnamese government notwithstanding.

"The Viet Minh are agitating with a terrible intensity," said a Frenchman. Said an American: "They are burrowing in, caching their arms. Will they send their troops out in accordance with the Geneva agreement? Like hell they will. What they will do is send out a couple of phony battalions of peasants, accompanied by a few of their better-known cadres. They probably want the cadres to take refresher courses in the north anyway." He shrugged in disgust and despair.

Choose Your Picture. In much of the Cochin China countryside in South Viet Nam a curious duality of administration exists. In Mytho there is a regular government court. But most of the townspeople take their grievances to a Communist court three kilometers outside the town.

In some areas, the Reds show the people booklets containing pictures of Ho Chi Minh and Bao Dai, ordering them to sign under the picture of their choice. There are few signatures for Bao Dai.* More effective still are the propaganda speeches and the carefully phrased whispers of the women who press the Communist advantage relentlessly. "We are winning," they whisper. "We are winning. Do you want to be with us, or with the French and the foreigners? The white men have surrendered half of your country; they will surrender the other half too. Do not trust them. Come with us!"

At Cuchi, 25 kilometers northwest of Saigon, some 40 demonstrators--many of them women and children--were killed last week by a hail of rifle fire from a Vietnamese army post, and the Communists got some useful martyrs. But though the triggers were pulled by Vietnamese, the real murderers were Communist agents provocateurs. Goaded and egged on by the Viet Minh, the demonstrators had besieged the post, alternately insulting, threatening and cajoling the Vietnamese soldiers to desert.

Face the Taunts. "Ah, yah," cried the women scornfully. "Why do you want to be with the losers?" Swarms of children pranced around the post, hooting and whooping derisively at the garrison. Some threw stones. A pretty young girl leaped forward from the crowd and slapped her belly. "Sons?" she taunted. "Our bodies will bear no sons for traitors." Some women bared their breasts at the troops to shame and disconcert them.

Then from somewhere behind the demonstrators, shots rang out. The beleaguered garrison fell into the Communist trap and fired in earnest. "Murderers, murderers!" the survivors screamed as they picked up their dead. Some among the soldiers who had fired, confused and shamed by what they had done, deserted.

Behind the Communist lines in South Viet Nam, the efficient Communists systematically carried out purges of suspected deviationists in their own ranks. The French believe that many of these men had actively cooperated with the Communists in the past but were not now regarded as sufficiently trustworthy. Total number of recorded Communist murders in South Viet Nam last week: 87. No one knows how many more are unreported.

* Who last week announced from France that he would return "soon" to Viet Nam. This presumably indicated that the French expect Prime Minister Diem to fall in a few months, and are preparing to prop up Bao Dai again.

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