Voluntary Disinfection

Convinced that Premier Diem, with his accent on austere morality, is going to be in power for a while, Saigon's powerful hoodlum sect, the Binh Xuyen, agreed meekly last week to abandon its golden empire of sin, at least for the time being. "We ourselves propose the suppression of gambling dens," proclaimed the Binh Xuyen's General Le Van Vien to an astonished populace. "If we did run gambling in the past, it was only because we wanted to give the newly born state of Viet Nam an indispensable complement of money in taxes for its budget . . . Now we conceive the urgent necessity of a complete disinfection of the regime from all defects . . . to defeat Communist propaganda." At week's end, Binh Xuyen's spectacular gambling casino, Le Grand Monde, which in the old days and under earlier management paid the Communists $3,000 a day for protection, closed its doors.

Wealthy old General Vien, who runs Le Grand Monde (as well as various hotels, lumber mills and fisheries) docilely offered several thousand of his uniformed bully boys as recruits for the Vietnamese National Army; General Vien himself retired to the quiet family life he leads with his two wives, twelve children, screeching monkeys, a leopard, a tiger and some pet crocodiles. Wife No. 1 got in step with the new morality by starting a campaign against striptease, immoral books and dirty movies.

In Saigon's disinfection, however, there remained one problem. Premier Diem decided not to close down the Binh Xuyen's big brothel business for the time being, at least not before some other suitable line of work could be found for its several hundred girls.

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