The View from Saigon

For all the light it shed, the news that U.S. newspaper readers got from Saigon might just as well have been printed in Vietnamese. Was the war being won or lost? Was the Buddhist uprising religiously inspired or Communist-inspired? Would the government fall? Only last month, the New York Times threw up its hands helplessly and, beneath an editorial apology, printed two widely divergent accounts of events: one presented the picture as viewed from Washington, the other as viewed from Saigon.

Uncertainty out of Washington is not exactly news, but one of the more curious aspects of the South Viet Nam story is that the press corps on the scene is helping to compound the very confusion that it should be untangling for its readers at home.

Much of its failure can be traced to its solidarity. Foreign correspondents, wherever they are stationed, are tempted to band together into an unofficial club; they are their own closest connection with home. When they have finished covering a story, when they have examined it from every angle, they find it pleasant to relax in each other's company. In Saigon, however, more than mere sociability brings the U.S. correspondents together.

Aloof & Hostile. The country is completely alien to their experience. It lies in the middle of nowhere: 8,000 miles from the U.S., part of a uvular peninsula jutting into the South China Sea. Everywhere they turn, the U.S. correspondents find obstacles standing in the way of dispassionate reporting. None of them speak the language with any fluency--and their Vietnamese contacts seldom speak English. When possible, they resort to the country's second language--French.

In all the land, there are only two stories to report: an extraordinary kind of war, and an extraordinary kind of government, in which the figure of the President is shadowed by his brother, who wields strong police power, and by his tiny sister-in-law--who holds no office at all. At the battlefront, both U.S. military observers and the Vietnamese brass blandly tell the newsmen stories that blatantly contradict evidence obvious to the journalists' eyes. In Saigon, the ruling family is reserved, aloof, openly hostile; it does not trust the Western correspondents--and does not trouble to hide its feelings.

Caravelle Camaraderie. Such uncommon pressures unite the newsmen to an uncommon degree. They work hard and go their separate ways on separate assignments. But when they meet and unwind--in the field, in their homes or in the camaraderie of the Hotel Caravelle's eighth-floor bar--they pool their convictions, information, misinformation and grievances. But the balm of such companionship has not been conducive to independent thought. The reporters have tended to reach unanimous agreement on almost everything they have seen. But such agreement is suspect because it is so obviously inbred. The newsmen have themselves become a part of South Viet Nam's confusion; they have covered a complex situation from only one angle, as if their own conclusions offered all the necessary illumination.

Such reporting is prone to distortions. The complicated greys of a complicated country fade into oversimplified blacks and whites. To Saigon's Western press corps, President Ngo Dinh Diem is stubborn and stupid, dominated by his brother and sister-in-law. As a result, the correspondents have taken sides against all three; they seldom miss a chance to overemphasize the ruling family's Roman Catholicism. The press corps' attitude automatically assigns justice and sympathy to the side of the Buddhists, who are well aware of their favored position. Before the first bonze set fire to himself, the leaders of the Buddhist uprising tipped off a Western reporter in advance. When a young Buddhist girl tried to chop off her hand in protest against government repressions, there were reports that the Buddhists delayed her trip to a hospital for 40 minutes until the last photographer had his pictures.

The Saigon-based press corps is so confident of its own convictions that any other version of the Viet Nam story is quickly dismissed as the fancy of a bemused observer. Many of the correspondents seem reluctant to give splash treatment to anything that smacks of military victory in the ugly war against the Communists, since this would take the sheen off the theory that the infection of the Buddhist troubles in Saigon is demoralizing the government troops, and weakens the argument that defeat is inevitable so long as Diem is in power. When there is a defeat, the color is rich and flowing; trend stories are quickly cranked up. Last week, after one battle, A.P. gave credit to government troops for "the most significant victory over the Reds in months" then went on to say: "But the success was tempered by renewed civilian opposition to the regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem," proceeding for nine paragraphs to talk about student demonstrations in Saigon.

A few weeks ago, a correspondent flew out from the U.S. to Saigon for a firsthand look and, ignoring the assessments of resident newsmen, reached independent conclusions. Club members were furious. The Buddhist rebellion, said the newcomer, was directed by monks who were also consummate politicians, who were less interested in redressing religious injustices than in overthrowing the Diem regime. This interpretation was greeted in the Caravelle bar by still-simmering indignation. It was the analysis of an outsider and therefore patently wrong.

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