The War Within

In a recent question-and-answer session at the University of Pittsburgh, Vice President Hubert Humphrey was asked about "ghastly, barbarous American attacks in Viet Nam." Humphrey exploded: "I'm glad you asked about that! I'm really going to tear into you! Only the Viet Cong has committed atrocities in Viet Nam! The Viet Cong has committed the most unbelievable acts of terrorism the world has ever known!"

Humphrey was, of course, overstating the case. War is war, and in Southeast Asia the South Vietnamese and probably some Americans have committed acts that would not be approved under the Geneva Conventions. But the fact remains that terrorism and atrocity against South Vietnamese civilians are the Viet Cong's chief weapons. As the U.S. gets more deeply involved, those weapons are being used in increasingly systematic intensity.

Who Is Next? In 1960, according to Pentagon count, Communist terrorists assassinated or kidnaped more than 3,000 South Vietnamese. Death came by knife, by pistol shot in the night, by bombs, by beatings, by tortures. Last year the Viet Cong assassinated or kidnaped 1,536 village chiefs or other government officials, murdered 1,359 other civilians and kidnaped still another 8,400. So far this year, the Viet Cong score is: 264 provincial officials killed and 364 kidnaped, 610 civilians killed and 3,026 kidnaped. An average of four village chiefs or other local officials are murdered or kidnaped each day.

Villagers can only assume that they will be the next victims. This month for example, a Viet Cong platoon entered Phu Long hamlet in Binh Thuan province, killed an old man and raped two women. A Catholic priest and four civilians were kidnaped from a church, and all civilians were forced to leave the area. In Thua Thien province, the Viet Cong stopped some buses, abducted a nurse and two girls. In Pleiku province they fired on a bus, killed the driver and wounded ten passengers.

Earlier this year, the Viet Cong swept into Hoa Hoi hamlet in Binh Dinh province, burned 185 civilian homes, destroyed the inhabitants' personal belongings. In Long An, Viet Cong mines blew up three buses, killing eleven civilians. In Pleiku province, a Viet Cong company took over a hamlet and murdered ten members of the council.

The Chief's Children. Beyond the outright murders and kidnapings is the evidence of acts even more grisly. Two years ago, a government force came upon 35 weeping women and children--and the bodies of 30 Vietnamese militiamen, throats cut, bodies disemboweled, and in many cases, emasculated. In Binh Dinh province, the Viet Cong beheaded a village chief and hacked off the arm of the chief's twelve-year-old daughter. They also took the chief's six-year-old son, laid a rifle across his bare back and fired it several times, leaving a twelve-inch scar. In the same province two months ago, the Viet Cong conscripted 125 village men for forced labor; when 25 villagers refused to go along, the Viet Cong shot them. At a village between Saigon and Dalat last week, a Viet Cong soldier lectured peasants. "Tell your daughters," he said, "that we will skin alive any girl we find with an American. And if any American touches our girls, we will sterilize him."

As for evidence that American soldiers are not immune from such treatment, there is the recent incident in which government troops found the bodies of three U.S. soldiers who had been ambushed by the Viet Cong. The G.I.s had been disemboweled and emasculated; the parts were stuffed down their throats.

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