Vote of Confidence In a Civilian Future

As Premier Nguyen Cao Ky took off for Guam this week for a meeting with President Johnson, he carried in his briefcase a document--its ink hardly dry--that could affect both war and peace in South Viet Nam as much as any other item on the Guam agenda. The document was South Viet Nam's new constitution, which an elected Constituent Assembly of 117 Vietnamese citizens completed and approved ten days ahead of schedule so that Ky could show it to Lyndon Johnson. Ky and his fellow generals in the ruling military directory will now have one month in which to propose amendments or changes to the Constituent Assembly which can reject them by a two-thirds vote. After that, South Viet Nam's new constitution will be publicly promulgated, thus setting the stage for presidential elections and a return to civilian rule.

The new charter is a nine-chapter, 117-article vote of confidence in the future, on which the Assembly's deputies have labored in Saigon's old French Opera House since last Sept. 27. In a country that has scarcely ever known freedom, the constitution, as its preamble declares, is aimed at creating "a republican form of government of the people, by the people and for the people." To the 16 million people of South Viet Nam, it represents the hope of having a government genuinely their own for the first time in their history. To the Communist masters of North Viet Nam, it represents a threat as great as anything that could hit them on the battlefields: a living and evolving denial of the Viet Cong claim to speak for the people of South Viet Nam.

Greetings, Everybody. Hopes were not nearly so high when the delegates, elected from every province in South Viet Nam, first assembled to begin their drafting last fall. Only Buddhist pressures in the first place had persuaded the reluctant generals, led by Ky and Chief of State Nguyen Van Thieu, to permit the Constituent Assembly's election. The Viet Cong put some pressures on the new delegates, threatening to kill them all. One deputy, Tran Van Van, was assassinated; another, Dr. Phan Quang Dan, narrowly escaped death when his car was booby-trapped.

In the first few weeks, it seemed that the Assembly itself, rather than the government or the Viet Cong, would prove to be its own worst enemy. Most of the delegates were young (average age: 34), raw and rural, with nothing in their lifetime under the French or the Diem regime to prepare them for free debate or the subtleties of constitution making. Because they were all too representative--Buddhist, Catholic, Chinese, Montagnard, Hoa Hao, Cao Dai--fragmentism and special pleading became the order of the day. Among the first orders that went out were for selfish perks: drinking water on their desks, more electric fans, a request (withdrawn on second thought) for private cars at their disposal.

Full of selfimportance, the delegates drafted and debated for days messages of initial greetings to the Vietnamese Army, the U.S. Army, the U.N., the people of the U.S., the people of Viet Nam. (The only reply they got was from Conservative Texas Oilman H.L. Hunt, who sent each deputy a copy of his own model rightist constitution, "Alpaca.") They got involved in matters clearly beyond their mandate, such as flood relief and benefits for pregnant prisoners. Indeed, for the first 21 months, the antics seemed particularly appropriate to the hot, humid Opera House.

Borrowing Everywhere. Finally, however, the deputies elected a permanent chairman: Phan Khac Suu, 62, a commanding, no-nonsense professional who had led the last civilian government before Ky and the generals took over in June 1965. Under Suu's expert gavel, the Assembly sorted itself into loose blocs and got down to work on its real task of writing a constitution. Once under way, the difficult job of framing civilian laws for a nation at war went surprisingly swiftly, as the delegates borrowed freely from the lessons of other nations and adapted them to the practical realities of Viet Nam.

From South Korea they took the concept of a government with both a President and a Premier: the President to be the nation's chief executive with strong central powers, the Premier to be appointed by the President but subject to checks of a strong legislature. That legislature, as drafted, is modeled on American lines, with an upper Senate and lower House--as are the provisions for independent legislative, executive and judicial branches. If anything, the balance is weighted in favor of the legislature, a notion borrowed from pre-Gaullist France.

Beyond these main structural provisions, the new constitution promises that there will be no discrimination by reason of religion, race, sex, or political party (except Communists, who are banned). The right of habeas corpus is assured: no one can be imprisoned for indebtedness; "private life, home and correspondence must be respected." Marriage must be based on mutual consent. All censorship is abolished, except for that of motion pictures and plays that undermine traditional Vietnamese morals. The new state "advocates a policy of making the people property owners"--the closest the mainly middle-class deputies come to dealing with the touchy problem of land reform. The deputies also ban military men in uniform from political office. They had wanted to specify that all province chiefs must be elected but, since most chiefs now are military men and many are in war zones, the Assembly has compromised with the generals; it stipulates that for the first four years province chiefs may be appointed by the President.

Anniversary Tribute. As a serious and workable constitution began to take shape, the military directory began to take the Assembly seriously. Having at first ignored the deputies, Ky & Co. began to court them in regular dinner soirees and in private negotiating sessions. Chief negotiator for the directory was Lieut. General Pham Xuan Chieu, who described what evolved: "Our first meetings were very noisy. We were like two football teams. But slowly, slowly, we have begun to follow the rules and they have begun to listen to the referee."

The generals still, to the Assembly's chagrin, consider themselves the referees, whose first duty is the immediate welfare of their nation at war. But gradually nearly all the principal points of dispute between generals and deputies have been resolved, such as the age minimum for the presidency. It was first vindictively set at 40, which would have excluded Ky, 36, the most likely first President, and opened the way for the less flamboyant, more studious 43-year-old Thieu, Ky's chief rival. In the final draft it is 35, which leaves the two officers to settle between themselves who will resign from the armed forces and run--if not both.

The campaign may not be far off. The generals now are committed to hold presidential elections within six months of the date of the constitution's promulgation, followed within 18 months by elections for the Senate and House of Representatives. Ky last week indicated that they had no intention of dawdling. In fact, he suggested that the presidential balloting might well take place next Sept. 11 under the supervision of the Constituent Assembly, which will stay on as an interim people's representation until the Senate and House are inaugurated. That would be exactly on the anniversary of the Constituent Assembly's own election--a fitting tribute to the beginnings of genuine democracy in Viet Nam.

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