Dustup at Dong Ha

The town crier of Quang Tri strolled through the streets of South Viet Nam's northernmost provincial capital and shouted his message through a mega phone hammered from old U.S. beer cans: "I would like to tell the people that the candidates for the presidential elections will be here to talk to you.

Come to the public school and listen to them." In response, a crowd of more than 1,000 gathered at the school to wait for the candidates on the ten civilian slates who were scheduled to make Quang Tri their first stop on a seven-day campaign swing from the DMZ in the north to the Mekong Delta in the south.

While the crowd waited, the Viet namese air force C-47 carrying the can didates put down on the nearby air strip at Dong Ha. If the flight had ended in a spectacular crash, it could hardly have earned more headlines from Saigon to Washington. The candidates were outraged to find no reception committee, no hoopla, no autos. Misin formed about their plans, the province chief was waiting for them at another airstrip. The only transportation at Dong Ha was three dusty U.S. Marine trucks waiting for passengers on an other plane. The drivers were willing to let the candidates hitch a ride, but al most to a man, the travelers said it was beneath their dignity to roll into Quang Tri aboard such nondescript vehicles.

In a huff, they flew back to Saigon and held a press conference. There they blamed the mix-up on their military rivals, Chief of State General Nguyen Van Thieu and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, who, they said, were sabotaging the campaign.

Wartime Snafu. Honestly surprised by the furor, Thieu and Ky called a press conference of their own to ex plain what went wrong. Far from being sabotage, the dustup at Dong Ha, said Thieu, was only a wartime snafu. And the person most responsible for the foul-up was not a government official; he was the chairman of the central cam paign committee, whom the civilian candidates themselves had appointed. The chairman had failed to give the province chief the correct information. But even though the reception committee found itself at the wrong airstrip, Thieu continued, it rushed to Dong Ha once it got the word. If the candidates had waited only 15 minutes longer, they would have been properly convoyed to the rally.

After the press conference, Thieu and Ky went further to deny sabotage. In a letter to the candidates, they pointed out that each slate was given $45,000 for campaign travel and literature. The law requires no more. Use of government planes and cars, the letter said, is a fringe benefit supplied out of government "good will." Wryly the letter concluded: "In the DMZ area there are not as many conveniences as in rear areas. If conditions are not as expected, you are requested please not to consider these little things as important."

"How Can We Unite?" Though no one questioned the accuracy of Thieu's report on the Dong Ha dustup, the significant details went largely unreported in the U.S. until aired in a statement by Assistant Secretary of State William P. Bundy. Before that, Senators of both parties jumped at the chance of charging Ky with turning the election into a "fraud" and a "charade."

The "Dong Ha incident," they said, was as bad as Ky's refusal to let General Duong Van Minh return from Thailand to campaign for the presidency.

In Viet Nam, the civilian candidates for a while threatened to refuse to cam paign until the government gave new guarantees for their safety and travel.

There was also a suggestion that nine of the candidates were ready to withdraw in favor of Tran Van Huong, 63, the onetime Premier (1965) who is the front-running civilian candidate. Such coordinated action, however, seemed improbable. "How can we unite?" asked Presidential Candidate Ha Thuc Ky (no kin to the Premier). "We all have different policies and different numbers of followers."

Whether or not the civilians pull out of the campaign, Thieu and Ky are likely to remain the heavy favorites. Although they are not campaigning with the civilians, they are showing no signs of complacency. Last week Ky helicoptered from one Mekong Delta hamlet to another, snipped a ribbon that officially reopened the long-besieged Mang Thit-Nicolai canal (TIME, Aug. 11), handed out gifts of U.S. outboard motors and blankets, chatted with the villagers. He was not campaigning, Ky said with a straight face. He was only doing his duty as Premier.

Viet Cong Chaos. The coming election is also stirring the Viet Cong to new activity. In the past few days, the Saigon police have rounded up 30 V.C. suspects, including the chief terrorist in the Saigon area, a man who received his demolition training in North Viet Nam. After "intensive questioning," the V.C. admitted that they were under orders to create havoc in the pre-election period by setting off mines at points carefully chosen to injure the maximum number of women and children.

In the provinces, the Viet Cong have been ordered to attack candidates, raid election stations, destroy ballot boxes and pressure peasants to boycott the polls. During last September's elections for the Constituent Assembly, the V.C. assassinated 37 candidates and cam paign workers. Since the presidential election is far more important, this time they are aiming higher.

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