Page 21 - The Viet-Cong Tet_Offensive_1968

khakhi uniforrns with only one badge proclairning their loyaLty to the
rrF athe r land and Peoplerr .

Titles and dresses naturally are no reflection of perform-
ance. The average person kndw it but he also got the irnpression
that there was sornething new in the polit.ical and adrninistrative appa-
ratus. The change could only be for the better for it marked a visible
divorce frorn the feudal past.
The National Leadership C ornrnittee or Directory and
the governrnent called for austerity in the rnidst of a protracted war.
AtrNew Society Dayrt was proclairned on the occasion of the presenta-
tion of the war cabinet at Independence Palace. Hundreds of represen-
iatives frorn a1l popular strata were present.

These encouraglng signs, however, were to prove f.ittle.
The war cabinet and the personality of its leader, Air
Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky, originated and tried to accomplish
rnany big and continuing prograrns, For reasons unknown the ad-
rninistrative rnachinery failed to produce the results the average per-
son hoped it would.

Ky rernained in office until South Vietnarn cornpleted the
forrriation of such basic dernocratic institutions as a Constitution, a
b carneral Parl.iaroent, and a popularly elected President' These were
no easy tasks {or 6orneone conJronted with the rnany difficulties Ky
had to face in the 1955-o7 period' The most irnportant of these, of
course, was the so-called Buddhist Crisis in Da Nang and Hue which
nearly brought about his downfall and the end of South Vietnarn as a
rnernber of the cornrnunity of nations.
In addition to the Buddhist crisis there were many other
internal difficulties which were reflected in the then-current press
reports. There was so rnuch infighting arnong the many pressure
groups within the adrninistration that no public figure stood out. No
one leader could gain the support of the rnajority of the people.

As the Year of the Monkey approached, South Vietnarnese
society rernained pretty rnuch the sarne with a fun-loving tradition
little altered by the war. This was all the rnore vieible in the town-
ehips where little was known of the long conflict.

Indeed, for the city-dwellers, the war eeemed to be as
rernote as the rnoon. They were sornetimes rerninded oI its reality

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