PACIFICATION

Mr. Woodward's perceptive comments on the pacification program in Vietnam recognize the importance of a third alternative to the Viet Cong and the status quo as the way out for South Vietnam.

But AID officials know that progressive village conditions depends much more on sheer military security than Mr. Woodward may realize. The first priority, unfortunately, should not be on land reform and taxes as he says. They are not as great a problem as is the lack of government in the villages. Initial reforms must create organized structures with sufficient motivation and capacity to administer solutions to national problems on a national scale.

For example, the South Vietnamese army must be strengthened so that soldiers provide real security in villages rather than sulk in their camps. Then one can crack down on more forms of corruption. The task is to coordinate security with reform; neither alone has much effect. And an army which does its job of security well and knows that its enemy is increasingly demoralized will be more amenable to political reforms.

Mr. Woodward argues that primary emphasis must be on social reforms because the Viet Cong thrive in their absence. Yet field work in Southeast Asian villages convinces me that conditions of insecurity and the promise of power more nearly explain the Viet Cong than does lack of reforms. In most villages, government, aside from an occasional policeman, has never been a significant presence. Consequently nothing in the village can stand up to a determined guerrilla minority. Steve Young, '67