Word: ho
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...supports Ngo Dinh Diem loyally, but his influence back home is not great. The French government of Faure is working, fundamentally, to maintain "the French presence" in both halves of divided Viet Nam: in the North, the French hope with declining prospects to wheedle a deal out of Communist Ho Chi Minh; in the South, they hope to replace Nationalist Diem with a man they feel they can trust -Bao Dai's cousin, Buu Hoi, 39, a leprosy expert who has not lived in Viet Nam for 20 years...
Diem's chief claim to fame is that he is an incorruptible nationalist unstained by liaisons with the French. That is why the French dislike him; it is also why he is the first Vietnamese politician (outside of Communist Ho, who also rose to power by stressing not his Communism but his anti-Frenchness) to attract any measure of popular support...
...Communist North Viet Nam (pop. 12 million) came unmistakable signs that the austere autocracy of Ho Chi Minh is having trouble with its housekeeping. The rice crop of the devastated Red River Delta is down by 30% to 40%. The worst floods in 70 years have washed out irrigation dikes and dams, endangering the spring planting. Some 700,000 refugees have moved off to the rice-rich south, leaving for Ho their burned farmhouses and untilled land. An additional 10,000 refugees are fleeing the north every week. Refugees from Red Viet Nam reaching the French-held port city...
...year from the south. It paid with its coal, textiles and cement. Thanks to the Communists, however, trade in the north is now at a standstill, and there is heavy industrial unemployment. French and neutralist Indian businessmen are moving out. All but Communist official cars have disappeared. Ironically, Ho's own picture is becoming the symbol of Ho's economic distress: Viet Minh currency, which bears Ho's picture, is worth less than half what it used...
...history begins a new chapter," the Nationalist leaflets asserted. "Alt for People, All for Country, under Premier Diem!" TIME Correspondent John Mecklin asked one Camau villager, however, who Diem was. "Don't know." Had he heard of Communist Ho Chi Minh? "He's President." Had he heard of the U.S.? "The Viet Minh say you're all capitalists." What's a capitalist? "They make people poor." Wreath on the Monument. Gingerly Diem's young Nationalist army moved step by step more deeply into Camau-the towns first, then the villages, then out by powered boats...