Tear Gas & Burning Books

From a window of the grey, six-story U.S. embassy in Saigon, Ambassador Maxwell Taylor and U.S. Military Advisory Chief William Westmoreland gazed down on the violent scene. Massed in the street before the embassy was a cursing, fist-shaking throng led by some 300 yellow-robed Buddhist monks and nuns, screaming demands that the U.S. abandon Premier Tran Van Huong --and thinly veiled invitations that it get out of South Viet Nam.

Vietnamese paratroopers guarding the shuttered and barred embassy entrance permitted a small group of demonstrators to hand over an anti-Huong petition to Taylor. But then the mob, urged on by the monks, who blared orders over battery-powered bullhorns, refused to disperse. The troops donned gas masks and broke it up with doses of tear gas and swinging clubs. Four blocks away a wave of shouting youths commanded by four monks marched on the U.S. Information Service library, smashed its glass doors and windows.

Next day in the northern city of Hue, a Buddhist stronghold, some 4,000 students and hoodlums sacked the twostory U.S.I.S. headquarters, splintering furniture and bookshelves. Then they burned 5,000 books in gasoline.

Height of Irony. For the U.S., trying to save the tortured land from Communism, the Buddhist-instigated anti-American outburst was the height of irony. For it was the U.S. embassy that gave refuge to leading monks during the Buddhists' 1963 campaign against President Ngo Dinh Diem. Now, the bonzes were openly turning on their American benefactors.

Naturally their latest offensive came as Premier Huong endeavored once again to put back together his Humpty-Dumpty regime. Last week Huong installed four military officers in his Cabinet in an effort to improve relations with the brass and discourage more coups. There was a slight delay. Although Huong and Chief of State Phan Khac Suu waited in the palace on the appointed day, the four failed to show up because Air Force Boss Nguyen Cao Ky had last-minute second thoughts about giving up his command for his Cabinet assignment--Minister of Youth and Sports. Finally Ky reluctantly agreed to it, and next day the ceremony was held.

Hunger of Sorts. At that very moment, before 100 newsmen, Buddhist Political Chief Thich Tam Chau announced that he and four other monks had decided to "fast to the death if necessary, to protest against the cruel Huong regime." The five, including Thich Tri Quang, firebrand leader of Buddhists in Hue, took up positions sitting or lying side by side inside Saigon's main pagodas. It was hardly a bed of nails. Their pallets were comfortable foam-rubber mattresses draped with mosquito netting. Beside the fasters were handy slices of fruit and glasses of pale, cold tea, prompting a young monk to explain that liquid was "allowed." As for the fruit--well, er, uh, no comment.

The monks' grandstand play was sufficient excuse for other bonzes to hit the streets at the head of supposedly incensed faithful. Nuns "fainted" before newsreel cameras--only to spring nimbly away before tear gas. Old women provided buckets of water in which monks dipped their skirts to wash out their eyes. A monk supposedly "stabbed" himself at a Buddhist school, but when carried out showed no visible wound.

Meanwhile, Up North ... At week's end scattered disorders continued. The Huong government--so far--had stood fast. Police announced that 223 rioters had been jailed in Saigon.

In the almost-forgotten war, government troops scored a smart succession of victories against the Viet Cong in four widely separated provinces. More attention, however, was being drawn by a worrisome development to the north. In the past month, despite U.S. air harassment, some 5,000 Communist troops have quietly massed around the southern Laotian town of Tchepone. About half are Pathet Lao from Laos. Even more unsettling, the rest are from North Viet Nam.

Tchepone has long been a Communist troop-staging center, and every year about this time--the advent of the dry season--Red forces concentrate there. In Washington last week a high U.S. official refused to call the buildup "dramatic." But there seem to be more troops involved this time than before, and other American officials see it as a possible hedge against U.S. escalation of the war in Viet Nam. Should escalation come and Hanoi move openly into the war, the Communist forces at Tchepone could link up with 5,000 neighboring Viet Cong in a drive to seize South Viet Nam's northern region.

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