Books: A Story Told Late but Well

Elections in South VietnamBy Howard R. Penniman

American Enterprise Institute, 246 pp., $3.50 This book comes late—perhaps even too late. The allegedly unrepresentative character of all governments in South Vietnam since the days of Ngo Dinh Diem has become so much an article of faith over the years that, not surprisingly, it was included, at least by implication, in the January 24 Kissinger-Le Due Tho Vietnam agreement. Articles 9(b) and 12 of the Vietnam Ceasefire Agreement, for example, demand new “democratic general” elections in South Vietnam (not a word is said about such elections for the North, of course) presumably with the participation of the Communist National Liberation Front, just as Hanoi’s friends (might one call them Hanoids?) have always insisted.

Elections in South VietnamBy Howard R. Penniman

American Enterprise Institute, 246 pp., $3.50 This book comes late—perhaps even too late. The allegedly unrepresentative character of all governments in South Vietnam since the days of Ngo Dinh Diem has become so much an article of faith over the years that, not surprisingly, it was included, at least by implication, in the January 24 Kissinger-Le Due Tho Vietnam agreement. Articles 9(b) and 12 of the Vietnam Ceasefire Agreement, for example, demand new “democratic general” elections in South Vietnam (not a word is said about such elections for the North, of course) presumably with the participation of the Communist National Liberation Front, just as Hanoi’s friends (might one call them Hanoids?) have always insisted.