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Indochina Refugees - President's Advisory Committee: Suggested Members (2)
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Indochina Refugees - President's Advisory Committee: Suggested Members (2)
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Theodore C. Marrs Files (Ford Administration)
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The original documents are located in Box 12, folder "Indochina Refugees - President's
Advisory Committee: Suggested Members (2)" of the Theodore C. Marrs Files at the
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Gerald Ford donated to the United
States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.
Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public
domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to
remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid
copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Digitized from Box 12 of the Theodore C. Marrs Files
at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
Refuger
Related
wants to work
SIMPSON THACHER 8 BARTLETT
ONE BATTERY PARK PLAZA
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10004
MIDTOWN OFFICE
WASHINGTON OFFICE
(212) 483-9000
350 PARK AVENUE
1735 EYE STREET, N.W.
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10022
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20006
CABLE ADDRESS: XYDSINK, NEWYORK
TELEX. 129158
April 29, 1975
FORD
Dr. Theodore Marrs
Special Assistant to
the President
The White House
Washington, D. C. 20500
Dear Dr. Marrs:
Thank you very much for hearing me out yesterday
afternoon on my efforts to make some contribution in these
last moments of our assistance to the Vietnamese people.
As you can see from the attached biography, I
have had some experience in Vietnam andSoutheast Asia.
What the biography does not indicate is that in 1969 and
1970, when I was working for CORDS, I was in effect working
quite closely with Bill Colby on the general program of
decentralization of power in the villages. Then in 1970
and 1971, while working in our Embassy in Saigon, I was
special assistant to Chuck Cooper who, as you know, is
now Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.
The biography also does not reveal that while
attending Harvard Law School I was Chairman of the Board
Dr. Theodore Marrs
-2-
April 29, 1975
of Student Advisers which is a rough equivalent to a
student government at that school.
I am also including for you a copy of a piece
which was published in the Op-Ed page of the New York
Times and another short article I wrote last year when
the illusion of adequate Congressional support for
the South Vietnamese was still tenable. The article
includes the substance of my manuscript on Vietnamese
nationalism which is the first work in a Western language
to analyze Vietnam's political culture based on original
Vietnamese sources. The impact of my book, if it ever
gets published, will be to completely undercut the
assumptions on which the anti-war movement was based.
Perhaps if some scholar had done this work twenty years
ago the South Vietnamese would still have a country to
call their own.
My politics are those of a Roosevelt, Truman,
Kennedy Democrat alienated from his party in the last 10
years by its swerving to the academic and radical chic
left, alienated in effect by the rise to power within
the party of our country's new intellocracy.
I do not expect that the firm here would raise
any objection to my taking off some time to work on the
Dr. Theodore Marrs
-3-
April 29, 1975
resettlement of refugees. However, since I acquired
over the weekend sixteen new dependents, being my wife's
immediate family, I will not be in a position to donate
my time to the government. Should you like additional
information please write or call me at the office, phone
number 212-483-9000.
With hopes for the complete success of the
Presidential Commission, I am
Sincerely yours,
Stare young
Stephen B. Young
SBY:pvg
BIOGRAPHY OF STEPHEN B. YOUNG
Education:
International School of Bangkok, 1963;
Harvard College, 1963-1967;
Harvard Law School, 1971-1974.
Ethnographic
Field Work:
Chiapas, Mexico with the Harvard Chiapas project,
1965;
Individual field work in villages of Northeast
Thailand, 1966.
Languages:
French, Thai, Tzotzil Maya, Vietnamese.
Employment:
USAID, 1967-1971;
1967-1968-Viet Nam Training Center,
Department of State, Washington
1968-1969-Deputy District Advisor
Vinh Long Province
1969-1970-Chief, Village Development
Branch, CORDS
1970-1971-Special Assistant, Minister/
Counselor for Economic Affairs, U.S.
Embassy, Saigon
Publications:
Monographs:
"Their People's Servants: Public
officials in a highland Maya community."
"Authority and Identity: A study of the legitimacy
of power
"Mandarin Mercantilism: a study of the Vietnamese
economy."
Articles:
"Public Office as a Public Trust: a suggestion
that a fiduciary standard is implied in Impeach-
ment for High Crimes and Misdeameanors" -
Georgetown Law Journal May 1975.
"The Northeastern Thai Village: a non-partici-
patory democracy" - Asian Survey, November
1968.
"The Mandate and Elections" and
"Local Development in Viet Nam, 1968-1970" -
two chapters in Electoral Politics in South
Vietnam, a collection of essays edited by
John Donnell and Charles Joiner.
"The Law of Property and Elite Privileges
Under Viet Nam's Le Dynasty, 1948-1788" -
Journal of Asian History, Spring 1975.
Book:
"The Dragon's Children: Vietnam's Struggle
for National Integrity", unpublished manu-
script.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1975
Vietnamese Nationalism
By Stephen B. Young
nationalists in Vietnam is a conse-
quence of this conflict of values.
THERE WAS ANOTHER WAY
The other way to have fought the Vietnam war
would have been to rely more directly on Vietnamese national-
ism. Just as we came to the aid of England, France, Russia
and China in World War II and to the aid of Korea in the
Korean War, we wanted to help the Vietnamese defend their
culture, their territory and their national integrity. Only
our guns and men were less effective in Vietnam than they had
been previously. As with Churchill, our Vietnam policy had
begun with a desire to give our ally the tools so that it
could finish the job. But in 1965 when the tools were being
misused, Lyndon Johnson decided that America would finish
the job itself. But George Patton, Jr. could not use his
tanks to win the Vietnam war the way his father had crushed
German armies two decades previously. In a war of attrition,
where the enemy had secure rear areas, direct American
participation raised costs but could not bring the conflict
to a decisive conclusion. When the burden of combat became
intolerable for the American people, we were forced to turn
the struggle back over to the South Vietnamese. Fortunately,
by 1969 they were up to the task. The war could be won.
And it was, by Vietnamese.
2
At bottom, our commitment ran to the Vietnamese
people themselves, not out of any real understanding and
intimate sympathy with their nationalism, but rather
out of a principle of global strategy. Our effort was
to uphold in practice the norm of world peace, that
principle which allows men to live mutually with one
another and maintain the species; that notion that the
integrity of every nation, no matter how small, must be
respected by every other nation. Because the powers
of the world had allowed that principle to be repeatedly
violated in the 1930's, world order had disintegrated
and a world war had resulted. After World War II,
America's political leadership understood at last that
the long-run national interest of the United States
demanded as the first and highest order of business a
balance of power among the nations of the world such that
no nation would violate the essential integrity of any
other. Since the major efforts at destabilization in the
post-war years came from the Soviets, our balance-of-power
foreign policy could be presented as a simple anti-communist
posture. Such a presentation had domestic political ad-
vantages because those Americans in the heartland who
were traditionally opposed to sacrifices on behalf of
foreigners were also nativistic anti-communists. A foreign
3
policy couched in anti-communist terms could attract the
necessary popular support. Thus Truman and Atcheson built
"bi-partisanship in foreign affairs" on a bedrock of
opposition to Soviet imperialism with overtones of a
moralistic crusade against an evil inherent in Communist
doctrine.
The marriage of sophisticated statesmen and
nativistic politicians was not completely blissful. For
example, sophisticated Democrats saw that it made no sense
to seriously oppose Mao's triumph over the inept nationalists
in China and no present threat to the balance of power
was visible to them. Yet the nativists were outraged and
voted the Democrats out of the White House as Richard Nixon
began his odyssey in presidential politics. Dulles re-formed
the marriage; he talked like, and perhaps was, a nativist
crusader, but acted more with the restraint of a statesman
who balanced interests among nations. Kennedy continued
in the Dulles tradition where rhetoric exceeded action
and the primary concern was balance of power to preserve
a principle of world order, not a roll-back of Communist
hordes.
When Lyndon Johnson and his advisors decided in
1965 that Hanoi's conquest of South Vietnam by force
and the inevitable extirpation of the autonomous vitality
of a people who did not seek Communist domination would
4
so violate the basic terms of international order that the
nations of the world would no longer be able to rely upon
that order with any confidence, they thought in the familiar
patterns of principles of world peace and gave scant
attention to the internal details of the Vietnamese con-
flict. They focused on the job to be done, the standard
to be upheld, and not on who best should shoulder the burden.
When the South Vietnamese faltered, we stepped into the
breach. The other way would have been to realize that,
although it was our fight as well, the quick of the matter
involved the survival of South Vietnamese nationalism.
Under those conditions, our role would have been limited
to assisting the South Vietnamese to maximize the power and
capacity of their nationalist potential without crossing the
line to direct combat intervention.
Since our objective was the preservation of South
Vietnam as an independent nation, our success depended
ultimately on the capacity of the South Vietnamese to sustain
the coherence and effort necessary for their national defense.
Injecting American ground forces into the situation could
only delay the moment when success or failure would be
determined. But in 1965 no one in our government, in our
press, or in our universities, knew the first thing about
Vietnamese nationalism. Thus there was no one to give apt
advice on how best to help the South Vietnamese. President
5
Johnson had before him only two alternatives: to commit
America to direct participation or to watch South Vietnam
disintegrate under the incompetent leadership which then
held sway in Saigon. Given the logic of American foreign
policy, our people's distaste for defeat, and the lack of
knowledge about Vietnamese nationalism, the decision to
commit ground forces was unavoidable.
The inability of our nation to focus at all on
Vietnamese nationalism resulted from several factors. First,
the anti-communist rationale used to cement popular support
behind expensive efforts to maintain an appropriate balance
of power had conditioned many of us to overlook the specifics
of particular nations and to fit the facts of each case as
it arose into the fixed mold of our global assumptions.
Locating to our satisfaction the borders of South Vietnam,
the addresses of government offices and the names of anti-
communist leaders (or anti-government leaders) exhausted
our curiosity; by then we already knew enough to apply our
general principles.
Second, our scholars and intellectuals looked
upon Vietnam as nothing more than a smaller version of China.
If nationalism had failed in China, it was fordoomed in
Vietnam as well. After Mao's ascension in China, Americans
did not take Vietnamese nationalism seriously.
6
Third, French scholarship since the 19th century
has completely misunderstood the Vietnamese. The French
were taken in by Vietnam's mid-19th century Confucian
appearance and overlooked the ancient national tradition
which thrived in the villages. When the villages became
bastions of revolt against French colonial power, ingenious
explanations were offered by French savants to account for
the fact that simple peasants (whose world supposedly
extended no farther than the village hedge) were taking up
arms against the French almost on an annual basis somewhere
in Vietnam. The economic or administrative impact of
colonialism was usually held out as the cause of this dis-
equilibrium in the village community. That nationalism
could be the driving political force in the villages was
impossible. American thinking about Vietnam has been shaped
by this prior French mythology. Ho Chi Minh's success in
using nationalism to defeat the French colonial enterprise
was ascribed to the fact that Ho "sparked" nationalism among
the Vietnamese. Since he embodied Vietnamese nationalism,
it followed that no regime in Saigon could ever successfully
compete with him. Thus on the basis of French images, many
Americans concluded that our effort in South Vietnam was
hopeless. They urged withdrawal and accepted Communist
domination as the wave of the future.
Fourth, it was easier for Americans to apply our
cultural values to Vietnam that it was for us to learn about
7
Vietnamese values. Since our own revolution had been
triggered in part by concern over high taxes on tea, we
found it only natural to ascribe to the Vietnamese a similar
fixation about material property. The struggle in Vietnam
was often seen as one between rich and poor. We thought
that the loyalty of Vietnamese farmers could be bought by
a Saigon government which distributed more "goodies" than
the Communists did, or that if the house of a South Vietnamese
farmer was blown up, his sense-of-self would be consequently
shattered. We had no one who sufficiently understood Viet-
nam's literary masterpiece, the Kim van Kieu; no one who
could tell us that loyalty is not bought in Vietnam, that
their material goods have little relation to anyone's sense-
of-self, and that a death feud existed between Communism and
Nationalism.
Once there was a time when our government did
understand something about Vietnamese nationalism. During
the Viet Minh war, our effort had been to support those
Vietnamese who were neither Communist nor supporters of the
French. But this amorphous "Third Force" of nationalism
always eluded us. Graham Greene mocked our naivete in The
Quiet American-as old colonial hands knew, there was no
"Third Force", only the Communists and the lackies, and we
were condemned to sustaining the lackies until we grew tired
and gave up, doing great damage in the process. We were
8
naive only because we didn't know in those early days how
to attach form and substance to the Third Force, how to
identify leaders and locate directions of movement.
However, when Ngo Dinh Diem came to power on the
invitation of Bao Dai, many Americans thought they glimpsed
something genuine, something appropriately Vietnamese, a
political force with purpose and resolve and which commanded
loyalty. Under Diem, the non-Communist Vietnamese army
fought and defeated the Binh Xuyen bandit gang. Ed Lansdale
in Saigon, my Dad with Foster and Allen Dulles in Washington
then threw their weight behind Diem. In 1954 that meant
dollars to keep his government financed and armed and
diplomatic assistance to keep the French from toppling him.
Our Vietnam policy in those days was to provide Diem with
the necessary tools provided that he fostered an effective,
nationalist regime which could engage the hopes and aspira-
tions of his people.
But Diem failed, primarily because he relied upon
the Confucian pattern of the 19th century Nguyen Imperial
court and not upon the national ethic in the villages. He
could not foster the effective nationalist regime which was
a precondition for our aid. With the failure of the Saigon
regime by the early 1960's, Washington shifted its Vietnam
policy. The objective remained the same - to support the non-
Communists in South Vietnam - but the terms of the policy
9
changed. Now we would provide assistance even though an
effective nationalist regime did not exist to engage the
hopes and aspirations of the Vietnamese people. Once that
shift was made, it was then a simple matter to slide from a
few advisors and millions of dollars to many divisions and
billions of dollars. When we shifted from provided that to
even though, we subordinated the insight which had brought
us to Vietnam in the first place, the understanding that our
support was only effective to the extent that it stoked Viet-
namese national fires, that we could only succeed in our
terms to the extent that they succeeded in theirs.
What then is to be said at this late date about
Vietnamese nationalism? A very great deal. The social and
cultural history of an entire people and the events of
thousands of years are still waiting for a fit exposition.
More importantly, the ability of the South Vietnamese to
resist Hanoi's 1972 Easter offensive, to pacify successfully
most of the populated countryside, to reinvigorate village
institutions, to build a political system where every signifi-
cant faction has some share of power, arises from their
nationalism.
Vietnamese use the term tinh than dan toc- "elan
of the people"- to define their nationalism. Such a national-
ism is primarily ethnic, more akin to the communal feeling
of Jews than to the geographic identities of modern France
10
and Italy. Vietnamese nationalism, which has existed as
long as the Vietnamese have thought of themselves as a unique
people, is not a modern, urban, middle-class phenomenon. It
is a tradition and thrives best in the rural villages where
the colonial impact was weakest. Prof. Nguyen Dang Thuc
has written the most thoughtful exposition of Vietnamese
nationalism in his book Tu Tuong Viet Nam - "The Vietnamese
Imagination" - which tells us about cults and village rites,
Buddhist poems and ancient oral myths.
Along with ethnic overtones, Vietnamese nationalism
has religious aspects. The Vietnamese people look upon
themselves as having a special relationship with the Supreme
Power of the Universe. In a way, they feel they are a
chosen people for Heaven has created for them a homeland.
To be a good Vietnamese is to be faithful to Heaven. In the
last quarter of the 11th century A.D., while Europe was
crawling out of the dark ages, a Vietnamese general inspired
his troops to defeat the Chinese with the following words:
"In the rivers and mountains of the southern
nation, (Vietnam) the Southern King holds sway;
This elemental destiny has been fixed in Heaven's
Book.
What possible cause do these marauders have to
invade?
The spectacle of their complete defeat will come
to pass. "
11
With Heaven on their side, the Vietnamese had little to fear
from the Chinese.
A central part of the Vietnamese nationalism,
therefore, is adherence to the values ordained by Heaven.
These values are not Confucian. They reflect an amalgam of
Buddhist and Confucian concepts such that Vietnam's unique
destiny is accounted for. The religious outlook which dis-
tinguishes a Vietnamese who is true to the tinh than dan toc
of the Vietnamese people is phuc duc.
Phuc duc combines Buddhist notions of merit with
Confucian images of virtue. When the Buddhist monks opposed
Ngo Dinh Diem and argued that all Vietnamese except the
Catholics were Buddhists, they had in mind that most Viet-
namese, including many Catholics, believe in phuc duc which
in turn is very Buddhist. The concept behind phuc duc is
simple: if you lead a life of duc or virtue, you will receive
phuc or good fortune. At bottom this is the Buddhist theory
of karma where good deeds bring a more favorable incarnation
in the next cycle, but it has Confucian overtones in that
filial piety, a Confucian virtue, also brings one phuc and
that the phuc one earns as an individual can bring good
fortune to one's family and descendents. Thus Vietnamese
are great believers in the power of the individual. The
famous poem and literary masterpiece, Kim van Kieu, teaches
that Buddhist acts of compassion can indeed bring release
12
from this vail of tears. Each person has a talent, tai,
which can blossom in the presence of an auspicious fate when
one's good deeds are properly arranged.
The rigid conformity of a Communist state, with
its "single talent" (doc tai) in the party, does not give
Vietnamese the freedom they desire to maximize their individual
potentials. Neither does a Communist state provide opportuni-
ties for being virtuous in the accepted sense. It flouts
the way of Heaven. As Vietnamese villagers say, Communism
is "khong troi, khong dat, khong thanh, khong than. - "with-
out Heaven, without earth, without saints, without the spirts."
The essential part of duc or virtue is selflessness.
Those who strive to assert themselves at the expense of
others, or those who are consumed by greed, have no duc and
can generate no loyalty. That is why corrupt officials in
Saigon have never been able to organize effective popular
support; why the self-sacrifice of Buddhist monks provided
leadership to precipitate the end of Diem's regime; and why
the Communists have studiously hidden their drive for power
behind front movements which only exist to sacrifice them-
selves for the fatherland. But since Vietnamese are aware
that the aim of the Communists is to exclude all from power
save themselves and their minions, the Communists are seen
as greedy, selfish and lacking in duc. The 1968 mass murders
in Hue and, the previous butchery of nationalists leaders in
13
1946 and 1947 damn Vietnamese Communists as being beyond the
pale of tinh than dan toc. Persons without duc can never
lead the Vietnamese except through repression.
For reasons which have little to do with the Con-
fucian mandate of Heaven but which do relate to the origin
myths which preceded Confucian thought, Vietnamese respond
to individuals rather than to organizations or to programs.
That is why Vietnamese politics is so chaotic, why there
are so many groups and factions with SO few ever amounting
to very much. Vietnamese seek the perfect man to follow and
are very quick to find fault. Few in that country have the
requisite attributes. It is no coincidence that the crucial
turning points of the '72 Easter Offensive were battles won
by superior South Vietnamese officers who could rally their
men into unusual exertions and that those officers are some
of the few men in the South Vietnamese army possessed with
the characterists of nationist leadership. They were Gen.
Ngo Quang Truong who halted the North Vietnamese advance on
Hue and recaptured Quant Tri; Col. Nhut who directed the
defense of An Loc and Co. Chuc who used local forces to defend
Binh Dinh Province against North Vietnamese regulars. When
the right man comes along, Vietnamese respond.
There is also a convergence in Vietnam of men who
have the necessary attributes of leadership and men who
remain faithful to Vietnam's tinh than dan toc. Since the
14
duc required of a leader requires belief in phuc duc and
dedication to the cause of the people, Vietnam can find
leaders only among those steeped in the nationlist tra-
dition. Consider the two best units of the South Vietnamese
army as a case in point. The Marines and the Airborne have
consistently defeated Communist units; they have elan, disci-
pline and will. Marine officers are invariably offspring
of Dai Viet or Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD) families from
North Vietnam. The Dai Viets and the VNQDD are the two
nationalist parties which had their leadership murdered by
the Communists in 1946. The founder of the Marines was Col.
Pham van Lieu, a Dai Viet from North Vietnam. Similarly,
Airborne officers come from Dai Viet or VNQDD families in
central Vietnam. Competence and nationalism go together,
bound by the umbilical cord of duc and tinh than dan toc.
The simple explanation why the Saigon regime could
not for years provide effective leadership for the people of
South Vietnam is that few of the leaders in Saigon's army
or administration had any duc or any devotion to Vietnam's
tinh than dan toc. The Communists, on the other hand, buried
their ideology under layers of nationalist rhetoric to align
themselves with the tinh than dan toc of the people and
thereby acquire duc. Or at least that is their intent for
the bloody hand of these relentless power-seekers has always
shown through. Whatever duc the Communists might have gained
by their opposition to the French and the Americans has been
15
substantially vitiated by their repression of fellow Viet-
namese. Yet the non-Communist side has been unable to pro-
vide leaders with appropriate duc to rally the people against
Hanoi. Thus the war drags on - with right and left, unable
to gain significant loyalty from the bulk of the population,
using foreign money and guns to sustain regimes based on the
self-interest of greedy minorities and with the majority of
the people waiting for the emergence of fit leadership.
The dilemma of nationalism in South Vietnam is
reflected in the political rivalry between President Thieu
and General "Big" Minh. Many Vietnamese think that "Big"
Minh possesses duc and that Thieu does not. Therefore, they
prefer "Big" Minh as leader on the assumption that all Viet-
namese, including the Communists, would willingly follow a
man of duc and the war could end. The virtuous man would emerge
in true Confucian fashion to bring harmony and end discord.
Simultaneously, "Big" Minh is thought to be closer
to the Buddhists and the tinh than dan toc of the people
while Thieu is seen as too close to the rich Catholics and
the foreigners to be a good nationalist. But support for
"Big" Minh is really very shallow, limited mostly to urban
intellectuals who are the remaining reservoir of the Confucian
tradition. The An Quang Buddhist opposition has never com-
mitted itself to "Big" Minh; the failure of the monks to
provide Minh with campaign assistance in the 1971 Presidential
16
election was the real reason for his withdrawal. An Quang
leaders know that Minh is too closely tied to a despicable
figure of French Colonialism, Mai Huu Xuan, the former
police chief and alleged murderer of Diem and Nhu.
Furthermore, the An Quang leaders, steeped in
Vietnam's tinh than dan toc, know that the duc required of
a Vietnamese leader is not the duc of Confucian teaching.
The Vietnamese are not Chinese; they have their own autonomous
tradition. Vietnamese leaders must have something called
uy tin which combines duc with ability, tai. "Big" Minh is
not considered to be an accomplished man. His tai is not
overwhelming. As Chief of State after the coup against
Diem he was unable to act with any great effect. But Thieu,
is seems, has considerable tai. The An Quang leaders have
not seriously opposed Thieu since he came into power in his
own right after the Tet Offensive in 1968. They have rather
responded to the opportunity set by Thieu to build their
political power through local elections in Central Vietnam.
Thieu's reputation for ability rests primarily
on the successful pacification and land reform programs his
administration has implemented. If he would only disassociate
himself from the corrupt generals and politicians who are
hang-overs from Ngo Dinh Diem's power-structure, he would
acquire sufficient duc to gain unquestioned uy tin.
As Vietnamese, the Communists know the importance
of leadership and uy tin. In 1946 they cleared their way to
17
power by murdering the leaders of all other political
parties, knowing that without leaders with uy tin their
nationalist rivals would fade into disorganized impotence.
After Diem showed himself possessed with both tai and duc by
defeating the Binh Xuyen, Hoa Hao and Cao Dai warlords in
French pay and by evicting the French, the Communists organ-
struggle movements at the village level to demonstrate
that Diem could not control his countryside. A leader who
could not so master the villages had to be a leader without
tai, without uy tin. By compromising South Vietnam's leader-
ship, the Communists would create chaos and find themselves
the best organized minority. In the negotiations to end the
war, the Communist objective was Thieu's removal. Without
a leader, the Vietnamese would scramble for their own self-
interests and the Communists could come to power. Diem
responded to the challenge to his uy tin in a Confucian
fashion by emphasizing his personal duc and by fostering the
ideology of "personalism" to provide a moral basis of duc
for his officials. His government, increasingly unable to
provide the substance of rule, turned hollow, into gestures
and postures of definance. Upon his demise, the government
fell into the hands of men who had neither tai nor duc and
Hanoi moved in for the kill.
At that point, in mid-1965, the United States dis-
patched an expeditionary corps to hold the fort and buy time.
18
The South Vietnamese were to be insulated from foreign
pressure and put upon the road of more open political develop-
ment in the hope that some day they would pull themselves
together and resume the burden of their national defense.
American determination to buy as much time as might be
necessary would convince Hanoi that its prospects for victory
were slim and that it should give up. But Hanoi realized
that America's determination would rather quickly become as
hollow as Diem's uy tin.
If we had taken the other road in 1965, if we had
understood that only nationalism could bring purpose and
will to South Vietnam and that only men of uy tin could
galvanize the nationalist instincts of the people into
coherent action, we could have used our aid and influence
to bring men of uy tin to power. They would have organized
the people and the villages as was finally done in 1969 and
1970 and we could have avoided a costly and a bitter war.
If only we had understood, if only we had understood.
Had we taken the other road, our policy would
have appeared as one of aiding a determined people to defend
their heritage. There would have been little room for anti-
war leaders to argue that we had imposed the war on the Viet-
namese, that at bottom that war was an immoral struggle of
Americans against the Vietnamese people. Domestic support
for the war would have remained high. And of course, with
19
the Vietnamese fighting for themselves, the cost to us in
blood and treasure would have been far less. Our people
would have been asked to support a far lower level of
sacrifice. Since the flashpoint of the war always lay in
Vietnamese aspirations and ambitions, it would have been
more appropriate if Vietnamese nationalism had been made
the operational focus of our global policy as it applied in
Vietnam.
We could have learned more from the nationalists
about winning the war than the absolute necessity of leaders
with uy tin. We could have learned about the village as a
nationalist political community and the foundation of firm
national government. In the villages the myths and the
cults have survived from days immemorial. The villages
were the source of one subversive effort after another against
French colonial rule. The villages cradled not only the
people, but more importantly, the most precious political dynamic
of the race. No man or party could build an effective national
government without tapping the potential of the villages.
The Communists successfully used mobilization against the West
to provide themselves with village energy and manpower. Diem,
on the other hand, tried to impose his will and his officials
on the villages. His government failed. Diem modified the
Confucian pattern of rule he had learned in the Nguyen Dynasty
court in Hue. But the Nguyen Dynasty had failed to organize
20
effectively, the nation against the French. Nguyen Emperors
used Confucian morality and the imported law code of Ch'ing
China to hold themselves in a superior fashion above the
villages. A gap arose between the people in the village com-
munities and the central government because the people continued
to follow the laws and customs of the previous Le Dynasty.
Village customs under the Nguyen Emperors was based largely
on the Le law code of 1473.
The saying therefore arose
that "the Emperor's law bows before village custom." Un-
fortunately, the French never noticed that melange custom
reflected an older pattern of ethnic nationalism and that the
Emperor's law was little more than the trappings of a well-
set stage, acknowledged for form and style but only infre-
quently consulted for substance. The French assumed that
life within the villages was as Chinese and as Confucian
as it was within the Nguyen Imperial court.
The real village tradition, one which can be found
in the laws of the Ly, Tran and Le Dynasties (1010-1788),
saw the individual citizen linked directly to the central
government in the fashion of modern nationalism. The village
was not an autonomous state unto itself. Not until 1460 did
the villages have a say in selecting their own officials.
There was no village communal land until 1711. Public land
belonged tothe King whose officials divided it among the
21
people according to the degree of merit they achieved in
serving the state. Each individual owed taxes and service
directly to the central government. The political unit of
consequences was the state, or the quoc. Yet beginning
about 1650, during the wars between the Trinh and Nguyen
clans, the power of the central government eroded and the
villages emerged as semi-autonomous political entities
with their own leadership, men largely accountable neither
to the people nor to the officials. At the same time as
this decay infected the political system, neo-Confucian
thought was adopted from China by Vietname's elite as the
country developed a scholar-gentry class tied to the bureau-
cracy and examinations along Chinese lines. The develop-
ment was nearly complete by the mid 1700's. Shortly there-
after, Nguyen Hue led a movement to revitalize the realm
along the lines of more ethnic traditions and less in the
Chinese pattern. Nguyen Hue adopted the Vietnamese script
of nom for all official documents. And he listened more to
geomancers and prophets like La Son Phu Tu than to erudite
Confucian scholars. When the Nguyen clan defeated Nguyen
Hue and founded their own Dynasty in 1802, they adopted
the Chinese model for Vietnam. Village autonomy and Con-
fucian morality were the foundation of rule. The ethnic
tradition of national coherence and organic unity under a
great patriotic leader was left to wither.
22
Then the uy tin of both the Chinese model and the
Nguyen Confucian elite was shattered by the victory of
French colonialism. In asserting an instinctive urge for
self-determination, Vietnam's political leaders rediscovered
the national tradition which had been slumbering in the
villages. Vietnam's first modern revolutionary, Phan Boi
Chau, began the process of renovation, calling his movement
the "Restoration Movement." The VNQDD, Dai Viets, Cao,
Dai, and Hoa Hao then contributed to the re-emergence of
authentic national traditions. A close look at the two
religious sects - Hoa Hao and Cao Dai - will disclose more
nationalism in their teachings than universalistic religios-
osity. Each of them attempts to perpetuate in its own way
the tinh than dan toc of the Vietnamese people. And so do
the Buddhists, who began a revival in the 1920's and 1930's
along with the other nationalist groups. Nhat Linh's
novels in the early 1930's shattered for many any lingering
appeal of Confucian formalism. Thus by World War II the
pattern for a modern Vietnam was clear to most Vietnamese: The
country had to be independent and it had to incorporate
the villages directly into national political life to form
a single unified political community of patriots.
The odd men out in this development were the Commu-
nists and the Catholics. Both groups looked for their
23
rationale to Western assumptions about life. Both groups
relied heavily on foreign assistance for survival. Yet
Catholics and Communists together were only a small minority
of the population. In 1945 the Communists had something like
5,000 followers in a nation of millions. It would seem that
the nationalists had the power to achieve their reinvigorated
Vietnam. But they miscalculated twice.
First they supported the japanese as fellow Asians
against the white colonialists. At the end of the war the
nationalists were thereby discredited at home because they
had backed a loser and abroad because they were assumed to
be mere creations of the Japanese. With the nationalists
on the defensive, Ho Chi Minh, thanks to his Comintern ties
to Moscow and the Allies, had a chance to seek leadership
as the local agent of the victorious powers. The nationalists
did not oppose his claim for pre-eminence in Hanoi, Hue and
Saigon.
It was their second miscalculation. Ho then made
a secret deal with the French in early 1946 and turned on
the nationalists with French assistance to liquidate their
leaders with uy tin.
Ho lost his duc but the nationalists
now had no leaders who could oppose him. The Communists
moved to pick-up the nationalist cause and fight the French.
The French used money to support the Catholics and build a
following wherever it could be bought. With the "Bao Dai
24
solutions," they made a cosmetic attempt to rally a nationalist
following. Neither protagonist had much tinh than dan toc
but the Communists were better able to mobilize the villages.
The Vietnamese people evinced no strong enthusiasm for either
side. The French, when they finally accepted the fact that
they could not win, again negotiated privately with the
Communists to cut-up the country, leaving the nationalists
furiously impotent. Diem, who came to power in a divided
country with nationalist support, turned to the Confucian
pattern of the Nguyen Court and further delayed the emergence
of a political system incorporating the villages in a
nationalist community. Nhu's Can Lao party knitted up the
American financed import trade and the rich Catholic economic
elite into a power base for the regime. The villages were
not necessary for his continued rule.
In line with nationalist traditions, what was needed
for South Vietnam was a decentralized political system where
all persons of tinh than dan toc could participate in a
joint effort where government power would not be used for
the exclusive benefit of a particular faction. Such an
approach was proposed by the government which took power in
the coup of January 1964. The coup was engineered by the Dai
Viets to remove from power the high ranking generals of
French breeding who had presided over the November coup
25
against Diem (which in fact had been executed by the Dai
Viets and their allies). The Hoa Hao and the Cao Dai were
brought into support of the government. The leading lay
political strategist of the Buddhist opposition was brought
into the cabinet. Most importantly, village elections were
called for and a pacification plan was drawn up to provide
both security and participation for the rural people.
The effort went awry when General Nguyen Khanh
allied himself with the remains of the Can Lao economic
power-elite and used corruption to build a clique of selfish
and unscrupulous officers around him in the armed forces.
With this base, Khanh turned on the Dai Viets and forced
them from the government. A series of coups and crises
followed until Khanh was driven from the country in early
1965. But the villages had been forgotten, the uy tin of
the government had been seriously tarnished with covetous
leadership, and Khanh's monied cronies were in power under
Nguyen Cao Ky. Under these circumstances, we dispatched
our army to fight yet another foreign war. No American
official knew that the Dai Viet pacification plan (which had
now vanished) was the embodiment of an ancient tradition
which could effectively organize the people of South Vietnam.
Luckily, the drafters of the 1964 pacification plan
are men of talent and capacity. They are also men of uy tin.
They were not overtaken by events, but re-emerged after the
26
Tet Offensive in alliance with President Thieu. Tet was
a major turning point in the war. It shattered Hanoi's
uy tin as a victor; it shocked the Vietnamese with the mass
murders in Hue and reminded them of the issue of state-
nationalism; it drove Ky and his faction from power; and it
convinced the Americans that they should disengage. Thieu
then emerged as the pre-eminent figure in the Saigon regime.
He formed an uneasy ruling triumvirate among a new Dai Viet
party, the Tan Dai Viets, himself and the Can Lao economic
elite. The Tan Dai Viets were given a chance to implement
their 1964 pacification ideas. Fortunately, American
thinking on pacification by mid-1968 had come around to
where the Tan Dai Viets had always been. With full American
support, the fact of rural Vietnam was changed within 2
years. Power was decentralized to village leadership, a
village development program and a village credit program
put economic resources in village hands, elections were
held to get new village leaders, a general mobilization law
drew the countryside's manpower into the government's army,
a people's militia was organized for each village, and mud
forts sprang up over the countryside to bring security to
over 80% of the population. The Communist fish were finally
separated from the water of the people. The NLF evaporated
as most of its followers came over to the government's side
27
through the Chieu Hoi program. By 1972 the Communist
effort in South Vietnam rested on the conventional backs
of North Vietnamese divisions and soviet weaponry. Hanoi
had lost the political struggle.
Increasing opportunities for the rural people to
participate in the national political community and mani-
pulate their own destinies in time-honored Vietnamese
fashion were complimented by economic prosperity. Land
reform cut the country's economic elite off from the villages.
Fromer landlords were now urban businessmen and had little
interest in returning anyway, but the peasantry was converted
into a class of small-holders- the most conservative political
force yet known to man. Rising prices and a rice-deficit
economy combined with new capital inputs and high-yield
strains of rice allowed the farmers quantum jumps in income.
Prosperity and security in 1971 showed that Thieu had Lai
and the government had uy tin.
On the electoral front, Thieu's instinct for
accommodation and the Tan Dai Viets political ambition of
forging a majority working coalition of nationalist factions
combined to draw most every faction into the political pro-
cess. Seats on village and provincial councils and in the
Lower House were actively contested in a surprising number
of elections. The An Quang Buddhist opposition, thanks
to encouragement from the Tan Dai Viets, entered the electoral
28
arena and saw their slate finish first in the 1970 Senatoral
elections. So profound was the change introduced into
Vietnam's political system by the programs of 1969 - 1970,
that by late 1974 leading Catholics went into opposition
against Thieu over the issue of corruption. To have
Catholics in the streets protesting that the government lacked
duc was to finally bring the Catholics into harmony with the
nation's tinh than dan toc. One of the serious wounds in-
flicted by the French in Vietnam's political cohesion was
being healed. Under Thieu, there had been a slow but steady
erosion of the power of the Catholic economic elite. Catholics
had to seek out alliances with nationalists. Money was
becoming a less important source of power than village con-
stituencies.
The theme of Thieu's administration has been the
old Dai Viet slogan of tu luc tu cuong, "self effort, self
strength." A coherent political community has been created
where cross-cutting alliances and shifting factions obscure
the fact that every group in the society, except those who
follow Hanoi, has some access to power and good fortune.
The crushing inflation brought about by the reduction in
American aid and the quadrupling of oil prices has made it
difficult to incorporate the poor into this effort at achieving
phuc-duc, but the government has continued to make what efforts
it could in that direction.
29
With far less firepower than the American divisions
had, Vietnamese units could hold the balance of power against
the NVA in 1974. Good officers from nationalist backgrounds
now commanded where venal incompetents so often had failed
before. South Vietnam was defending itself. America's
war aims had been achieved.
By 1974 one could see that the original assumptions
behind out Vietnam policy had been correct: there was a
vibrant nationalism in Vietnam, the people had will and
capacity, they did not want to be conquered by the Communists
in Hanoi, if we gave them the tools, they could do the job.
Putting those assumptions to the test had been a difficult
trauma. But we could have proved their validity the other
way.
department OF STATE
Washington, D.C. 20520
May 2, 1975
MEMORANDUM FOR:
DR. MARRS
FROM:
L. DEAN BROWN
Ted:
Here are two people who have approached me.
RALD BERALD FORD
Bio sketches on:
Jessica Cato
Jeanne Ferst
May 2, 1975
MEMORANDUM FOR:
DR. MARRS
FROM:
L. DEAN BROWN
Ted:
Here are two people who have approached me.
Bio sketches on:
Jessica Cato
Jeanne Ferst
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY
May 2, 1975
MEMORANDUM TO: L. Dean Brown
FROM:
Margo M. Boyle WWB
SUBJECT:
Mrs. Jeanne Ferst
I have attached biographical information on Mrs. Jeanne Ferst
for consideration for any advisory committee which may be
formed for aid to Vietnamese refugees.
As I mentioned to you, Mrs. Ferst has a great deal of energy
which she has at times expended on our behalf and would like
to continue to do so. Listed below are her State Department
public service activities:
Member, U.S. Delegation to the 8th
Governing Council UNDP - 1969
Member, U.S. Delegation to the 12th
Governing Council UNDP - 1970
Member, President's Advisory Council
on South Asian Relief Assistance - 1971-73
Member, Advisory Committee on Voluntary
Foreign Aid - 1973 to present
Mrs. Ferst was also extremely helpful to the Department in
the arrangements that were made for the OAS meetings in
Atlanta last Spring. She has consistently proven herself to
be a diligent worker, and I know she is most anxious to help
in any way possible in our efforts to assist the new refugees.
Attachment:
As stated
WITHDRAWAL SHEET (PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARIES)
FORM OF
CORRESPONDENTS OR TITLE
DATE
RESTRICTION
DOCUMENT
Resume
Resume for Jeanne Rolfe Ferst, 2 pages.
N.D.
C
File Location:
Theodorre C. Marrs Files, Box 12, Folder: "Indochina Refugees - Presidential Advisory Committee - Suggested
Members (2)" SMD - 7/21/2015
RESTRICTION CODES
(A) Closed by applicable Executive order governing access to national security information.
(B) Closed by statute or by the agency which originated the document.
(C) Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in the donor's deed of gift.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
NA FORM 1429 (1-98)
JESSICA CATTO (PRON. CAT' - TOE)
BORN IN HOUSTON, TEXAS 1938
ATTENDED CHATHAM HALL, BARNARD COLLEGE
MARRIED 1957, 4 CHILDREN
MEMBER:
(1) BOARD OF DIRECTORS, HOUSTON POST COMPANY
(2) BOARD OF DIRECTORS, READING Is FUNDAMENTAL
(3) PRESIDENT'S ADVISORY COMMITTEE OF KENNEDY
CENTER FOR PERFORMING ARTS
(4) BOARD OF TRUSTEES AT TRINITY UNIVERSITY
(5) BOARD OF TRUSTEES - ASPEN MUSIC ASSOCIATES
(6) BOARD OF SOCIETY FOR A MORE BEAUTIFUL
NATIONAL CAPITAL
(7) BOARD OF DIRECTORS, WASHINGTON PERFORMING
ARTS SOCIETY
FORMER MEMBER OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE HEMISFAIR 1968
FORMER EDITOR OF THE RIVER OAKS TIMES, (HOUSTON)
FORMER ART CRITIC OF THE SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS
MRS. CATTO'S HUSBAND IS A FORMER DEPUTY AMBASSADOR TO THE
ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES (OAS), AND FORMER AMBASSADOR
TO EL SALVADOR. HE IS CURRENTLY THE UNITED STATES CHIEF OF
PROTOCOL.
APRIL 1975
With the Compliments
ofthe
Chief of Protocol
April 29, 1975
Dean:
For your information. Per
conversation.
Henry E. Catto, Jr.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
May 3, 1975
ADMINISTRATIVELY CONFIDENTIAL
MEMORANDUM FOR:
JACK MARSH
FROM:
JERRY JONES
SUBJECT:
Presidential Advisory
GENALOP FORD LIBRART
Committee on Refugees
The President has reviewed your memorandum of May 2nd on the
above subject. He approved the concept of your memo as
presented at Tab A. He also initialed the approve line by the
following names suggested for his consideration as chairperson.
Anne Armstrong
Peter Frelinghuysen
John Harper
have
Reed Kirkland
Eugene McCarthy
Sargent Shriver
Finally, he made the following notation:
-- I have approved above (names), not as
Chairperson, but as members. (Chairperson) Should
be "male and female" Co-Ch./ Dem and G.O.P.
Also, Business, Labor, etc. on Committee.
Bess lbt Myerson could be potential.
cc: Theodore Marrs
Brent Scowcroft
Donald Rumsfeld
William Walker
Presidential Advisory Committee on Refugees
Purpose: To advise in regard to an expeditious and coordinated
orientation and resettlement of refugees from Southeast
Asia. This role will be one of facilitating and convening
to insure obtaining resources not otherwise available, over-
coming legal and governmental barriers and providing general
backup support.
Composition: The Committee will be chaired by a private
American citizen with prestige. He will be assisted
by a group of about twenty well known people from a
broad spectrum of the private sector, including business-
men, educators, labor leaders, civil rights leaders, and
private citizens, including members of the Vietnamese/
American community. An executive staff would be estab-
lished to facilitate the operations of the Committee
and to supervise the allocation of resources to recep-
tion sites located in the United States.
Liaison: Will establish lines of communication with the Inter-
departmental Task Force, with the voluntary agencies who
will play a leading role, the Domestic Council, Naturaliza-
tion and Immigration Service and the Vietnamese-American
community and others as needed to enhance understanding
and coordination.
Scope: Will give consideration to the following:
1. Moral responsibility.
2. Economic impacts.
3. Community reaction to the refugees and refugee
reaction to the community.
4. Food--adequacy and appropriateness.
5. Transport and geography of resettlement.
6. Social and traditional factors.
7. Health and environmental matters.
8. Interrelationship of governmental and volunteer roles.
9. Education - bilingual, work oriented and other.
2
10. Housing -- temporary and permanent.
11. Cultural understanding.
The Committee should call upon all Americans to con-
tribute time, money, and resources to this effort.
The Committee would not be designed to coordinate
evacuation and resettlement activities, but would
act only to locate and elicit and help distribute
the private resources which will be available to
assist Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees in this
country, to assist the activities of the voluntary
resettlement agencies, and to provide advice and
guidance on refugee resettlement matters generally.
Administration: Meetings to be arranged through Office
of Public Liaison.
"Up front" administrative support from OMB and other
White House offices should be directed to insure the
prompt development needed for effectiveness. Staff
office should be in EOB.
Financing for this Committee is expected to be pro-
vided with funds appropriated under the Vietnam
Humanitarian Assistance and Evacuation Act of 1975.
Meetings will be in accord with legal requirements
for advisory groups and Counsel will provide a
specific point of contact.
Public understanding will be supported by keeping
the White House Press and Congressional Liaison
offices informed as well as by contact with civic
and other private associations.
Refuges
May 5, 1975
MEMORANDUM FOR:
THE PRESIDENT
THRU:
COUNSELLOR MARSH
FROM:
TED MARRS
SUBJECT:
Membership of Presidential Advisory
Committee on Refugees
The attached list has been developed in conjunction
with the Personnel Office. It represents a broad
spectrum of this country's interests.
Assuming a committee membership of about 25, an
asterisk has been placed beside the 25 names deemed
most preferable. The remaining names are alternates.
Recommend you approve for membership those individuals
denoted by an asterisk.
Approve
FORD LIBRARY is
Approve as changed
Disapprove
Authorization is requested to make direct contact with
those approved and alternates as needed.
Approve
Disapprove
May 6, 1975
FORD LIBRARY i GERALD
MEMORANDUM FOR:
JERRY JONES
FROM:
TED MARRS
In accord with our discussions the following listings
are provided:
At Tab A, the Presidents of major Service Clubs.
At Tab B, a proposed slate of incumbent governors,
and mayors.
At Tab c, a group of volunteer agencies, working
with refugees.
Enclosures
ALTRUSA INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Miss Muriel Mawer
ASSOCIATION OF JUNIOR LEAGUES
Mrs. Mary C. Poole
(505) 255-9744
Mr. M. M. Richards
CIVITAN INTERNATIONAL
COSMOPOLITAN INTERNATIONAL
Dr. Mahlon Fairchild
DELTA SIGMA THETA
Miss Lilliam Bembow
GYRO INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Warren Schram
(519) 434-5787
KIAWANIS INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Roy W. Davis
LINKS
Mrs. Pauline Ellison
LIONS INTERNATIONAL
Mr. John Balbo
NATIONAL AMBUCS
Mr. Rodney K. Smith
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COLORED WOMEN'S CLUBS Ms. Juanita Brown
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF NEGRO BPW CLUBS Mrs. Rosalie McGuire
NATIONAL EXCHANGE CLUB
Dr. Porter L. Fortune
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF BPW CLUBS
Ms. Marie Bowden
NATIONAL TRI T
Mrs. Clayton Melcher
NEEDLEWORK GUILD OF AMERICA
Mrs. Walter Thompsen
(212) 843-7754
OPTIMIST INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Ralph Glasscocks
PILOT CLUB INTERNATIONAL
Mrs. Phyllis Manning
QUOTA INTERNATIONAL
Mrs. Lynette Oliver
ROTARY INTERNATIONAL
Mr. William Robbins
(312) 328-0100
RURITAN NATIONAL
Mr. U. L. Lee
Mr. Thomas Bruckman
SERTOMA INTERNATIONAL
SOROPTIMIST FEDERATION OF THE AMERICAS, INC. Mrs. Ruth Klotz
THE UNITED JAYCEES
Mr. David Hale
L'enfant Plaza Hotel Info.
ZONTA INTERNATIONAL
Ms. Eleanor Jammel
INCUMBENT GOVERNORS AND MAYORS - POSSIBLE MEMBERS
Mayor Joseph Alioto (D-San Francisco)
Governor George R. Ariyoshi (D-Hawaii)
Governor Reubin Askew (D-Florida)
Governor Daniel Evans (R-Washington)
Governor James Longley (I-Maine)
Mayor Richard Lugar (R-Indianapolis)
Governor William Milliken (R-Michigan)
Governor David Pryor (D-Arkansas)
The Presidents of the following organizations which
are currently engaged in resettlement efforts could
also be used on the President's Committee. In view
of their operational responsibilities, I would recom-
mend that a liaison role be maintained on a very close
basis if they are not included.
U.S. Catholic Conference Migration and Refugee Services
American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees
Church World Service Immigration & Refugee Program
Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Service
United Hias Service, Inc.
Tolstoy Foundation, Inc.
International Rescue Committee
American Council for Nationalities Service
Travelers Aid-International Social Services
May 6, 1975
FORD is LIBRARY GENALD
MEMORANDUM FOR:
JERRY JONES
FROM:
TED MARRS
In accord with our discussions the following listings
are provided:
At Tab A, the Presidents of major Service Clubs.
At Tab B, a proposed slate of incumbent governors,
and mayors.
At Tab c, a group of volunteer agencies, working
with refugees.
Enclosures
ALTRUSA INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Miss Muriel Mawer
ASSOCIATION OF JUNIOR LEAGUES
Mrs. Mary C. Poole
(505) 255-9744
Mr. M. M. Richards
CIVITAN INTERNATIONAL
COSMOPOLITAN INTERNATIONAL
Dr. Mahlon Fairchild
DELTA SIGMA THETA
Miss Lilliam Bembow
GYRO INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Warren Schram
(519) 434-5787
KIAWANIS INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Roy W. Davis
LINKS
Mrs. Pauline Ellison
LIONS INTERNATIONAL
Mr. John Balbo
NATIONAL AMBUCS
Mr. Rodney K. Smith
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COLORED WOMEN'S CLUBS Ms. Juanita Brown
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF NEGRO BPW CLUBS Mrs. Rosalie McGuire
NATIONAL EXCHANGE CLUB
Dr. Porter L. Fortune
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF BPW CLUBS
Ms. Marie Bowden
NATIONAL TRI T
Mrs. Clayton Melcher
NEEDLEWORK GUILD OF AMERICA
Mrs. Walter Thompsen
(212) 843-7754
OPTIMIST INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Ralph Glasscocks
PILOT CLUB INTERNATIONAL
Mrs. Phyllis Manning
QUOTA INTERNATIONAL
Mrs. Lynette Oliver
ROTARY INTERNATIONAL
Mr. William Robbins
(312) 328-0100
RURITAN NATIONAL
Mr. U. L. Lee
Mr. Thomas Bruckman
SERTOMA INTERNATIONAL
SOROPTIMIST FEDERATION OF THE AMERICAS, INC. Mrs. Ruth Klotz
THE UNITED JAYCEES
Mr. David Hale
L'enfant Plaza Hotel Info.
ZONTA INTERNATIONAL
Ms. Eleanor Jammel
INCUMBENT GOVERNORS AND MAYORS - POSSIBLE MEMBERS
Mayor Joseph Alioto (D-San Francisco)
Governor George R. Ariyoshi (D-Hawaii)
Governor Reubin Askew (D-Florida)
Governor Daniel Evans (R-Washington)
Governor James Longley (I-Maine)
Mayor Richard Lugar (R-Indianapolis)
Governor William Milliken (R-Michigan)
Governor David Pryor (D-Arkansas)
The Presidents of the following organizations which
are currently engaged in resettlement efforts could
also be used on the President's Committee. In view
of their operational responsibilities, I would recom-
mend that a liaison role be maintained on a very close
basis if they are not included.
U.S. Catholic Conference Migration and Refugee Services
American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees
Church World Service Immigration & Refugee Program
Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Service
United Hias Service, Inc.
Tolstoy Foundation, Inc.
International Rescue Committee
American Council for Nationalities Service
Travelers Aid-International Social Services
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
May 7, 1975
MEMO FOR: JOHN BORLING
FROM:
KEN QUINN
I have now discovered that the names listed
below and which I discussed with you earlier
this morning were proposed by Frank Kellogg
of the State Department to Dean Brown for
consideration by the White House to be appointed
to the President's special commission on
resettling Indochinese refugees.
Mr. Joseph E. Johnson
Glen E. Haydon
Maxwell M. Rabb
Mrs. Jeanne R. Ferst
James A. Perkins
GREALD ? FORD
of Jessica CaTo
& Recommendal by Dean Brown
Not
USA
INTE
Miss
Murial
SSOCIATION 02
Mrs. Mazy Dools
(505) 255-9744
CIVITAN INTERNATIONAL
Mr. N. M. Richards
COSMOPOLITAN untervational
Dec. Mahlon Fairchild
May 6, 1975
DELTA SIGNA THETA
/
Miss Lilliam Bumbow
MRO INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Warren Schram
(519) 434-5787
KIAWANIS INTERNATIONAL
MEMORANDUM FOR:
JERRY JONES
Nr. Roy W. Davis
LINKS
FROM:
TED MARRS
Mcs. Pauline Ellison
LIONS INTERNATIONAL
Mr. John Balbo
In accord with our discussions the following listings
are provided:
Nr. Rodney 3. Smith
NATIONA
At Tab A, the Presidents of major Service Clubs.
CLUBS
Juanita
Brown
At Tab B, a proposed slate of incumbent governors,
NATIONAL ASSOCIAT and mayors.co BPW CLUBS Mrs. Rosalie McGuire
NATIONALAE Tab Cy a group of volunteer agencies, working
with refugees.
Fortune
INTIONAL FEDERATION OF BPW CLUBS
Ms. Marie Bowden
NATIONAL TRI I
Mrs. Clayton Melcher
Enclosures
NEEDLEWORK GUILD OF AMERICA
Mrs. Walter Thompsen
(212) 843-7754
OPTIMIST INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Ralph Glasscocks
PILOT CLUB INTERNATIONAL
Mrs. Phyllis Manning
QUOTA INTERNATIONAL
Mrs. Lynette Oliver
POTARY INTERNATIONAL
Mr. William Robbins
(312)328-0100
RURISAN NATIONAL
Mr. U. L. Lee
SERTOMA INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Thomas Bruckman
SOROPTIMIST FEDERATION 0F THE AMERICAS, INC. Mrs. Ruth Klotz
THE UNITED JAYCEES
Mr. David Hale
L'enfant Plaza Hotel Info.
ZONTA INTERNATIONAL
Ms. Eleanor.Jeurel
ALTRUSA INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Miss Muriel Mawer
ASSOCIATION OF JUNIOR LEAGUES
Mrs. Mary C. Poole
(505) 255-9744
Mr. M. M. Richards
CIVITAN INTERNATIONAL
COSMOPOLITAN INTERNATIONAL
Dr. Mahlon Fairchild
DELTA SIGMA THETA
Miss Lilliam Bembow
GYRO INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Warren Schram
(519) 434-5787
KIAWANIS INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Roy W. Davis
LINKS
Mrs. Pauline Ellison
LIONS INTERNATIONAL
Mr. John Balbo
NATIONAL AMBUCS
Mr. Rodney K. Smith
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COLORED WOMEN'S CLUBS Ms. Juanita Brown
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF NEGRO BPW CLUBS Mrs. Rosalie McGuire
NATIONAL EXCHANGE CLUB
Dr. Porter L. Fortune
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF BPW CLUBS
Ms. Marie Bowden
NATIONAL TRI T
Mrs. Clayton Melcher
NEEDLEWORK GUILD OF AMERICA
Mrs. Walter Thompsen
(212) 843-7754
OPTIMIST INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Ralph Glasscocks
PILOT CLUB INTERNATIONAL
Mrs. Phyllis Manning
QUOTA INTERNATIONAL
Mrs. Lynette Oliver
ROTARY INTERNATIONAL
Mr. William Robbins
(312) 328-0100
RURITAN NATIONAL
Mr. U. L. Lee
Mr. Thomas Bruckman
SERTOMA INTERNATIONAL
SOROPTIMIST FEDERATION OF THE AMERICAS, INC. Mrs. Ruth Klotz
THE UNITED JAYCEES
Mr. David Hale
L'enfant Plaza Hotel Info.
ZONTA INTERNATIONAL
Ms. Eleanor Jammel
INCUMBENT GOVERNORS AND MAYORS - POSSIBLE MEMBERS
Mayor Joseph Alioto (D-San Francisco)
Governor George R. Ariyoshi (D-Hawaii)
Governor Reubin Askew (D-Florida)
Governor Daniel Evans (R-Washington)
Governor James Longley (I-Maine)
Mayor Richard Lugar (R-Indianapolis)
Governor William Milliken (R-Michigan)
Governor David Pryor (D-Arkansas)
The Presidents of the following organizations which
are currently engaged in resettlement efforts could
also be used on the President's Committee. In view
of their operational responsibilities, I would recom-
mend that a liaison role be maintained on a very close
basis if they are not included.
U.S. Catholic Conference Migration and Refugee Services
American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees
Church World Service Immigration & Refugee Program
Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Service
United Hias Service, Inc.
Tolstoy Foundation, Inc.
International Rescue Committee
American Council for Nationalities Service
Travelers Aid-International Social Services
REPRESENTATION ON THE REFUGEE COMMITTEE
AGRICULTURE
Tony T. Dechant, President of the Farmers Union
William J. Kuhfuss, President of the American Farm Bureau
John W. Scott, Master of the Grange
Oren Lee Staley, President of the National Farmers Organization
BUSINESS
Joe Danzansky, President, Giant Foods
John Harper, former Chairman of the Board, ALCOA
Edgar Kaiser, Chairman of the Board, Kaiser Industries
Gordon King
Tom Watson, former Chairman of the Board, IBM
Walter Wriston, Chairman of the Board, CITICORP
John McCormack, former Speaker of the House
EDUCATION
Kingman Brewster, President of Yale University
William Friday, President, University of North Carolina
David Matthews, President, University of Alabama
ELECTED OFFICIALS
Mayor Joseph Alioto (D-San Francisco)
Governor George R. Ariyoshi (D-Hawaii)
Governor Reubin Askew (D-Florida)
Governor Daniel Evans (R-Washington)
Governor James Longley (I-Maine)
Mayor Richard Lugar (R-Indianapolis)
Governor William Milliken (R-Michigan)
Governor David Pryor (D-Arkansas)
Governor Calvin Rampton (D-Utah) (Chairman, National Governor's
Conference)
Mayor Maurice Ferre (D-Miami)
Mayor Carlos Romaro-Barcelo (R-San Juan) (President, National
League of Cities)
ENTERTAINMENT
Pearl Bailey
Raymond Burr
Karen Carpenter
John Denver
-2-
ENTERTAINMENT (Continued)
Peter Duchin
Bob Hope
Martha Raye
John Wayne
HERITAGE
Joe Benites, President, League of United Latin American Citizens
Tran Van Chuong, former Ambassador to the United States (Vietnamese)
Minor George
Mike Novak
David Riesman
John Slezak
Ngo Dinh Tu, U.S. Citizen, Clarion State College
Than Trong Tuy-Cam Bullington
LABOR
Peter Bomarito, President, Rubber Workers Union
Ernie Lee, Director, International Section, AFL/CIO
Lane Kirkland, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL/CIO
MEDIA
Helen Copley, Owner, San Diego Union
Marshall Field, President, Field Enterprises (Chicago)
Oveta Culp Hobby, Houston Chronicle
Ernesta Procope, Amsterdam News (Black Newspaper, NYC)
OTHER PROMINENT CITIZENS
Ashby Boyle, National Youth Chairman, March of Dimes
Alton Clausen
Gaetana Enders
Peter Frelinghuysen, former Congressman from New Jersey
Jeanne M. Holm
Ethel Kennedy
Bess Myerson, Commissioner of Consumer Affairs, NYC
Ellie Peterson
Clarke Reed, Republican National Chairman, Mississippi
George Romney
Jack Valenti
James Fellers, President, American Bar Association
Jeannie Ferst
George Feldman, former Ambassador
-3-
MEDICAL
Dr. Kazumi Kasuga, Director, Indian Health Service (Albuquèrque)
(experienced in refugee matters)
Dr. Richard Meiling, past President, Ohio State Medical School
Dr. Howard Rusk, prominent Humanitarian
Dr. Malcolm Todd, President, AMA, Long Beach, California
RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS
Archbishop Joseph Bernardine, United States Catholic Conference
Reverend W. Sterling Cary, President, National Council of
Churches
Philip Klutznick, former President, B'nai Brith
Elder A. Theodore Tuttle, Church of Jesus Christ of the
Latter Day Saints
SERVICE CLUBS
Miss Muriel Mawer, President, Altrusa International, Inc.
Mrs. Mary C. Poole, President, Association of Junior Leagues
Mr. M. M. Richards, President, Civitan International
Dr. Mahlon Fairchild, President, Cosmopolitan International
Miss Lillian Bembow, President, Delta Sigma Theta
Mr. Warren Schram, President, Gyro International
Mr. Roy W. Davis, President, Kiawanis International
Mrs. Pauline Ellison, President, Links
Mr. John Balbo, President, Lions International
Mr. Rodney K. Smith, President, National Ambucs
Ms. Juanita Brown, President, National Association
of Colored Women's Clubs
Mrs. Rosalie McGuire, President, National Association of
Negro BPW Clubs
Dr. Porter L. Fortune, President, National Exchange Club
Ms. Marie Bowden, President, National Federation of BPW Clubs
Mrs. Clayton Melcher, President, National Tri T
Mrs. Walter Thompsen, President, Needlework Guild of America
Mr. Ralph Glasscocks, President, Optimist International
Mrs. Phyllis Manning, President, Pilot Club International
Mrs. Lynette Oliver, President, Quota International
Mr. William Robbins, President, Rotary International
Mr. U. L. Lee, President, Ruritan National
Mr. Thomas Bruckman, President, Sertoma International
Mrs. Ruth Klotz, President, Soroptimist Recreation of the
Americas, Inc.
Mr. David Hale, President, The United Jaycees
Ms. Eleanor Jammel, President, Zonta International
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
May 7, 1975
MEMO FOR: JOHN BORLING
FROM:
KEN QUINN
GERALD R. FORD LIBRAN
I have now discovered that the names listed
below and which I discussed with you earlier
this morning were proposed by Frank Kellogg
of the State Department to Dean Brown for
consideration by the White House to be appointed
to the President's special commission on
resettling Indochinese refugees.
Mr. Joseph E. Johnson
Glen E. Haydon
Maxwell M. Rabb
Mrs. Jeanne R. Ferst
James A. Perkins
of Jessica CaTo
& Recommendal by Dean Brown