Vietnam vote

New York Times, September 3, 1967

U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror
by Peter Grose

Washington, Sept. 3 – United States officials were surprised and heartened
today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam’s presidential election despite
a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered
voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened
by the Vietcong.

The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the
election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of
the national election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.

Pending more detailed reports, neither the State Department nor the Wite House
would comment on the balloting or the victory of the military candidates, Liet.
Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, who was running for president, and Premier Nguyen Cao
Ky, the candidate for vice president.

A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson’s
policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam.
The election was the culmination of a constitutional development that began
in January, 1966, to which President Johnson gave his personal commitment when
he met Premier Ky and General Thieu, the chief of state, in Honolulu in February.

The purpose of the voting was to give legitimacy to the Saigon Government, which
has been founded only on coups and power plays since November, 1963, when President
Ngo Dinh Diem was overthrown by a military junta.

Few members of that junta are still around, most having been ousted or exiled
in subsequent shifts of power.

Significance Not Diminished
The fact that the backing of the electorate has gone to the generals who have
been ruling South Vietnam for the last two years does not, in the Administration’s
view, diminish the significance of the constitutional step that has been taken.

The hope here is that the new government will be able to maneuver with a confidence
and legitimacy long lacking in South Vietnamese politics. That hope could have
been dashed either by a small turnout, indicating widespread scorn or a lack
of interest in constitutional development, or by the Vietcong’s disruption
of the balloting.

American officials had hoped for an 80 per cent turnout. That was the figure
in September for the Constituent Assembly. Seventy-eight per cent of the registered
voters went to the polls in elections for local officials last spring.

Before the results of the presidential election started to come in, the American
officials warned that the turnout might be less than 80 per cent because the
polling places would be open for two or three hours less than in the election
a year ago. The turnout of 83 per cent was a welcome surprise. The turnout in
the 1964 United States Presidential election was 62 per cent.

Captured documents and interrogations indicated in the last week a serious concern
among Vietcong leaders that a major effort would be required to render the election
meaningless. This effort has not succeeded, judging from the reports from Saigon.