Reconstruction in South Vietnam

Report Outline
Offer of Postwar Aid to Both Viet Nams
Damage from the War in South Viet Nam
Viet Nam's Long-Term Economic Prospects
Foreign Aid and Regional Cooperation

Offer of Postwar Aid to Both Viet Nams

After war's destruction, there must follow inevitably the difficult but more gratifying task of reconstruction. Attainment of a peace settlement in Viet Nam is no doubt still distant. But if success attends the efforts now being made by both sides to find a way to open negotiations, interest will turn increasingly to problems of postwar adjustment. Central to that interest will be the role of the United States in helping South Viet Nam or both Viet Nams to repair the damage of war. The population of the Viet Nams is roughly 34 million, almost evenly divided between North and South.

President Johnson, in his televised address to the nation on March 31, asked North Viet Nam to join the United States in “serious talks on the substance of peace.” He then repeated an offer he had made three years earlier, in a speech at Johns Hopkins University on April 7, 1965, to help in the postwar reconstruction and development of North as well as of South Viet Nam. “Our determination to help build a better land—for men on both sides of the present conflict—has not diminished,” the President said in the more recent address. “Indeed, the ravages of war have made it more urgent than ever.”

Precedent for extensive aid to a war-damaged former enemy was fully established after World War II, but the United States, clearly victorious in that war, could afford to be magnanimous then. The war in Viet Nam is likely to be terminated by a truce agreement, and North Viet Nam can be expected to demand reparations for damage wrought by bombing. The term “reparations” is not likely to be acceptable because of its implication of war guilt. Differences on that point, however, should not be beyond compromise.