Word: mekong
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...weeks after Diem was installed in Saigon as Premier, the weary and discouraged French sliced Viet Nam in half at the Geneva bargaining table; the Viet Minh took the north with its coal and iron, and Diem was left with the south, including Saigon and the rice-rich Mekong River delta...
...officials fear that the hamlet program, headed by Mme. Nhu's husband, is spreading too fast and too thin, and that too many of the strongholds are not really defensible against determined Red attack. In the strategically important Mekong River delta, moreover, the well-armed Viet Cong operates with near impunity. For the first time in months, the Reds are consistently raising attacks in battalion-size strength, are showing an increasing tendency to stand and fight against government forces instead of fading away into the paddies...
Across the Mekong. Though the SEATO battle plan was written months ago, recent events in neighboring Laos have given it pressing immediacy. Thailand today is particularly vulnerable to what U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Todd Young calls "aggression by seepage." Some 45,000 North Vietnamese, many of whom settled in Thailand during IndoChina's war against France, have been heavily infiltrated by Communist agents. Among the mountain tribes of the north, there is no sense of nationality and no loyalty to the central government in Bangkok. What is more, some 9,000,000 Thais of Lao stock live in the isolated...
...oppressive, corrupt local administrators. For all his high hopes for the program, aloof, autocratic President Diem seldom stirs far from his yellow palace in Saigon to visit the hinterland and generate enthusiasm for his cause. Sneaky Petes. The area of the government's greatest frustration is the Mekong River Delta, where 55% of South Viet Nam's population is centered and 75% of its rice is grown. The peasants there have resisted the hamlet program-and have often been forcibly resettled in fortified villages-because they resent having to walk miles to their paddies. In a successful attack...
...grab was a fait accompli. There were those in the U.S. who thought the only long-range answer to the Laos problem was outright partition. Already a de facto partition of Laos existed: the northern part of the country was firmly controlled by the Communists, and the rice-rich Mekong River valley was in the hands of the rightists...