Despite official U.5. State Department denials the
evidence of U.S. complicity in the coup is overwie iming. The serious bourgeois papers in the U.8. do not attempt to hide this facts The Wall Street Journal in its November lst issue carried a report which confirmed that there had boon heatod argument within the Konnedy administration aa to whother Ngo Dinh Diem should be romoved, and that Cabot Lodge U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam, had insisted that "the struggle to check communism in South Viotnam cannot be won without tha removal, one way or another, of the governmont of President Diem." The New York Horald Tribune of November 2nd said “despite the Stato Department's flat denial that the U.5. is involved in the current uprising in Saigon, this rovolt is our revolt,’
The paper continued to say that for the United States, the coup was moroly a "change of horses." The New York Times said in an editorial, of the some date, that "the only surprising thing about tho military revolt in Saigon is that it has not come sooner," Next day it declared “there seomed little doubt that the United States had been instrumental in cresting the climate that had made the coup possible."
The Washington Post of November end defended tho U.5. action of kicking out Ngo Dinh Diem. It held that it had long become impossible to rely on Diem in resisting the popular liboration movement in South Vietnam, It cortinued, “all the military power and foreign aid imaginable surely could not sustain permanontly a regime in the grip of an internal conspiracy to soo how high it could have piled up its accumulated folly, corruption, inconpetence and perversity..."
The papers howevar stop at this point and do not analyse the situation more deeply. “hat they do not pose is the question of what political and social reasons give rise to the Diem type of regime. One does not have to be a marxist to be forcibly struck by the basic similarity between this rog~ ime and a whole series of others - in Latin America, in South Korea, in Liberia, etc. In different parts of the world, with different racial composition, with different degrees of social development (contrast the Argentine with Haiti), with different religons, all these countries have a common denominator: they are utterly in the grip of U.S. neo-colonialim,.
For reasons of their economic resources or strategic position in the cold war U.,. imperialism has decided that these countrios must be kept safa from communism, To achiove this end, U.S. imperialism has to complotely distort and subject the social and political development of these countries, The mixture may differ a little in its ingrodients, for instance, the nationel capitalist class may be an important factor (Argentine) or bo almost nonexistent (the banana republics of Contral America and Liberia). Cortain factors are constant, though; the regimes lack a real social base in tho country, tho mass of the people como more and more to realise that they are ruled by quislings, the U.S. imperialists pour more and more 'aid' in,most of which is appropriated by tho ruling clique, and there ia the most flagrant interference in their internal affairs by the U.5.
Because of these factors everyone of these countries in in a permanent state of crisis, Lacking any social baso the ruling cliques have to lean on the most backward social formations: the foudol landowners, the comprador sections of the capitalist class and various privileged strata. This in iteelf retards the most alomentary social development as doos U.8. 'sid',. 'Normal! capitalist development is impossible whilst the main driving force in the economy is a struggle for loct. I-Prosidont Bosch of the Dominican tepublic tells the tale of how he was thrown out of office by the military because he tried to prevent the military getting thoir normal 'cut' from a plane contract. We can, therefore, say categorically that Diom's crimes arose not from a personal quirk but from his social position, we can also say that the new regime will go along the same pathe Only the armed struggle of the workers and peasants will overthrow the 0.5. puppotse
scoTrisn purnpams mn ovearm@ L808 = from a Glasgow correspondent ’ The ban on overtime working and on paywent—by-rosulta schemes which is to be imposed by building trade unions in Scotland, in protest against the refusal of & pay increase, will come into effect after the normal finishing time of 5 pam. on Friday, Novomber 8th. The dispute which has given rise to this overtime ban arises from a claim by the Scottish workers for a 4d an hour wage incroase which was granted recently to the tuilding trades in England and Wales, where the workers have a 42-hour woek, A 40-hour week comes into force on Monday, 4th Novombor, in Scotland, and the Scottish employers have refused to pay a rate for a 40-hour week similar to that for a 42-hour wesk in England and "ales. The decision to ban overtime was taken in Glasgow on October 30th by a coordinating committee of the Scottish Itegional Council of the National Federation of Building Trades Operatives. A Seottish officiel of the federation said after the decision had been taken: "This is the first stage of the dispute. Other methods to bring pressure to bear on the employers are boing considered."