‘Vietnam Public Service Needed’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31116, 20 July 1966, Page 3

‘Vietnam Public Service Needed’

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, July 19. The re-establishment of an administrative chain and a public service in South Vietnamese villages was vital to the settlement of conflict in the country, Mr S. R. Morrison, director of university extension, Auckland University, told the annual meeting of the Grey Lynn branch of the National Party.

Mr Morrison, who had spent three years with U.N.E.5.C.0., in South Vietnam, said that when the French left the! country they took from the villages the governmental ad-] ministration chain and pub-' lie service. From the village postman up had been taken with the French. The restoration of thesefactors would help towards' the establishment of a stable government he said. The United States was working towards this goal; most effectively with its sponsoring of political action groups. These groups of train-! ed Vietnamese people, paid and organised by the United States, worked in villages es4

:tablishing security and then i administration and a public service. “There is no moral justification for us to be there. We {have no right to try to meet, (our own strategic needs at] : the expense of the Vietnami' ese,” said Mr Morrison. I He did not believe the; i j United States realised the implications when it first raised] !,a hand to intervene in the Vietnamese conflict. i| “I don’t believe the United: I (States has any intention of; ■ getting out," said Mr Morri-] i, son. -I He did not believe it posI sible to abandon military aid 1 to give social and economic ■ aid only.