Twin Détentes – Folha de S. Paulo, December 8, 1974

 

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

 

The White House’s and the Vatican’s détente with communist governments (I intentionally say détente and not détentes, because it is the same détente, with perfectly analogous objectives, methods, and results) is unfolding globally in regrettable developments. One of these was President Gerald Ford’s visit to Vladivostok. Debates in the US are rightly highlighting how advantageous this was for Russia and how harmful it was for America.

While this is happening, other events are quietly unfolding, unnoticed by international opinion. One of these is the recent abandonment of Taiwan to Beijing’s wrath. After being ignobly expelled from the United Nations, that great anticommunist stronghold has just suffered another blow. President Ford has signed a decree ending the US commitment to defend the island against communist attacks. Justice, law, and human solidarity are grand, resonant phrases that work today when it is about justifying the support that Russian or Chinese imperialism gives to any “oppressed nation.” However, they mean nothing when it comes to defending any small people against the onslaughts of Moscow or Beijing.

This is where American détente has brought us. How much further will it take us?

* * *

I ask this in relation to South Vietnam.

President Van Thieu recently stated (cf. The Review of the News, October 16, 1974) that the US Congress reduced military aid to Saigon from $1.2 billion to $700 million and that a reduction in US economic aid to South Vietnam from $750 million to $400 million is to be expected. At the same time, the Soviets are increasingly supporting the communist offensive. As Van Thieu observed with melancholic laconism, this can only encourage the Reds to invade South Vietnam.

American détente seems closely linked to its counterpart, Vatican détente.

South Vietnam’s Catholics, a dynamic and organized minority of two million out of a population of 19 million, have been a decisive force in the country’s anticommunist struggle.

However, to the great joy of the Catholic left, a rift opened between the episcopate and the government in September 1973, when the bishops issued a collective pastoral letter denouncing corruption. In June of that year, 301 priests published an even more forceful manifesto along the same lines. On September 8, a formerly conservative priest, Tran Huu Tranch, together with a group of friends, issued an “Indictment” listing six financial scandals in which the Vietnamese head of state, his wife, and close relatives were allegedly involved (see the article by Jean-Claude Pomonti in Le Monde, published in Folha de São Paulo on October 28, 1974).

I am unfamiliar with the accusers’ arguments or President Van Thieu’s response. However, the facts as presented leave me deeply suspicious.

In fact, Mr. Pomonti notes that Father Tran Huu Tranch now accepts—albeit with regret—peaceful coexistence with communism. I find this change strange. I do not understand how this priest can support coexistence with a government that confiscates everyone’s goods under the pretext of overthrowing a government whose great sin would be to steal some goods from some people.

I therefore suspect Father Tranch even more, because communists often level the charge of corruption against anyone who opposes them, as against the great Cardinal Mindszenty, for example.

Once this suspicion has been raised, it is impossible to accept, without further ado, the objectivity of the bishops’ accusations of corruption against the Van Thieu government. This is all the more so when these accusations delight the Catholic left and the communists. For nothing that delights the Catholic left occurs without the communists’ instigation and support.

To what extent does Vatican détente relate to all this? It is impossible to say. But one thing is certain: things would not be unfolding this way without détente.

Communists are no longer fighting alone against the Van Thieu government. They can count on the massive, unstoppable collaboration of the twin policy of détente pursued by the US and the Vatican.