University of Virginia Library

Saigon Halts Plans For Oil

By D. Gareth Porter

SAIGON (DSNI) — Statements
by U.S. war critics on a possible
link between U.S. presence in Viet
Nam and future oil concessions
here have forced the Saigon
government to halt at least
temporarily its preparations for
opening bids from foreign oil
companies, according to one
knowledgeable Vietnamese official.

Although Vietnamese officials
had anticipated rapid progress
toward a conference with oil
companies when Saigon's oil
investment bill was signed into law
last December, the oil question
suddenly became highly political
last month when some war critics
suggested that U.S. oil firms will
pressure the Nixon Administration
against disengaging from Viet Nam.
The suggestion that the Thieu
government was serving U.S.
economic interests apparently
touched a sensitive nerve, and
Saigon is now interested in
down-playing the whole subject of
oil concessions according to the
Vietnamese official source.

The U.S. State Department
issued a statement on March 12
intended to rote refute charges by
Congressman William R. Anderson
(D-Tennessee) and others that U.S.
policy was influenced by economic
interests in Viet Nam. But in the
view of Saigon officials, the damage
was already done. Progress in
preparing the ground work for the
opening of bids has been effectively
halted, according to these officials,
while the government waits for the
issue to "quiet down."

Three months after the oil
investment law was promulgated,
the task of formulating
implementing decrees has not even
begun. A national Petroleum Board,
which is to include 11 officials of
various government Ministries and
three persons nominated by
President Thieu from outside the
government, will have the task of
writing those decrees. But the three
non-governmental members have
not yet been named, and President
Thieu and Prime Minister Khiem
are reportedly treating them as
major political nominations.

Saigon government officials now
say they have no idea how long it
will be before they are ready to
invite bids from oil companies. But
it is clear that there will not be any
drilling by the end of this year, as
had originally been hoped.

Thieu's primary worry may be
the possibility that domestic
political opposition would press the
oil issue during the Presidential
campaign which will soon begin.
South Vietnam's current political
atmosphere is both xenophobic and
strongly anti-capitalish, despite the
obligatory anti-communism which
saturates it. Already the leading
opposition newspaper in Saigon, Tin
Sang, has echoed the suspicions of
U.S. war critics about the link
between oil and U.S. policy in Viet
Nam.

The political issue stirred up in
the U.S. over oil exploration off the