The People Vote: The World Press Appraises Vietnam's National Elections (Vietnam Through Foreign Eyes, No. 5), page 5
One page of an English-language government pamphlet prints three press excerpts on the 3 September 1967 election, headed Seoul, Bern and Graz and credited to Kyunghyang Sinmun, Bund and Neue Zeit. The tell: third-party newspaper voices, selected and arranged by the issuing ministry under a title promising a 'world press' appraisal, carry its own points of high turnout and Viet Cong terrorism.
- Date
- 1967
- Period
- Cold War
- Made by
- Ministry of Information, Republic of Vietnam (pamphlet series 'Vietnam Through Foreign Eyes', no. 5)
- Region
- Southeast Asia
- Country
- South Vietnam
- Medium
- Books and pamphlets
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Thieu Government
- Leader
- Nguyen van Thieu
- Audience
- Foreign public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Techniques
- Testimonial
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons (Google Books scan of a Ministry of Information pamphlet), retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (Commons tag PD-South VietnamGov: Republic of Vietnam government work)
Ministry of Information, Republic of Vietnam; digitised by Google Books, via Wikimedia Commons.
Text on the object
SEOUL, Korea Despite the organized terrorism waged by the Viet Cong to foil the elections, the presidential and senatorial elections in Vietnam were successfully concluded with a high polling rate of 83.7 percent. We attach grave significance to the elections in that they will mark a turning point in the political climate of that country...We are not in the least mood to poke our noses into the internal politics of Vietnam. But as an ally that has about 45,000 soldiers in that country, we honestly hope that the political situation there will be stabilized. Therefore, we congratulate (Vietnam in holding) elections that will lay a solid foundation for the establishment of democratic government. Kyunghyang Sinmun BERN, Switzerland If you regard the elections as a mere « farce », the outcome is the more surprising, for despite all the advantages enjoyed by the incumbents and all hindrances and restrictions placed on civilian candidates, precisely this civilian opposition has a following whose magnitude nobody had predicted. With that, the V.C.'s assertion that they alone are the true representatives of the people is also unequivocally refuted. And this opens completely new perspectives for eventual negotiations. Bund GRAZ, Austria Moscow's Pravda said the election in South Vietnam Sunday was a « disgraceful farce. » It is funny in a way to hear such a thing from the communists who do not give their voters the choice to decide for an opposition. In any case, South Vietnamese friends of the Moscow communists did not take the election in South Vietnam lightly. By terrorism against civilians, the Viet Cong tried to intimidate the voters and the candidates, but especially the officials who prepared the election and participated in the election campaign. From the South Vietnamese population, the Viet Cong received the reply — an 83 per cent turnout... The South Vietnamese have given evidence of their democratic maturity in an election under most difficult circumstances... Neue Zeit 5
Transcribed from the Commons page-5 image of the PDF. The pamphlet's printed page number '5' is included; the 'Digitized by Google' watermark is omitted.
