Vietnamese journey

Any country aspiring to an industrial and technological competence must have an underlying strength in basic science. The North Vietnamese know this, and taking their characteristic long view, have been organising their war-depleted scientific cadres into a versatile research nucleus. Their effort proceeded all through the war at whatever pace was possible, but wholesale evacuation of educational and research institutes to the countryside prevented rapid progress. As American participation in the war diminished and then ceased altogether, the pace of Vietnamese scientific organisation quickened. In June 1975, a scant six weeks after the formal end of hostilities, there were already strong indications that the Vietnamese will soon have high competence in the basic physical and biological sciences, as well as in the related applied fields of engineering, medicine and agriculture.—Arthur W. Galston reports.