Visiting Vietnam in 1973 during the
War
Surviving
in War
Heather Gray
Justice Initiative
May 3, 2024
hmcgray@earthlink.net
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Introduction
I want to begin this dialogue with a brief
summary of the Vietnam War from the History website:
About the Vietnam War: The Vietnam War was a long, costly and
divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against
South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The conflict was
intensified by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet
Union. More than 3 million people (including over 58,000 Americans) were killed
in the Vietnam War, and more than half of the dead were Vietnamese
civilians.
Opposition to the war in the United States bitterly divided
Americans, even after President Richard Nixon signed the Paris Peace Accords
and ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. Communist forces ended the
war by seizing control of South Vietnam in 1975, and the country was unified as
the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year. (History)
I want tio begin this dialogue with a
brief ummary of the Vitema war from the History website:
We now have tragic wars between Israel vs
Gaza and Russia vs Ukraine. All of this has made me reflective of the tragic
Vienman War from 1955 to 1975. I ended up visiting Vietnam during
the devastating war and I keep reflecting upon it all given the present day
tragic wars.
In 1968, I left the United States for
Australia where I was married to my Australian fiancé and where I began a whole
new adventure in life and I admit I was so glad to leave the United States at
that time. I thought surely there's got to be something better than the stress
and violence we witnessed in the United States in the 1960s decade. But I
learned otherwise. What I learned was that wherever you are in the world, one
way or the other, some people will be treated unjustly, including oppression of
women, I might add, and that there is always a need to work both
"against" oppression and "for" justice.
Think for a moment, however, about the
violence in the United States in the 1960s and corresponding US interventions
in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world during this period. To name but
a few incidents: there was the on-going Vietnam War since 1955 leading to
violence in Laos and Cambodia as well; the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in
Cuba in April 1961; the assassination of President John Kennedy in November 22,
1963; the 1964 violence in Panama, when the US insisted on having control of
the Panama Canal and 6 miles surrounding it, leading to violence and the death
of 22 Panamanians and 4 US soldiers; the US inspired overturning of the Sukarno
government in Indonesia in 1967; the riots against the Chinese in Malaysia in
1969 with the US CIA and other secret service entities implicated. Invariably
there was huge loss of life and injustice with all of these incidents and US
interventions combined.
In 1967 there was also the Arab-Israeli
War:
"The 1967 Arab-Israeli War marked the failure of the
Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations' efforts to prevent renewed
Arab-Israeli conflict following the 1956 Suez War. Unwilling to return to what
National Security Advisor Walter Rostow called the "tenuous chewing gum
and string arrangements" established after Suez, the Johnson
administration sought Israel's withdrawal from the territories it had occupied
in exchange for peace settlements with its Arab neighbors. This formula has
remained the basis of all U.S. Middle East peacemaking efforts into the
present...between June 5 and June 10, Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan, and Syria
and occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East
Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights." (Office of the
Historian)
In 1967, I participated in the
"Anti-Vietnam War March Against the Pentagon" in Washington DC. Four
of us Atlantans drove up to Washington in my red Volkswagen. Atlanta activist
Rick Brown drove the car while I sat in the back playing my guitar along with
another Atlanta activist Jim Skillman who was already a Vietnam veteran. I was
impressed with the Washington, D.C. organizers of the event who arranged
housing for all of us thousands of folks coming in from throughout the country
for the event. I must say that marching against the war on the Washington, D.C.
streets with thousands of others was exhilarating.
I left the United States in August 1968.
It was the year that Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, and I was
involved with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in helping
to organize the funeral that I also attended; Bobby Kennedy was assassinated on
June 6, 1968; then there were demonstrations against the Vietnam War at the
Democratic Convention on August 28, 1968:
(On August 28, 1968) at the Democratic National Convention in
Chicago, tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters battle police in the
streets, while the Democratic Party falls apart over an internal disagreement
concerning its stance on Vietnam. Over the course of 24 hours, the predominant
American line of thought on the Cold War with the Soviet Union was
shattered. (History.com)
The interesting thing is that once in
Australia and settled ultimately in Wollongong, Australia (just south of
Sydney), I began marching against the Vietnam War with Wollongong activists
many of whom were not only Australians, but also other Americans and those from
Britain, Mexico, Yugoslavia, Italy and the Netherlands. I also began assisting
migrant women in need, as well as being engaged with the Australian National
University on research of laborers, who were mostly migrants, at the huge
Wollongong steel mill - "Australian Iron and Steel".
So it was true that being away from the
states I but joined yet another group of impressive activists in Australia.
Suffice it to say, as mentioned previously, I learned in my 20s that you could
never get away from the impacts of international state violence and the need to
take a stand for justice and compassion.
Visiting and learning about Saigon in 1973
When I first wrote about my experience in Vietnam, it was in 2007 when George
Bush wanted to escalate the war in Iraq. At the time I thought I would share
something about my experience in Vietnam to place war somewhat in the context
of daily life. With the Ken Burns series about the Vietnam War was being shown
on PBS, I thought I would revisit and share my experiences in Saigon.
The image of war can be so deceptive. This
likely is true whether in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia, Vietnam, Israel,
Palestine or wherever the conflict might be. I used to naively think that life
would be close to suspended for those living in war torn countries. But even in
war, I ultimately learned, people will attempt to take care of their youngest
children and other vulnerable members of their family, engage in commerce, and
explore every conceivable way to survive. There really is no other choice! That's
what I learned in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) in 1973, close to end of the
Vietnam War travesty.
There was probably nothing in the city of Saigon in 1973 comparable to the
dreadful violence that plagued Baghdad and now other areas in the Middle East,
both in terms of the violence from civil strife or by the invasive U.S military
against the people. But even and especially in these war torn countries, people
need to figure out a way to feed and take care of their own.
Saigon was somewhat of a safe haven with war raging around it in the rural
areas. The Viet Cong seemingly had no interest, even if they had the
weapons to do so, in destroying Saigon in retaliation against the US for the
devastating bombing of Hanoi. There could have been the justification, however,
for the destruction of Saigon as it was one of the US bases of operations and,
with its beautiful French boulevards and other French architecture, in
retaliation for the hundreds of years of French interference and
colonialism.
It was impossible in 1973 to go into the
Vietnamese hinterlands except on planes, as Saigon's "Highway One"
was too dangerous and the planes were booked solid. So I stayed in Saigon for a
week where there was, of course, a curfew. There's nothing like sitting in a
restaurant while listening to bombs dropping from just outside the city. The
bombs always seemed to drop at night and seemed close, which I guess they were.
In spite of all this, however, I found much in Saigon I didn't expect. There
were parts of the city where there were, thankfully, no apparent signs of war.
Yet in most areas of downtown Saigon, sandbags lined the streets and the armed
Vietnamese military were at virtually every intersection. Yet, life went on.
The Vietnamese are resilient. They have, after all, been resisting occupation
and foreign invaders for centuries, from the Chinese to the French, the
Japanese and the Americans. But almost everyone I met in Saigon, whether they
were Vietnamese or not, was trying to circumvent the war and the violence
surrounding them which is something I think most of us would attempt.
In the early 1970's I lived in Singapore with my husband - an Australian
diplomat - and our young son. We were in an apartment building that was rather
a mecca for international journalists who were traveling back and forth to
Vietnam, Cambodia or elsewhere to report on the war. New York Times reporter
Sydney Schanberg and his wife Janice were in that mix, as well as U.S. News and
World Report journalist Jim Wallace and his wife Haya Wallace who
lived two floors above us.
While we were in Singapore, Schanberg was spending most of his time in Cambodia
and reporting on the tragedy unfolding in that beleaguered country that,
unfortunately, bordered Vietnam. The illegal bombing of Cambodia by the Nixon
administration had begun in April of 1970 and the consequences of it all were
devastating. It's thought to have been a major catalyst of political
instability leading to the downfall of the Prince Norodom Sihanouk government
and the rise of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. For his reporting on Cambodia and
his subsequent book, "The
Killing Fields," Schanberg won the Pulitzer Prize. In it he depicted
the tragic violence of the Khmer Rouge and the estimated killing of 2 million
Cambodians. Janice Schanberg was understandably worried about her husband as he
ventured back and forth to Cambodia. The Schanberg's were the last couple I
dined with before leaving Singapore in December 1973.
Haya Wallace's parties were legendary. She was an antique collector and her
apartment was filled to the brim with Southeast Asian collectibles. I recall
sitting in her apartment in a small cozy area designated for social gatherings,
while all around there were sculptures from Papua New Guinea, lamps from
Indonesia, pottery from Malaysia, contemporary Singaporean paintings, and
Chinese crafts of every sort, including a huge beautifully crafted Chinese
wedding bed in the middle of her living room.
When the opportunity arose to visit Saigon in January 1973, I jumped at the
chance. Haya was going with her husband and other journalists to Saigon and she
asked me to join her. She was to seek antiques in Saigon. So here we were, in
the major city of a war torn country and traipsing around it's remarkable
antique stores and there were a lot of them. It was rather surreal experience
to say the least. This also included joining journalists for meals in exquisite
Vietnamese and French restaurants. It was rather hard to believe that in the
middle of war, here I was eating some of the best food on the planet.
The influence of France in Vietnam apparently began with Jesuit priests in the
1600's and ultimately the French occupation of Vietnam under Napoleon III in
1853. It lasted until 1954, in the midst of Vietnamese resistance. (When is
there not resistance to occupation? It's time the Americans learned this!) In
this exquisite Asian city, the legacy of French occupation was apparent. There
were all kinds of French restaurants, and shopkeepers selling loaves of French
bread and everything else French. I drank wine on the veranda of one of the
hotels - the Hotel Majestic - frequented earlier in the 1930s by British
writer Somerset Maugham. Vietnamese or French were the languages. As I
unfortunately do not speak the beautiful song-like Vietnamese language, I spoke
with most cab drivers in French. English was virtually a non-entity.
My residence in Saigon that week was in an
elite area. It was, in fact, across the street from the Presidential Palace of
Nguyen Van Thieu who was the provisional president at the time. My hosts were
Americans - the head of the New York Bank in Saigon and his wife. From the
balcony outside my room I looked across to the palace. Sandbags, along with
armed military sentries, surrounded it. My movie camera was shaped somewhat
like a gun. On the balcony, I recall crouching down to film the palace, but
decided against this. Getting killed for taking a photo of a palace was not the
wisest plan. Later in the week, however, a Vietnamese soldier at an
intersection did point his rifle at me until I convinced him that what I had
was a camera and not a gun.
My hostess spent a lot of her time with
the wives of Vietnamese political leaders and diplomats. Once during the week
she invited me to a luncheon with these women. I declined the offer. This might
have been a mistake as it could have been interesting to hear what they had to
say. But my time was limited and in the diplomatic corps I knew the last thing
the wives can do is discuss anything of substance. I knew this, as I
was essentially associated with the diplomatic corps myself as, being married
to an Australian diplomat, I had also gone through diplomatic training in
Australia. Further, the wives of political leaders were unlikely to say
anything meaningful, as it would be too dangerous for them to do so. So, much
to the disdain of my hostess, I ventured instead into the streets of Saigon.
She also didn't like my interest in talking with her servants which I did, as
well, at every opportunity.
I visited with a Burmese friend who was teaching at the University of Saigon. I
knew him from Singapore where he had worked as a scientist for a United Nations
agency headed by young Americans who, he told me, had no appreciation for him
and his qualifications (two PhD's from US universities). He was anxious to
leave and come to Saigon even in the midst of war. He took me to Saigon's
flourishing open farmer's markets, and to the university. The markets were
huge, bustling and vibrant with food and all kinds of wares and crafts. There
is absolutely nothing as exciting as an Asian market and the markets in Saigon
were no exception.
I spent time with American GI's who showed
me their "Shoe Shine Boys Project." It was created in response to the
predominance of street children whose families couldn't afford to care for them
because of the war. Many of the boys were shining shoes to earn money for the
family and most could not return home except to take their hard earned money.
The GI's leased homes in back alleys for these youth, where they had a bed,
were fed warm meals and offered classroom instruction. The GIs took me to some
of those homes. It was rather interesting that while the U.S. military was
creating havoc and tragedy in Vietnam, some GI's were attempting to alleviate
what they could of this pain. I don't know where the funding came from for this
project or whether the US army was also involved to better control the shoe
shine boys who were sometimes implicated in spying and/or working for the Viet
Cong. Clearly everyone wanted to manipulate the youth. Nevertheless, the
soldiers I talked with were proud of this project and rightly so. It's also my
understanding that actor Richard Hughes played the leading role in creating the
"Shoe Shine Boys Project":
In 1968, as a conscientious objector, he (Richard Hughes) refused
the Vietnam draft, only to borrow $1,500 and travel on his own to Saigon, where
he helped found the Dispatch News Service -- later it distributed Seymour
Hersh's exclusive on the My Lai massacre -- and opened a shelter for street
children called the Shoeshine Boys Project.(NY Times)
Saigon was a massive bustling city. Small cars and bicycles were everywhere.
Once, while in a taxi and seeking a shop to buy a Vietnamese guitar, the driver
and I managed to get into a traffic jam at a huge intersection. Even today I
can't quite understand how we managed get out of it! We did find the small shop
and I purchased the guitar. It was off the beaten track. It reminded me of
small commercial areas in Atlanta, Georgia suburbs with a street lined with
small businesses along with cars, and in the Vietnam scenario, with cars but
also countless bicycles rushing past. There were no soldiers or sandbags in
sight. Just small business owners and their customers.
I visited three orphanages in Saigon. The children in the first two were
relatively well cared for and the institutions were clean, even in spite of
what were probably relatively limited resources. They were administered by
Vietnamese and not religious based. Then I visited the third orphanage
administered by a French Catholic priest. I was utterly appalled. The children
were filthy and groveling and crawling on dirty floors. Some of them were
strapped in chairs outside. One child, the mixture of a Vietnamese and Black
American, was blind and screaming. My colleague told me this Catholic priest
was notorious throughout Saigon. His attitude was that it didn't matter what
happened here on earth because the rewards were to be found in heaven. This
was, apparently, the priest's justification for the abysmal treatment of these
children. Not that all Christian orphanages are likely to be problematic or
abusive, of course, but I've wondered since how often Christians apply this
rationale.
As a sequel to all this, in 1993, we in Atlanta were fortunate to host the
Vietnamese Minister of Agriculture. The American Rice Institute had brought him
to the United States. After visiting number of large corporate rice farms the
Minister asked to visit a "real farm" in America. In response, the
American Rice Institute called the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land
Assistance Fund so that the Minister could visit a small farm. I joined the
delegation and we took him to visit Willie Adams, a Black farmer in east
Georgia who raised chickens. The minister was clearly thrilled to finally spend
some time with a "real farmer."
While on the road, the Vietnam Minister
asked about the fate of US Vietnam War veterans. I told him many struggled
economically and psychologically, many were homeless, some were on death row,
many were haunted by the experience, many joined organizations to resist war,
many were seemingly not effected, on and on. In very much an Asian "sense
of place" and one in which the ancestors are honored, he told me "we
know many young Americans died on our soil and their souls are with us now. We
will always pray for them."
I had visited Saigon in January of 1973. By March 1973, due to the Paris Peace
Agreement, the US military began to withdraw from Vietnam. The total number of
Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed varies from 900,000 to 4 million. The
total number of Americans killed is approximately 58,000. This does not include
thousands of injuries, destabilization and death in the surrounding countries
such as Cambodia, plus environmental degradation in Vietnam. What insanity is
this?
