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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-08088 to 363-08096.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-08088 to 363-08096
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Title
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Article about the South Vietnamese countryside
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Description
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Original title: "Country in a Cross-Fire", Article draft about the South Vietnamese countryside, for The Reporter
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Transcript
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Saigon
June 3, 1962
Elizabeth Layne
Editorial Department
The Reporter
660 Madison Avenue
New York 21, New York
Dear Miss Laynes,
I am enclosing the article on Viet Nam mentionedi in your letter
Hoping that it is satisfactory for The Reporter, I am eager to
hear of your decision on publication.
Sincerely yours,
(Miss) Beverly Deepe
Associated Press
Rue Pasteur 158 D/3
Saigon, Viot linh
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Beverly Deepe
Associated Press
Rue Pastour 158 D/3
Sai Ong Viet Nam
COUNTRY IN A CROSS-FIRE
3,000 words
Five minutes after the tiny I-20 departed Saigon's Ton Son Nhut
Airport, I saw below me the guts of the Mekong Delta, a chaotic
And
spiderweb of canals, river streams draining the valuable but uncultivated
marshland known as the Plain of Reeds. The combination of landscape and
water-scape was a glimmering montage of blues, browns and bieges crazy-quilted
into an artist's delight. Far below, like mechanical toys, black-robed
peasants lacksidasically prodded their water buffaloes to plow the rice
paddies as their ancestors had for centuries.
From Cao Lanh, the capital of Kien Phong province just 15 miles south
of the ""engle's boak"" of the Cambodian border, I visited villages and hamlets
by jeep, helicopter and by speedboat up the canals and down the Mekong River,
which showered me at high tide with undaunted glee. At dusk, the waterways
beehived with activity. Clusters of brown-skinned children took their
evening baths in river water the same color. A mother precariously balanced
herself at the end of her boardwalk to do the day's laundry. Perchod
at the river's edge, a white-bearded man sucked in the cooling breeze and
watched the red-and-blue
taxi boat, the small fishing houseboats and the
unpainted sampons quietly skimming home from market. The rusty orange fish
nets, in harmonizing hues with the tangerine-tiled roofs of ritt farmers'
homes, had been hung on bamboo stilteto dry. Another day had ended in the
delta. It appeared to be a peacefully serene day.
(More)
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Doope
Page 2
Yet, this quiet countryside is the noisy front line in this war of no
front lines. It is here that the Communist Viet Cong have cajoled, caressed,
wooed, terrorized and double-crossed the villagers in a slow, but dynamic
scheme to conquer South Viet Nam.
I wanted to discover first-hand the life, emotions, feelings and
problems of these people who were mere blobs from an aircraft and blurs
from an American-made speedboat.
In Tan-An,
the
I found that interviewing them was no safe task. The five villages I
visited in Kien Phong province were all strategic hamlets-government fortified
vinters playing peek-a-boo with the Viet Cong from behind frail bamboo
fences and encompassing moats.
Provincial officials insisted additional
military protection would be needed for me to visit the villages.
a cluster of bamboo cottages nestled among refreshing shade trees,
village chief had boon killed one morning two months ago when he pulled open
his desk drawer and grenades exploded in his face. In the village of
Binh Long Thuan, which had been 100 per cent Viet Cong controlled until last
August, guerrilla forces still sauntered outside the bamboo fences in the
banana groves only 500 yards away. The day before I visited it, a brave
Viet Cong had launched grenades into the hamlet from behind the
clump of trees. Two weeks before I visited Dong Nhat, a force of 300
troops would have been needed as an escort. I went in with ten after
government forces had swept through the area and established a company command
post to hold it. Yet the Viet Cong ""province chief"" and 200 guerrillas roamed
freely only half a mile away.
Shortly after chugging past a cluster of tree branches and stumps which
the Viet Cong had used as a barricade across the canal, the small unpainted
boat stopped. I skated along the chewing-gum fields and dikes so slippermy
guide fell. Reaching Dong Nhi, a small village near the site of three major
operations in one month, Mrs. Nguyen Thi The invited me into her thatch-roofed
house, spread a reed mat on a
day-tine chairs and asked me to
low table which served as a night-time bed and
sit down.
(More)
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Doope
Page 3
Though
she had never sech a movie.
yards away the previous
From the louspeaker in the
The wife of a 31-year-old rice paddy farmer,
hough one was shown in the neighboring village 300
night, she was too afraid of the Viet Cong to go.
neighboring village she heard amplified Vietnamese music, but wondered why
the people ""spoke in such a loud voice.""
hamlet; she could neither read nor writeg
She had never heard a radio in her
she had no telephone or electricity.
She did not know the name of the President of the United States and was not
aware that American military advisors were stationed only seven miles away.
She was delighted with my visit and my request to photograph her. ""It's the
first time since I was born I've seen an American or myself in a picture,""
she explained.
If her life-typical of other villagers-seems as insular as existing
within a coconut shell, it is also an haotically dangerous as that of a
professional soldier. However, hers is a life in floor-holes, not fox-holes.
Almost half of the houses I peared into, both in Kien Phong province and on
patrols with troops in other parts of the country, had deep holes in the floor-
the primitive equivalent of the modern-world's fall-out shelter.
Mrs. The pointed under the low table I was sitting on to her floor-hole.
Her sister-in-law, eavesdropping on our conversation, explained she had
to stay near the house to take her children into the abyss whenever a barrage
of artillery and bullets started. In another village, an elderly man
explained hef nosedived into his floor-hole when he heard American holicopters
buzz over for the first time.
farme
night.
""The population is caught in the cross-fire,"" said a saintly-locking
with a sparsely populated white board. ""We are afraid to go out at
The government soldiers think we are Viet Cong and will shoot use
Our lives are at the mercy of God.""
Mrs. The explained, ""The government soldiers came and we wanted to
throw them out, but they had guns. Then the Viet Cong came; we wanted to
toss them out, but they also had guns.""
An even more irate rejection of both sides was voiced by a sickly man,
who replied, ""There are two vermin in the country-the government and the
Viet Cong.
They are the same.""
Fear of identifying themselves with either side prevented most of the
villagers from freely discussing politics, government policies or local Viet
Cong taction.
(More)
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""But one maga a ****
Deepe
Page 4
wouldn't let me, but I did it anyway. The V. C. would have killed me if I
hadn't.""
#
A 2-year-old youth corps member recalled that in 1958 he and other
young men slept in the public buildings in the center of the village.
""Please don't ask us to say which side is best, one farm laborer
We knew our fate,"" he said, fidgeting with a bamboo twig. ""One
pleaded. ""If I answer the Viet Cong is best, the government will put me in
hight we all attended a government meetings the 1st Cong attacked the post
prison. If I say the government is best, the V. C. will kill me. **
and tried to kidnap us. Some of my friends were wounded-some were killed.
Another stated, ""It's useless to talk about politics."" I asked him
he admitted.
to explain. ""It's dangerous,""
Even an Army of Viet Nam soldier said in broken English, ""If I talk
politios, my head leaves my neck.""
A few mentioned that it was unwise to discuss politics or the war even
1th neighbor.
How had the war affected the lives of these peasants?
A 63-year-old share cropper, tossing a sarong around his chest and
pologizing for not owning a shirt, explained, ""After the French wr, I became
village chief for the government."" He continued, taking down a tin of
matted, home-grown tobacco and rolling a oigarette out of coarse writing paper,
""But one night the V. C. came and told me to resign. The district chief
wouldn't let me, but I did it anyway. The V. C. would have killed me if I
hadn't.""
A 2-year-old youth corps member recalled that in 1958 he and other
young men slept in the public buildings in the center of the village.
""We knew our fate,"" he said, fidgeting with a bamboo twig. ""One
night we all attended a government meeting; the Viet Cong attacked the post
and tried to kidnap us. Some of my friends were wounded-some were killed.""
The young handsom son of a Saigon pharmacist complained that in Saigon
he wore elegant clothes and lived in a large house, but on his assignment in
the provinces he slept in tents and wore dirty fatigues. He added that the
military status of his 21-year-old friend in Saigon prevented his studying
medicine in the United States on a scholarship.
To the older persons I talked with, ""the war"" was just an extension
of the struggle for independence against the French. When I asked about the
current conflict, an emanciated man showed me his bumpily scarred leg badly
injured when the Communist Viet Minh detonated a road mine 12 years ago. A
45-year-old wonen told of living for years on a houseboat after the French had
burned her home.
(More)
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Mr. and Mrs. Phan Van Thanh could weave two colorful reed mats in one
Deepe
Page 5
Only
But the most widespread effect of the war is the systematic drain
on the peasants' pocketbooks, according to the villagers I talked with.
those families with draft-age sons said the war was a more serious problem thon
economic pressures.
""The wir has made un poor,' H explained one farmer. ""We can have a new
life if we have peace.""
Rice farmors complained of being unable to cross from their homes, held
by government forces, to their farmland under Viet Cong control. A salesman
who sold rice, fruit and textiles by paddling his sampan along the rivers was
irritated by the diminishing area he could safely travel in.
The increase in taxes and the price of rice were also mentioned by a
few villagers as causes for economic headaches.
In Binh Long Thuáºn,
Mr. and Mrs. Phan Van Thanh
a strategic hamlet brushing the Mekong River,
could weave two colorful reed mats in one
day for an income of 40 piastres (six U. S. cents).
""But the starvation is becoming worse,"" Mr. Thanh warned. ""The daily
price of rice for my family has increased from five to eight piastres since
a year ago this month. But I must sell my mats at the same price.""
Mrs. Thanh complained she spent sleepless nights worrying about family
finances and that her conversation with neighbors centered around ""the famine.""
Pointing to a hole in the shoulder of her frail white blouse, she lamented,
""You will remember our house because it is so poor.""
peasants little hope
The key for progress for thedr
The hand-to-mouth budgeting seemed to give the
for improving the life of their children.
next generation seemed to be education.
and Mrs. Thanh were mat weavers. Mrs.
give her two sons complete educations,
Both sides of the families of Mr.
Thanh explained that since she could not
they would probably also become mat weavers.
Another mother said her 10-year-old son had no opportunity for schooling
and was needed to drive her water buffaloes. ""When he grows up, there will be
no future here,"" she commented. We live for today. Tomorrow will be like
today.""
(More)
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alleypé
Page 6
His family talked for half-an-hour about their desire to obtain a
government low-interest loan for establishing a small selling business. V
""But the government loans money only to the rich people,"" one man said. ""Then
the poor must borrow from the rich, paying them ten percent interest per month.
The rich all friends of the district or village chief.""
me.
A 28-year-old hired laboror, who earns
When I asked the peasants how long theutigen day ofsidet ""I
have no money for educating my sons.
would continue, most of them laugh flavery poor dike
youth fighter estimated that with the help of the free sex world, the struggle
Even the vital government
might
end in ton year front
of fortifying, the widesproving
program
the standard of living brought economic complaints from a few peasants.
I saw a 45-year-old irate woman severely scold the district chief in
charge of establishing civic improvements. She lashed at hin verbally,
complaining that the eight-foot-wide road being built would out a chunk
off her rice land and would necessitate chopping down her favorite orange tree.
""I had planted it as a baby,"" she said ""an now I can sell the fruit for
500 pitres. A piastres is very big here."" A piastres in about seven-tenths
of a pengy
How can I do it?""
She also pleaded that the road construction would not force her to move
hor wooden house. Her father anked, ""every person must build the road in
front of his house. But I am sick.
Another family was frustrated by a local virment order to repair their
house and to install a latrine. They calulatedit would cost 5000 piastres
(U. S. $7). ""That isn't alot of money, the husband said, ""but we can't
start 'til we sell our fruit. We'll still have to borrow 3500 p's from
someone.""
Every family is to be paid for their work in rice allotments which have
yet to be delivered.
Another important government project was criticized by one family. A
tenant farmer recalled that after the flood last fall ""two Americans drove up
in a big car and left lots of fice. But the district chief took most of it
away.""
His family talked for
half-an-hour about their desire to obtain a
government low-interest loan for establishing a small selling business.
""But the government. loans money only to the rich people,"" one man said. ""Then
the poor must borrow from the rich, paying them ten percent interest per month.
The rich are all friends of the district or village chief.""
When I asked the peasants how long they thought the internal conflict
would continue, most of them 1mghed or shrugged their shoulders. A young
youth fighter estimated that ith the help of the free world, the struggle
might end in ten years. A 34-yenz-1819ol militiaman, in faded, tattered
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Deepe
Page 7
clothes he received 12 years ago by serving in the French army, said glumly,
""Viet Nam has always been at war. It will never end.""
The villagers I talked with would not discuss which side they thought
would win. However, an elderly man said, ""The Communists beat the French and
now they will beat the Vietnamese."" A 28-year-old farmer-fisherman countered
that he had seen the big guns and trucks of the Army of Viet Nam while the Viet
Cong had little to fight with.
Some of the people were attempting to protect themselves no matter which
side wone
Kien Phong province had been heavily controlled by the Viet Minh
after World War II and by the Communist Viet Cong after the 1954 Geneva
Agreements ending French rule in Indo-Chine. The Communists issued to landless
farmers cortificates of paddy and garden ownership, which wouldbe valid if they
Wone In 1958, President Ngo Dinh Diem issued similar certificates on
initiating his land reform program. The jubilant farmers swapped the pieces
of paper among themselves until each had certificates from both sides for the
same plot of land.
A 24-year-old unmarried man worried about his going to war was more
interested in discovering my opinion on which side would win than in answering
my questions. He appeared to be trying to decide which would be the winning
side he should fight on.
What was the peasants' attitudes towards the United States and the
American military stationed in Viet Nam?
Though many of the villagers I talked with had received U. S. flood relief
last fall, their real knowledge of their free-world ally did not reach beyon
the ""many cars and big buildings"" state. As one farmer blurted out, ""I've
only been to Saigon once. How should I know what America is like?""
In the remote areas removed from military maneuvers, some villagers were
that American military advisors and support units had been sent to
Viet Nam. Others learned of the American arrivals through Viet Cong propaganda
attacking ""My-Dionism,"" ""My"" means American in Vietnamese. Government
progaganda had countered, not by explaining the purpose of the American
commitment, but by linking Rod China, Soviet Union and North Vietnam as the
enemies behin the Viet Cong movement.
(MOYO)
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Deepe
Page 8
In Cao Lenh, I interviewed a bright 15-year-old boy who had
served as a courier for the Viet Cong, sleeping in the rice paddies and
standing along the roadsides to alert the Viet Cong guerrillas when
government troops marched into the area. He was told by the Viet Cong,
""President Diem has sold our country to the Americans. They have no country
of their owl.""
Two months ago, he was captured by the government forces and put into
a political re-education center, where he was taught ""The Soviet Union is
going to invade South Viet Nam. The Americans are here to help us stop it.""
Some of the villagers expressed air feeling inferior to the Americans.
As one district chief explained, The Vietnamese have been under foreign
domination for so long, they automatically feel the Americans are superior.""
A farmer's wife said she had wanted to talk to the Americans she had seen in a
Saigon theatre, but who was afraid,im stating ""They are educated; we are just
villagers.""
Others identified the Americans as Frenchmen because ""they are tall and
strong with round eyes and big noses."" A.farmers wife said the only difference
between the two nationalities was ""the French were very severe.
smiled.""
They never
And so goes life in the quiet Vietnamese countryside centuries away
from the United States.
<-30->
"
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Date
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1962, Jun. 3
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Subject
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Vietnam, 1961-1975;
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6311
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B1, F8
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Collector
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
