Viet Women - Friends, Foes and Madame Nhu

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363-04836.pdf

Digital Object Identifier

363-04836

Title

Viet Women - Friends, Foes and Madame Nhu

Description

Article published in the New York Herald Tribune about women in the Vietnam War, page 8

AI Usage Disclosure

Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.

Transcript

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- Page 1
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Viet Women-Friends, Foes and Madame Nhu
Life of Conflict
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent
SAIGON.
At 10 she was carrying
messages to the Communists
for her elder brother. At 26
she helped supply weapons and
ammunition to Reds fighting
the French colonialists. To-
day, at 45, Mrs. Nguyen Thi
Dinh is deputy commander
of the Communist-controlled
Viet Cong Armed Forces.
Since there have been no
official announcements nam-
ing a commander-in-chief of
the guerrilla military, some
experts suspect Mrs. Dinh's
appointment was a ploy to
gain more support from the
women of Viet Nam.
For more and more women
are playing an increasingly
important role in Viet Nam-
on the government side, but
principally on the Viet Cong
side.
The guerrillas, using for the
most part women in the rural
areas where they are strong-
est, recruit females for gather-
ing intelligence, liaison work
and sabotage.
Women suspected of serving
the Viet Cong act as maids or
cooks for foreigners, as bar
girls and hostesses in elegant
flowing gowns,
leaders or as peasant women
in shabby black pajamas.
as student
As the war in the country-
side grows more violent, more
of the population is becoming
involved either in the gov-
ernment or Viet Cong forces.
The traditional close-knit
rural family life is withering
from the continuous process
of disintegration.
In some instances the Viet
Cong have used women as
fighters. In one of their first
search and destroy missions
35 miles north of Saigon,
United States troops of the
173d Airborne Brigade was
astonished when three Viet-
namese women started lobbing
white phosphorous grenades
at them.
"I wasn't going to shoot
them," an American para-
trooper explained. "But when
they started throwing gre-
nades at us, they were part of
the enemy. It doesn't bother
me to see dead women-I saw
a lot of them in Korea. But,
it made the young paratroop-
ers sick to shoot women.'
North Vietnamese women,
wearing the traditional tur-
bans around their hair, have
been reported fighting with
Vietnamese units in the cen-
the recently-infiltrated North
tral highlands. One Viet Cong
female guerrilla was renowned
in Long An Province, only 15
miles south of Saigon, for
stalking the jungles carrying
a submachine gun with ban-
doliers wrapped around her
chest.
Women are also used for
smuggling and sabotage. Peas-
ant women are reported to
often enter Saigon with gre-
nades coiled inside the buns of
their hairdos. Others have
plastic explosives and mines
in false bottoms of the wooden
buckets in which they tote
fresh fruits. One Vietnamese
typist
working inside an
American compound was cap-
tured with poison hidden in-
side a packet of cigarettes.
She planned to use it to kill
Americans. Another Vietna-
mese woman entering an
American billet compound was
captured with a plastic explo-
sive in her girdle.
FEMALE CADRE
One Viet Cong woman who
defected described the wom-
ens' roles:
"At the zone level (there
are eight Viet Cong military
zones in the country), I heard
about one woman platoon,
who were fighters and were
commanded by a woman.
They were dressed in green
fatigues and were hard-core
units. There were also wom-
en sewing uniforms and Viet
Cong flags. Many well-edu-
cated women from Saigon
came to our jungle zone to
"Then there are the med-
ical corps women. Also the
Viet Cong have liaison teams
of women who take messages
in secret from one village to
the next. Sometimes, the
women put the secret message
on the bottom of fish sauce
(nuoc mam) jars and simply
walk through the Saigon gov-
ernment's check points. How
can they ever be discovered?
"There are also women in
the quartermaster corps who
distribute rice and uniforms;
other women are political
cadre who help organize all.
the women's associations in
the villages. These female
political cadre round up the
women in the village, talk to
The women of Viet Nam long have been noted for their beauty. Now the war there has elicited other
qualities. On both the government and Viet Cong sides, women's functions have expanded from the
day they were expected only to till the rice and raise the children. The Herald Tribune's special
correspondent in Saigon, Beverly Deepe, has analized this new Viet Nam woman and the war's impact
on her home and social life. In this first of five articles Miss Deepe discusses the women living in Viet
Cong territory.
The cruel war has many faces, facets and contrasts. On the left, a woman waits
with her children on a hilltop near Hiep Duc where they were wounded. On the
right, the glittering Mme. Nhu and her daughter on one of their trips.
them, and help organize their
elections for village leaders."
With the buildup of Ameri-
I can troop strength, the num-
ber of Vietnamese bars with
their bargirls, singers and
prostitutes has mushroomed.
Most of these girls do not
possess the Saigon govern-
ment's identification cards,
and high-ranking officials
still are uncertain how many
of the women are working
for the Viet Cong.
One singer, Nguyen Thi
Nga-which means Miss
Moon-recently defected to
the Saigon government in the
Mekong Delta and told of how
she was recruited by the Viet
Cong three years ago when
she was 13.
First she acted as a liaison;
then she applied to be a
singer for a Viet Cong village
cultural group. She was
"deter-
taught to sing such songs as the richest and most beautiful when the Viet Cong formed
"Victory over the American province south of Saigon in their political organization
The
Aggressors,"
Ap-Bac the Mekong Delta region, Mrs. known as the National Libera-
Sound" and
means
“The Dinh Dinh
Bugle
tion Front for South Viet
People in the North or in the mined" or "pre-destined"- Nam, she was appointed to
South are Living in the Same served the Communist-dom- the provisional executive com-
House." Guitars and man- inated Viet Minh Front from mittee-and is still a member
dolins were her accompani- the beginning of their anti-
French fight in 1945 to 1954.
ment.
Her theatrical group enter-
tained villagers on special oc-
casions of meetings, cere-
monial days and occasionally
she entertained the Viet Cong
guerrillas and the regular
Viet Cong troops that visited
her village. Two of her elder
brothers were already serving
the Viet Cong, she explained.
The story of Miss Moon's
early recruitment recalled the
early enlistment of Mrs. Dinh,
the Viet Cong deputy com-
mander, in the guerrilla
movement.
After the signing of the
Geneva agreements in 1954,
Mrs. Dinh remained in South
Viet Nam instead of going
North with the multitudes of
other Communist cadres. Ac-
cording to her official biog-
raphy read over the Hanoi
radio, after 1954 she was in
constant hiding from govern-
ment forces at times sleep-
ing in the bushes.
In 1960, she was one of the
first to seize weapons from
the government and to armi
her own group in her native
Born in Kien Hoa Province, province. On Dec. 20, 1960,
at the central level.
In May of this year, Mrs.
Dinh was one of the two
women among 23 "Heroes of
the Revolution" upon whom
were
honors.
bestowed Viet Cong
Another famous Vietnamese
woman serving the Viet Cong
is Mrs. Nguyen Thi Binh. She
is unrelated to Mrs. Dinh, but
also is a member of the cen-
tral executive committee. Mrs.
numerous
Binh has made
visits to Communist and
neutralist countries in Europe,
Asia and Africa in attempts
to gain their support for the
Viet Cong cause.

Date

1965, Nov. 21

Subject

Mặt trận dân tộc giải phóng miền nam Việt Nam; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Women; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, Vietnamese (Republic); Trần, Lệ Xuân, 1924-2011; Civilians in war; Women soldiers; Women in war

Location

Saigon, South Vietnam

Coordinates

10.8231; 106.6311

Container

B4, F6

Format

newspaper clippings

Collection Number

MS 363

Collection Title

Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers

Creator

Keever, Beverly Deepe

Copyright Information

These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.

Publisher

Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries

Language

English