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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04028 to 363-04041.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04028 to 363-04041
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Title
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Article about helicopter warfare in South Vietnam
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Description
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Original title: "Thieu," Keever's title: "Helicopter Diplomacy A-flutter Admist War." Article draft about helicopters and their influence on U.S.-Vietnam diplomacy. Written for the Christian Science Monitor
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AI Usage Disclosure
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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.
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Transcript
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Beverly Ann Deepe
3 và mạnh
saigon
January 12, 1968
Thibu-page 1
SAIGON-Vietnam has witnessed the introduction of
not simply helicopter warfare, but also helicopter diplomacy.
The "cookie-pushers in striped pants," as the envoys
were once derisively called, have escalated from the more modern
open-shirt jeep diplomacy during the past decade to the k khaki-clad
helicopter diplomacy ourrently employed in Vietnam.
This new era in diplomacy, still undergoing drastic
changes, includes whirlwind tours in the giant whirlybirds by such
visiting bigwigs as Amorican en Senators or the Vice President,
Presidential hopefuls, the Thai prime minister inspecting his
country's Queen Cobra Regiment, a California Congressman being
photographed with California G. I.'s and delegations of South
Korean or Filipino officials spiralling down to a chat with their
nations troop comitments.
(More Deepe)
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Deepe
Thioupage 2
On the American side, this type of diplomacy has
become so provalent that a holio heliport has been constructed
atop thenow now U. S. Embassy situated in the heart of Saigon. And,
a private civilian airline, called Air America, has been contracted
By
the American government to provide helicopter transport for the
bevies of U. s. officials from Saigon and Washington pirouetting
around the Vietnamese countryside.
All U. military services
Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines-maintain their own helicopter
unit
In the broadest sonse, helicopter diplomacy is also
preoticed by the South Vietnamese officiele within their own country,
first when they visit Allied troop units and, second, when they
represent the contral government with an inspection of a remote
village or oft outpost which rarely so soon close-up a helicopter
or a Vietnamese President. The high Vietnamese officials probably
originated the idea of helicopter diplomacy in the first place some
four or five years ago, and now President Nguyen Van Thieu
by helicopter>>
commutes from his home on the outskirts of Saigon to the Presidential
Palace in the heart of the city. Originally, all aircraft and
helicoptera wore ordered to dirt Saigon because they made too
much noise over the city (and often signalled a coup attempt);
Saigonese regularly see the Presidential helicopter touch down
now
on the Palace lawn amongst carefully tended shurbbery and flowers.
More Doepe)
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- Page 3
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Doope
Thi cử
This trend of "Have Helicopter-Will Travel" was recently
dramatized by South Vietnamese President Thiou when he visited Allied
The explicit purpose of
the i diplomatic venture was to express South Vietnamese appreciation
to the Allied units and to wish the troops a happy holidays-Christmas
ane and Now Years for American and Australian troopers and lunar new year
in late January for the South Korean troops. An integral part of
helicopter diplomacy is widespread press coverages designed to radiate
an ente energetic, team-mate image within Vietnam and abroad.
troops units in the provinces surrounding Saigon.
Thus, a full platoon of correspondents-foreign journalists,
television crews, invl including those for the national Vietnamese
network, the semi-government prese agency and Presidential press
officers,
departed Saigon's Tan Son Nhut airport at 8 a.m.
They
were tranmorted in three Vietnamese helicopters; the pilots wore
the famed black flying suits and lavender neckerchiefs, which have
epitomized their "wind of the gods" character since their first
bombing raids over North Vietnam in early 1965.
As the helicopters
fluttered above and then away from the world's busiest airport, cars
below appeared toy-size and the pillboxes, stores and houses of
"suburban" Saigon assumed doll-size measurements.
Then, northwest
of the capital, over the nipa palms and rice paddies into a different
century.
(More Deepe)
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Deepe
Thieu page 4
Fifty foot in front of several startled Vietnamese
peasant women, a wavering column of canned green smoke from a tin
can arose from amidst one bone-dry pady--and the holi trio of helicopp
helicopters, like giant metal dren dragonflies, spiralled downward.
The press party was met by a mini-convoy of Ker South Korean joops,
each spotlessly washed clean of the over-present red dust-and luxuriated
with white rubber mats on the floor and plastic charif chair frames
cushioning the seats. From the rice paddies of Vietnam, the dedeatio
YARDS
delegation was driven several hundred miles into an aborration in the
wildernessan Oriental country within an Oriental country.
(more Deepe)
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Deepe
Thiet page 5
Sandbagged bungalow-styled war-rooms, operations buildings
and watch-towers, like eerie, king-sized igloos, dotted the landscape of
the headquarters for the South Korean "Dove" Engineering Battala
Battalion. It was the first South Korean unit to arrive in Vietnam
in 1965, a Vietnamese press officer told new correspondentsand springs
sprigs of grass sprouted from the sandbags atop thobuildings. Signs
in the headquarters area, indicating "War Room" were painted precisely
with precision in English and Korean.
From the mts multi-storied watch-towers and elevated
machinegun positions, well-starched Korean look-outs with binoculars
peered over the Vietnamese landscape. The scene resembled sarahre
the demilitarized zone in another war in another decade the dug-in
positions along the 38th parallel, as though a part of South Korea
had been transplanted to Vietnam.
astonishment.
"There are we?" one American correspondent queried in
*Tinh Thuan villages in Gia Dinh province."
"How far from Saigon?"
"Ten minutes by helicopter," he was told.
"Ah, all distances are now measured in minutes," the
correspondent pontificatod.
(More Doope)
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Deepe
Thioupage 6
The South Koreans had rinn made substantial efforts to
impress the South Vietnamese President they were committed to fight for;
their welcoming party was headed by Korean Ambassador shin sang shul,
the dean of Saigon's diplomatic corps who sported a blue suit and giant-
sized oiger, and the commander of all k Korean forces in Vietnam, General
Chae Myung shin, who can readily quote andx refute al Mao Tse Thung
Tungs Tung's guerrilla warfare strategy.
At 8:15, within mi minutes, President Thieu arrived in
an helicopter along with a many-splendored array of Vietnamese brass and
General Creighton W. Abrams, deputy U, S. commander in Vietnam. As the
American-piloted passenger helicopters touched down, a duo of American
poised
"Cobra" gunships spun fi feverishly through the airspace to suppress
any incoming gunfire, which was non-existent,
President Thieu, wearing a civilian-styled khaki suit was
ushered into the war room (the press delegation was barred) and south
Korean officer could be heard through the open windown to present a
briefing in the Vietnae Vietnamese language. The Vietnamese tones were
enunciated in guttoral, staccato fashion; the accent was different "like
a Frenchman speaking English," ono Vietnamese commented.
President Thiou
PLAques
then gave a short speech, presented a lacquer-vore plague to the Koreans
and in turn received a Korean plaque from them. At 8:40, the Presidential
and the press delegations departed in spe separate helicopter convoys.
(More Deepe)
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Thieu page 7
Then, eastwards to Bearcat, the headquarters of the U.
9th Infantry Division, which President Thieu later described as
"a city in the jungle," and which a Western journalist described
as "a meaningless anomaly axx carved out of the jungle with no rolation
to anything around it." The press delegation was greeted by an
air conditioned Army bush bus, which was in turn escorted by a jeep
with Snoopy's words painted near the windshield reading,
"Curse yous
Red Baron." The Presidential delegation was greeted by the 9th
Division
fande
band playing "the Colonel Boogie March," a very fance
Honor guard of half dozen platoons and a roster of five other Amorican
units and commands in the area.
The
generals representing other U.
half page roster of dignitaries was mimeographed on white paper
marked "confidential" with the notation: "Downgraded at 3 yr intervals;
# declassified after 12 yras DOD dir 5200.10".
for opening the roads
In ten munit minutes, President Thieu was given a brush-stroke
briefing by the Americans and then he gave a speech pragi si praising
the U, S. troops for their "spectacular results,"
around Saigon's defense periphery. He said the Communist main forces had
lut been pushed into sanctuaries along the DZ, the Lace and Cambodian
"hich is a good sign for us because we have the opportunity
borders,
to destroy then away from the populated areas.
Again, the President
gave out neatly wrapped gifts of laqu lacqua lacquerward lacquere
lacquerware, and the 9th Division made the President an honorary member
of the "Octofoily the unit's emblem of "eight brothers
surrounding the 9t ninth brother in the middle," in the words of their
press off
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Deepe
Thioupage 8
The generals then came onto the fringe of the parade
grounds where iced Lipton's tea was served. President Thieu cok
cocked hix his sea-br sea-blue baseball cap mik edged with heavy
gold braid and ju chatted with the American officers.
Suddenly and unexpectedly, U. S. Ambassador Ellsworth
Bunker, in cotton pinstrip suit, arrived with an American aide and
joined the tea-sipping party. President Thieu said to the Ambassador:
"From the air, I believed this (Bearcat) was a new city." General
Abrahms, anni continuing the chitchat, then described a 96-ton
machine which out down the jungle so "it looks like a quilt when you
fly over it."
S
Then the Ambassador whispered to President Thieu: "Could
I have a word with you." Thiou agreed and they stepped into the general's
office, along with the Ambassador's aide and General Abrahms. Ten
minutes later, the foursome came out, presumably having discussed
an extension of the New Year's truce which the Vatican had requested.
The Ambassador then drove in a jeep to his helicopter and lux as he
walked 'chopper-wards, his brown hat his was blown off his head and
it skittled across the driveway. A half dozen Army officers ran after
it and retrieved it.
(More)
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Deepe
Thioupage 9
where the
Then the Nui Dat, along the South China Sea,
8000-man Australian-New Zealand Task Force was headquartered amongst
rubber trees. The same procedures were followed-the official briefing,
a short speech of appreciation by President Thiou, Vietnamese gifts
to the Australians and coffee and busou biscuits under an exquisite
portrait of Queen Elizabeth in the officer's club.
At noon, the helicoptering delegations landed in the midst
of another rice paddy, this time signalled in by a column of red smoke.
A peasant woman, with obvious disgust, began to move her mats-ful of
unhusked rice away from the whirring 'choppers.
The press delegation
began to walk down the dusky road, lined with freshly planted coconut
palms, to whore President Thieu would visit the Vietnamese Revolutionary
Development teams and their security battalions.
(More Deepe)
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Deepe
Thionnaco 10
Glancing at the austere thatch huts baking in the dazzling,
high-noon sun,
a newly-arrived correspondent enoted: "This looks
like it's right out of the Middle Agos." But, the trunks of the trees
had been whitewashed for the Presidential visit, the school now sported pink
the local police wore their freshly
swings and teeter-totters,
polished shoulder pistols, the soldiers, forming the honor guard,
wore shoulder braids of gold.
was
The Presidential briefing in this Ben Tranh village was
held in a hot tent. The village, consisting of six hamlets,
defended by one regular Vietnamese Army battaliong and two local militia
platoons. Four Americans advised them. The senior advisor, Capt.
Ronnie Williams, explained:
"When I first arrived (9 months ago) this was a stronghold
of the 514th Viet Cong battalion.
There were possible enough people to
crowd the marketplace, but no more.
There was no children; no rice;
only weeds; no school or dispensary.
The houses were torn down; the
roads were impassible and the whole area was heavily booby-trapped and
mined. The overall appearance was sort of negativo.
"Now since the Vietnamese battalion and Revolutionary
Development teams have come in, the living conditions have picked up.
People are making money from their ricefields; I've seen people growing
vegetables whore noh nothing but weeds grow before. I've seen them
growing cattle and somehave started making bricks again. More people
have moved back into the area and re-built their homes."
(More Deepe)
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- Page 11
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Doope
Thiou page 11
President Thiou inspected the development teams, clad
in the black pjamas pajamas of peasants, the defense bunkers, the
austere loan-tos serving as the soldiers' billets, the 2- two-rcom
dispensary and the three-room school, where the children shouted
"stand up" in unison as the President entered. Thiou stopped to
ank one wide-eyed soh9 schoolboy "whore do you live; were you in
school before?", but the tot, too shy to answer,
with the hole in the back of his faded cotton shirt.
simply fidgetted
For the occasion,
the Vietnamese schoolteachers, in simply flowing ao dais, had planted
an exponded artillery
sam small bouquets of flowers on thoir/desk;
shell had been suspended from a tree to serve as a ding-dong bell
calling the children to cals class.
In the newly-repaired marketplace, Thiou stopped to look at the
community's 21-inch television set, and ordered it turned on to be sure it
worked. A snow blizzard appeared on the set; programming had not
yet begun for the day.
"The TV is turned on every night and 400 to 500 people
come to the market to watch it," one Vietnamese civilian government
civilian employe explained. "Even the Viet Cong come and watch it, tho
they never say they're V. C.
(MORE Deepa)
Сторс
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Deepo
Thiou page đ
Thon, the President stopped at an "upper-class farm house
with a concrete floor, tiled roof and wooden siding and asked the
old man residing there: "Do you know who I am?"
man
The old man with a straggly beard answered, "No."
The village chief then introduced the President and the old
said he had voted for Thiou as President in the September elections.
"I remember your ticket," the old men said. He continued a
"This is once in a life-time for me. Never in my life
have I seen a President. Now, 'til the day I die, I think I will
be conti contented."
Then, a gay, open-air lunch under palmtrees and a white
parachute from an expended illumination flare. The President sat at
the head of the officers officer's table in a wooden armchair
of rose embossed sating the press also was seated; the company of
regular soldiers, however, stood up at their assigned tables for the
meal.
(More Deepe)
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Deepe
Thiou page 13
The traditional Vietnamese mean meal of stewed and braised
beef was intorspr interspersed with very non-Vietnamese rock 'n' roll
music played on two electric guitars, electrically amplified, and a
trumphet. Several female singers, dressed in fatigues and high-heeled
shoeg sang, representing the Vietnamese Army's 403rd Psychological
Warfare Company. A quartette of Revolutionary Development endre song the
rousing R. D. song, while a five-year old lass, dressed in mini-airborne
watched wide-eyed and sipped an iced pop.
fatigues,
haircut, red neckerchief and shoulder holster,
A
Then, a Vietnamese company commander, with a short Beattle
sang a melancholy song.
He commanded the 1st Co., 1st Bn., 11th Reg., 7th ARVN Division.
Vietnamese major, who ten years ago had studied at the Ft. Bonning (Ga.)
Infantry School, explained the song, which he loosely translated to
"The company commander is from North Vietnam,"
ho
mean "Nostalgia."
said, "and the song is about his exodus from Hanoi and his memories
of Hanoi and sometime he expects to go back to the North.
MacArthur's speech in the Philippinest
Something like
II 'I'll be back'.
語
He turned to his American advisor, a young captain from
Pennsylvania, and explained: "The song is something similar to Frost's
poon The Road Not Taken'."
The captain, an English literature major
in college, nodded and explained,
"From "Frost comes down tix a road
in the poem and there's a fork in the road and he can go either way. He
takes the one least traveled by. He could go into business and earn
money or he could write poetry, and as he looks back he thinks he took
the right road."
(More Drape)
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Deepe
thien page 1
He roads
The Vietnameson major said parenthetically to a visitor:
"The captain teaches mo American dictation 15 minutes a day.
me at least one poom each day and I read it back to him and then we discuss
it."
The Vietnamese singing Vietnamese company commander onded
"Nostalgia" with a salute. Then, the correspondents pulled their
chairs into a somi-circle under the palms to ine interview President
mostly in the negative-
Thiue. For twenty minutes, the President answered the probing questions,
the President said, he would not personally ask Pope Paul
the President emphasized,
yx No,
to mediate the Vietnam problem. Nom Nol No,
his government would not recognize the National Liberation Front, but he
would talk to individual Communists. No, the President said, his foreign
minister was not going to talk with North Vietnamese representatives
in Parisux or Africa.
(More Deepe)
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Date
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1968, Jan. 12
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Subject
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Nguyễn, Văn Thiệu, 1923-2001; Air warfare; Military helicopters; Vietnam War, 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; 106.6298
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B9, F2
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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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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
