[News] Vietnam - Rice Fields Resound with Songs…and Bombs

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Weekend Edition November 9-11, 2012
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/09/rice-fields-resound-with-songs-and-bombs/

Our Trip to Hanoi, 1970


  Rice Fields Resound with Songs…and Bombs

by NANCY KURSHAN

/This January 2013 marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the 
Paris Peace Treaty that nominally ended the war referred to here in the 
United States as the Vietnam War or, as it is known in Vietnam, the 
American War. /

/As a 26 year old co-founder of the Youth International Party, the 
Yippies, I traveled in May of 1970 to North Vietnam with 2 other women 
on an anti-war delegation. We were accepting an invitation from a 
Vietnamese delegation we encountered at an international peace 
conference in Stockholm./

/I had just lived through the Chicago 8 Conspiracy Trial in which 8 men 
were charged with causing the disturbances at the 1968 Democratic 
Convention. My partner at the time, Jerry Rubin, was one of the 
defendants. /

/Upon my retirement a few years ago as a social worker in the Chicago 
public schools , I wrote the following piece as part of a longer memoir. 
The piece does not discuss in detail the full destruction and 
devastation the U.S. unleashed in this David and Goliath war. That is 
the subject of a more comprehensive story. Suffice it to say that in 
addition to between 2 and 4 million Vietnamese who were killed in that 
war, in addition to all those who were injured and maimed and tortured, 
the U.S. used 19 million gallons of various herbicides including Agent 
Orange which continues to have profound negative effects on the lives of 
generations of Vietnamese men and women. Exposure has been associated 
with cancers, immune deficiencies, reproductive illnesses and severe 
birth defects, not just to those directly exposed but to future 
generations of children and grandchildren. Vietnam estimates that 
400,000 people were killed or maimed by Agent Orange and 500,000 
children were born with birth defects. The Red Cross of Vietnam 
estimates that up to one million people currently living are disabled or 
have health problems due to Agent Orange./

/I believe that historical memory is extremely important. When the 
Vietnamese war ended, I hoped that we would never again see such a 
devastating war by the U.S. military. For some years the so-called 
“Vietnam Syndrome” seemed to serve as a brake on at least outright overt 
warfare. Those days have receded into a faint memory while the U.S. 
involves itself in what appears to be  perpetual warfare now centered on 
the Middle East./

*HANOI, NORTH VIETNAM–MAY 1970*

/“Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom.”  Vietnamese 
proverb/

We left from New York and traveled through Prague to Moscow. The journey 
from Moscow to North Vietnam was far from an express trip.  We stopped 
in Ulan Bator (Mongolia), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Karachi (Pakistan) and 
Calcutta (India), letting passengers off, picking up new ones, and 
refueling.  On every leg of the journey we were fed chicken, lots of 
chicken, repeatedly.  In Ulan Bator, we saw nothing of the world 
outside.  We sat in the airport restaurant that had the feel of 
centuries of civilization behind it, surrounded by ornate and colorful 
filigree, tapestry and tiling.  We deplaned in Calcutta but never left 
the airport.  Nonetheless, we could see through the floor-length windows 
the tiny shanties and the dire poverty that was literally right across 
from the airport.  In the Rest Room there were women dressed in 
traditional saris, begging for small change.

And then, finally, we flew into Hanoi.  Suddenly the black and white 
world was transformed into glorious Technicolor and I felt like Dorothy 
landing in Oz as Genie, Judy and I climbed down from the small Russian 
Aeroflot plane and were greeted as dignitaries, with scores of school 
children presenting each of us with multicolored gladiola bouquets and 
banners of welcome.  We were taken to a lovely old French-style hotel, a 
legacy of the past colonial era, in the center of Hanoi.  There were 
guests from around the world, most notably a large delegation from China 
and a number of individuals from the Soviet Union.  We each had a room, 
a bed with mosquito netting, a ceiling fan, and our own bathroom.  It 
was 1970. I was 26 years old. To us youthful yippies this felt like the 
lap of luxury.

Instructed to take our meals in the hotel restaurant, we protested, 
hoping to eat off the streets and share in the food that Vietnamese, not 
tourists, consumed.  In the end, their instruction as well as our 
protest was irrelevant because we spent almost every minute of our 
waking time with the Vietnamese and meals became part of our 
adventures.  On the few occasions when we did take meals there, the food 
in the hotel restaurant was wonderful– Vietnamese influenced by French 
cuisine.  In the morning we were offered either a bowl of Pho, a soup 
with a hodgepodge of varying ingredients, or eggs French style.

As to clothes, we were immediately fitted for Vietnamese “black 
pajamas.”  These were not really pajamas, but loose-fitting outfits that 
had come to be identified as the uniform of the Viet Cong, the guerrilla 
forces of South Vietnam– baggy pants with an elasticized waist and a 
slightly tailored, long-sleeved button-down shirt.  We were told that in 
the past when resources were less scarce there had been cloth of various 
colors but during the war black was the best option.  Thus the term 
“black pajamas.”  The material was black silk and had a delicate 
patterned weave.  We were also fitted for sandals that were fashioned 
out of rubber tires that we wore our entire time in Viet Nam and for 
years after in the U.S.  They were comfortable and indestructible.  The 
final item of clothing was a conical hat to keep us safe from the sun.

Our host, the U.S.-Vietnamese Friendship Association, was accountable to 
the North Vietnamese government and in charge of relationships with 
American visitors.  They attempted to tailor the trip to suit our 
interests.  We traveled around in a large van that held the three of us 
plus our guides.  There were four Vietnamese, one a woman, who were with 
us most of the time including Oanh, our good friend from the Stockholm 
conference.

Xuan Oanh had joined Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh Front in 1945 at the 
young age of 22.  The Viet Minh was the national liberation movement 
that led the struggle for the independence of Vietnam from French 
colonialism, through the 1940s up until the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu 
where the Vietnamese finally defeated the French.  The primary 
organization within the Viet Minh was the Indochinese Communist Party.  
However, there were other patriotic individuals and groups that 
participated in the struggle as well.

A poet, composer, musician, expert translator and patriot, Xuan Oanh 
participated in some of the seminal diplomatic events surrounding the 
American War including the Paris Peace Talks.  In Vietnam he is best 
known for composing what became a revolutionary anthem, “August 
Nineteen,” inspired while attending a Viet Minh mass meeting:

/“All the people of Vietnam rise up this day and contribute their force,/

/Swearing to sacrifice bone and blood to resolutely fight for the future/

/August Nineteen/

/The light of the star of freedom shines/

/Flags fly everywhere.”/

Our driver, our “hero driver” as we called him, was also our provider, 
bringing back to us whatever we told him we needed.  This team of 
Vietnamese translated for us and provided for our every need.  We felt 
we were unnecessarily pampered but at the same time we were appreciative.

As an all-women’s delegation we were particularly interested in the role 
of women in the revolution and in Vietnamese society, and as a youth 
delegation we were interested in cultural aspects of life such as music, 
art, and theatre.

However, we did not consider ourselves tourists or even students of 
Vietnamese society and culture.  First and foremost we wanted to 
understand Viet Nam better in order to grapple with what it meant to be 
anti-war activists inside the belly of the beast.  In this context we 
requested to go to the front, as far south as possible, to the DMZ (the 
demilitarized zone between North and South), both to see different 
aspects of Vietnamese life and also to get as close to the fighting as 
possible.

When the Vietnamese defeated the French in 1954, the Geneva Conference 
divided the country in two.  The dividing line ran east to west, around 
the 17th parallel.  It was a demilitarized zone that came to be known 
simply as “the DMZ.”  The Viet Minh would control North Vietnam but 
South Vietnam would be under non-Communist control.  In theory this 
would be a temporary arrangement and within two years there were to be 
elections and the country would be unified.  However, it was soon clear 
to everyone that Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the Viet Minh, would win the 
election by a landslide.  Even U.S. President Eisenhower acknowledged 
that “I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in 
Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of 
the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the population would 
have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader.” (Eisenhower, 
p.  372) Unbeknownst to the American people, the U.S. began covert 
actions in South Vietnam to assure that there would be no elections and 
no reunification of the country.  (/Pentagon Papers/)  Fifteen years 
later, in 1970, we were mired in this now overt as well as covert bloody 
war and it was a daily front-page conflict around the globe.

Although North Vietnam had experienced the war directly with severe 
bombing campaigns, it was South Vietnam that was taking the brunt.  What 
Americans referred to as the Viet Cong (Vietnamese Communists) was 
actually the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (the NLF).  The 
NLF led the struggle in South Vietnam.  Like the Viet Minh the most 
dynamic force within the NLF was the Communist Party but many other 
patriotic elements participated as well.

So we requested to go to the front.  The U.S.  was currently bombing the 
two most southern provinces of North Vietnam and we felt it was 
important to document it.  We wanted to be able to describe the military 
destruction to people back home, to honestly say we saw it with our own 
eyes.

The U.S.-Vietnam Friendship Association welcomed us because we were 
anti-war activists; they hoped to strengthen our ability to fight the 
U.S. war machine and end the war.  However, they viewed our desire to 
travel south differently than we did.  They did not want us to die in 
Vietnam.  Their goal was to have us back in the U.S. better prepared to 
continue the fight against the war machine.  So they said no, we could 
not go as far as the demilitarized zone; it was too dangerous.  However, 
they would take us to the province of Thanh Hoa, a rural area about 150 
kilometers from Hanoi which had endured air attacks in the past but was 
quiet at the time.  There we could see a very different way of life than 
in the city of Hanoi, more representative of Vietnam as a whole.

Before taking off for Thanh Hoa, we spent quite a few days getting 
acquainted with Hanoi and immediately fell in love with the people and 
the city.  In those days it appeared to be a bustling, thriving city but 
not in the ways of the West.  There were few cars and buses on the 
streets as the dominant mode of transportation was the bicycle.  There 
were thousands and thousands of bicyclists going every which way.  
Bicycles often carried more than one person as well as fairly large 
quantities of goods.  Despite the fact they seemed to be going every 
which way, people somehow understood the rules of the road and avoided 
accidents.  There were also bicycle cabs with a seat for one or two 
people in the front and a bicycle that powered it from behind.

People were all dressed simply, crisp and clean, similar to the outfits 
for which we had been fitted, although most of the women wore 
light-colored shirts, perhaps in contrast to the black “pajamas” of the 
Viet Cong.  Genie at about five feet ten inches towered over most of the 
Vietnamese who were generally small in stature.  I, on the other hand, 
at just under five-feet, felt like I had come home and was charmed by 
the idea that these small people were able to go up against the American 
Goliath.  All over the city people were sitting in doorways or on the 
streets, talking or selling their wares, or just holding their babies in 
their arms.  And they frequently seemed quite comfortable squatting on 
their haunches.  I don’t think we saw an obese person the entire time we 
were in Viet Nam.  Neither did people appear hungry, underfed or 
malnourished.  Generally speaking, the population appeared healthy, 
energetic and yes, even happy, despite the fact that they were in the 
midst of this brutal war.

We walked around Hanoi, just taking in the scene.  In the middle of the 
city we came upon the park surrounding the Hoan Kiem Lake (Lake of the 
Restored Sword).  It was a weekend, and all combinations, young and old, 
men and women, were out and about, strolling leisurely though the park, 
as were we.  Walking the paths and crossing the wooden bridge with the 
pagoda-like structures at either end, we took in the simple pleasures of 
several schoolgirls walking arm-in-arm, and an elderly man in a simple 
hammock basking at the water’s edge with a look of serene contentment on 
his face.  Everywhere we went people stopped to inquire as to who we 
were and wide-eyed children followed along beside us.

The streets of Hanoi seemed safer than the streets of any big city I had 
ever been in and have ever been in since.  As three women, and 
foreigners without the benefit of common language, we still felt 
comfortable walking around the streets of Hanoi alone at night.  
Additionally, the level of organization left us feeling as fully 
protected as I did as a young child in the presence of my parents.  One 
day we were saddened by the loss of Judy’s camera, but the next day it 
suddenly appeared, returned to us by our hosts.  It was picked up by 
somebody and passed on until it found its way back to us.  No one along 
the way had thought to keep it for him or herself despite the fact that 
it would have been quite a prize.

We visited a first grade in an elementary school, quite spare by our 
standards.  There were dolls and trucks and other toys in a cabinet but 
not the surfeit of materials that you might see in some American 
classrooms.  There was a large chalkboard on the wall and at each desk 
sat two children.  The girls wore short dresses and the boys wore the 
typical dark pants and light shirts.  Most of the girls had short bob 
haircuts.  The children performed songs and dances, boys and girls 
alike.  Perhaps they had weeded them out for our benefit, but it seemed 
there were no children with “behavior problems” as you would see in 
American schools, both then and now.  We had tea with their young 
teacher whose face had that clean, fresh glow that we saw on so many of 
the faces of young adults in Hanoi.  Everywhere we went we were served 
tea.  The Vietnamese way of dealing with heat was different than what we 
were used to.  Most people wore long sleeves, protecting as much of 
their bodies from the sun as possible.  They drank soup and tea 
frequently, making sure to keep hydrated and also with the idea that hot 
things cool you off, perhaps by causing you to sweat.  Flowers were the 
other constant in the way we were greeted, usually bouquets of gladiolas 
similar to the ones bestowed upon us when we first arrived at the airport.

In North Vietnam, different sectors of the population were organized 
into unions.  Xuan Oanh was a member of the Musicians’ Union and we had 
the good fortune to have dinner with members of the Union where I 
recorded many traditional and contemporary Vietnamese musical pieces.

We also met with a group of young medical students, among them a young 
woman from the Thanh Hoa minority who presented us with a bouquet of 
gladiolas.  Wearing the colorful woven dress and headdress of her tribe 
and traditional jewelry, she explained that there were 60 different 
minority tribes in Vietnam, most speaking their own language.  I shared 
with the medical students my story about obtaining the inoculations I 
had received in preparation for the trip.  I had called the State 
Department to find out what shots were required to travel to South 
Vietnam since North Vietnam was not even on their radar screen.  They 
told me Yellow Fever, Bubonic Plague, and Typhoid were all necessary and 
so I obediently got inoculated for everything all in one sitting since 
time was short.  Needless to say I didn’t feel too well for a period of 
time.  The medical students had a good laugh and informed me that such 
diseases had been wiped out in North Vietnam.

We were hosted as well by the Women’s Union.  We knew that the leader of 
the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) was a woman, Madame 
Binh.  That alone impressed us because there were very few American 
women in public positions of power at that time.  We were happily 
surprised to see so many Vietnamese women involved in political as well 
as military life.  The Women’s Union members spoke to us about the 
important role of women in the struggle for independence, both 
historically and in the present.  We were told that Ho Chi Minh said, 
“Women make up half of society.  If women are not liberated, then 
society is not free.”  In 1930 a woman named Minh Khai formed the Viet 
Nam Women’s Union at the same time as the creation of the Indochinese 
Communist Party.  She has been called the founder of the long-haired 
army, the civilian movement composed largely of women who carried out 
much of the legal political work in the movement for national 
liberation.  She was eventually tortured and executed by the French.

A woman from South Vietnam presented us with large silk scarves in the 
blue, red and yellow colors of the Vietnamese flag.  I still have this 
scarf.  It is framed and hangs on my wall, reminding me of my 
experiences in Vietnam.  The four quadrants each contain a drawing of a 
Vietnamese woman, representing a different segment of the national 
liberation struggle.  Two are armed with rifles, one in the uniform of 
the regular standing army and the other dressed in the black pajamas of 
the guerrilla fighters.  The third wears the traditional garb of one of 
the minorities, carries a baby on her back as well as a bow and arrows.  
The fourth is dressed in a blue and white /Ao Dai/, a beautiful 
Vietnamese outfit made up of a long tunic and pants.  She wears the 
familiar conical hat and carries the Vietnamese flag.  She represents 
the patriotic civilians who participate in the political struggle.  All 
four are honored equally.  In Vietnamese, English and French is written 
“South Viet Nam Women’s Union for Liberation.”

We were also introduced to a young woman who was part of the Army of the 
Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG).  She was wearing her army 
uniform with several medals pinned to her shirt.  She described the 
torture she had undergone at the hands of the U.S.-backed South 
Vietnamese Army (ARVN) and how she relived her torture nightly.  As with 
the Vietnamese Ambassador we had met in Moscow who had undergone a 
similar experience, we were reminded that beneath the good will and 
laughter there was a profoundly dark side to the experiences of these 
people.

We visited a military museum exhibiting the history of warfare in 
Vietnam dating centuries back to the invasion by the Chinese, the French 
colonial occupation and up to the present American war.  The fight for 
independence was not new for the Vietnamese nor was it a fleeting 
preoccupation.  The Chinese had occupied Viet Nam for about a thousand 
years until the Vietnamese reclaimed their independence in 967 A.D.  The 
museum housed ancient instruments of torture utilized by the Chinese.  
An elaborate model of the Battle of  Dien Bien Phu took up much of one 
room.  The Vietnamese were especially proud of their defeat of the 
French as it was the first time a non-European independence movement was 
able to defeat an occupying European power in a pitched battle.  We also 
viewed remnants of U.S. planes that had been shot down by anti-aircraft 
artillery fighters in the current war and as well as useful household 
items that had been made out of the metal remains.

Our experience at the museum was one more reminder that the Vietnamese 
commitment to independence was deep-rooted in centuries of struggle and 
their people were formidable opponents even for a superpower like the 
U.S.  They seemed to be fighting with the voices of their ancestors 
encouraging them to persist until victory.  Their tenacity in the face 
of larger powers was legendary and unlike anything we had ever encountered.

Hanoi itself was peaceful while we were there but we knew it had 
experienced terror in the ’68 U.S.  bombing campaign.  Bach Mai 
Hospital, the primary medical institution in Vietnam, was bombed and 
severely damaged.  Back in the States there was a serious campaign by 
the peace movement to raise funds to rebuild the hospital.  We witnessed 
the craters that stood as a reminder of the deliberate bombing of 
civilian targets and were told about the times they had had to evacuate 
all the school children from the city to the countryside.

We had the honor of sharing tea with Xuan Thuy, Chief Negotiator for the 
North Vietnamese at the Paris Peace Talks, a friendly, gracious 
grandfatherly man with a broad smile.  An American diplomat described 
him as a “top drawer negotiator, a dreadful fellow to face across the 
table day after day.” (/Wikipedia/)

*THE GULF OF TONKIN, THANH HOA PROVINCE, & THE THAI NOIR*

After several days in Hanoi, we set out in our mini-bus for the 
countryside, the three of us and our four Vietnamese friends.  In route 
to Thanh Hoa Province, we made a stop at the Gulf of Tonkin, the site of 
the infamous Gulf of Tonkin incident of the summer of 1964.  The U.S.  
claimed that North Vietnamese gunboats opened fire on two U.S. 
destroyers without provocation.  (Note: One might ask what were U.S. 
gunboats doing way out there in the Gulf of Tonkin.  Can you imagine 
Vietnamese gunboats in the port of Manhattan?)  The U.S.  claimed it 
then launched “retaliatory” attacks.  Most significantly, President 
Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara used this incident to 
pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that gave the green light to all 
future major escalations of the war by Johnson and later Nixon.  The 
House of Representatives voted unanimously to pass the resolution and 
only two Senators opposed it, Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening 
of Alaska!

Noam Chomsky and many other historians have now revealed that active 
U.S. involvement in Viet Nam had begun much earlier in 1961 and 1962.  
The Gulf of Tonkin incident was invented to fool the American people 
into believing the North Vietnamese had initiated hostilities so that 
the war could be seriously escalated.

In 1995, retired Vietnamese General Nguyen Giap met with former 
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and categorically denied that 
Vietnamese gunboats had attacked American destroyers.  A taped 
conversation was released in 2001 of a meeting several weeks after 
passage of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution revealing that Robert 
McNamara expressed doubts to President Johnson that the attack had even 
occurred.

And so we sat with our Vietnamese friends, not another soul in sight, on 
the peaceful white sands of the Gulf of Tonkin and had long talks about 
Marxism-Leninism and our mutual work.  They wanted to understand our 
ideology and our strategy and how we analyzed the forces at work in the 
U.S.  They struggled with us to generally become more ideological as 
well as more systematic in our approach to our anti-war work.  We also 
explained our idea for an American-Vietnamese conference and developed 
our collective plans.  We would organize a meeting between cultural 
workers in the United States—artists, musicians, cartoonists, writers, 
actors, poets, playwrights—and a Vietnamese delegation.  They suggested 
we broaden it out to an Indochinese delegation that would include 
Cambodians and Laotians since the U.S. was expanding the war into the 
entire region.  We agreed to hold such a conference at the end of the 
summer in Havana, Cuba.  In a week we would leave Vietnam and return to 
New York to begin the work.

After hours of such discussion, we continued inland on our journey 
towards Thanh Hoa province about 93 miles from Hanoi.  In Thanh Hoa we 
stayed overnight in a small guest house, a modern one-story building 
with a series of rooms.  It was clean and comfortable.  We took 
refreshing showers in a sheltered outdoor area, using a big ladle to 
scoop out water from a large bucket.

In Thanh Hoa it was clear that women of all ages and experience were 
playing an important role in the life of the village.  The Mayor was a 
woman, about 35 to 40 years of age, and she served as our tour guide.  
She introduced us to a group of young women, anti-aircraft artillery 
fighters, who were all dressed in the black pajamas and military helmets 
that were commonplace.  They showed us their artillery and proudly 
described how they had shot down two planes that had come to attack 
their community.

We learned that in the year 248 A.D. right there in Thanh Hoa Province, 
a 23-year-old woman named Trieu Thi Trinh and her brother led thousands 
of people to drive out the Chinese invader.  At first successful, they 
later were unable to hold back the Chinese invasion and Trieu Thi Trinh 
took her own life rather than live as a serf.  Her  iconic and 
inspirational words were, “My wish is to ride the tempest, tame the 
waves, kill the sharks.  I want to drive the enemy away, to save our 
people.  I will not resign myself to the usual lot of women who bow 
their heads and become concubines.” (/Vietnam Studies, Vietnam Women/, 
No.  10, 1967, Xunhasaba, Hanoi 1966.)

This was just one of the stories that are passed down from generation to 
generation in Vietnam about women and resistance.  Even earlier, in 40 
A.D., the Trung sisters attempted to end the Chinese feudal domination 
as well, leading the first national insurrection.  One of the sisters 
slew a killer tiger inspiring other Vietnamese to follow her.  The 
sisters then trained 36 women to lead an 80,000-person army.

We left the village of Thanh Hoa and proceeded on a journey to visit one 
of the ethnic minority groups, the /Thai Noir/ (or Black Thai).  When we 
met with the medical students in Hanoi, a young /Thai Noir/ woman had 
presented us with flowers and we were eager to see how her family 
lived.  Traveling through some breathtaking landscapes, we crossed 
rivers and climbed up, up, up into the mountains.  Leaving our mini-van 
behind, we were ferried over a river on a wooden platform, alongside a 
water buffalo that was pulling a cart loaded down with big barrels.  One 
young man pulled out a Vietnamese musical instrument–7 thin bamboo poles 
of different lengths strung together–and played sweet, haunting 
flute-like sounds.  There was music everywhere and I recorded it all– 
among the school children, of course the musicians, and now out here, in 
the middle of a river, on a ferry.  After disembarking, we hiked a ways 
and then took a VERY narrow ferry across the next river.  It was 
basically about 15 or 20 thick poles of bamboo strung together, just a 
bit wider than each of us.  We sat on our haunches in true Vietnamese 
fashion and took the short trip to the other side.

We then entered the /Thai Noir/ village.  Hundreds of people came out to 
greet us—men, women and children.  Escorted by the whole village over to 
a thatched roof house on stilts, we climbed the stairs and were greeted 
by the elders of the village, two women who were far more slender and 
petite than we were.  We sat on mats on the floor and exchanged 
greetings.  They were wearing the traditional garb of their people, 
bands of colorful woven material worn around their waists.  Their teeth 
were a brownish-red from chewing beetle nut and they shared with us 
their rice wine that we sipped from a large common jug through multiple 
straw-like instruments.  They also offered us /thoch lao/ which seemed 
to us to be a mild form of marijuana.  We were told that it was mostly 
the elders who enjoyed /thoch lao/ these days, an interesting reversal.  
(Note: /thoch la/ is the word for tobacco.)  They told us that the 
village was very excited by our presence and very rarely had they had 
visitors from other countries.  In fact, the only people that looked 
like us had been two Russian reporters, so most of the people believed 
at first that we were Russians.  A young woman from the Communist Party, 
not dressed in traditional garb, served as a translator from the 
language of the /Thai Noir/ to the majoritarian Vietnamese language and 
then into English.  So the conversation proceeded quite slowly but 
nobody was in a hurry and we were all delighted to be together.

We then toured the village where we saw the studios where they wove the 
colorful cloth, and were entertained by several youths drumming on large 
drums suspended from a pole and struck with sticks.  Here in this 
village, high in the mountains, we saw beautiful young women dressed in 
traditional garb with rifles slung over their shoulders.  We were told 
that one of the tasks of the revolution was to integrate the 60 
different minorities into Vietnamese society in a way that would 
preserve their culture and language, yet allow them to advance.  It may 
have grown out of a Marxist ideal of equality for all, but it was also a 
military imperative.  Discontent among some groups, known as 
/Montignards/, had been exploited by the French to sow opposition to the 
Communists.  In this village, at this time at least, there seemed to be 
cooperation between the communist government and the Thai Noir.  Again 
we recalled seeing Thai Noir people in Hanoi, participating in the 
various groupings we had encountered, for example the musicians and 
medical students.

*SPEAKING THE TRUTH TO THE GIs*

On our return to Hanoi, Judy and I addressed the American GIs on 
Vietnamese radio.  The station played contemporary American music 
interspersed with occasional commentary.  We went on the radio to 
discourage the GIs from risking their life and limb in an illegal and 
immoral war.  There were technical challenges at the radio station. 
  Electricity was at a premium and every now and then it would cut out.  
We were reminded how remarkable it was that an “underdeveloped” nation 
with limited resources could present such a challenge to the U.S.  We 
learned over and over again that it was not technology but the power of 
the people that was enabling them to persist.

An acquaintance of mine once admonished me as a representative of the 
60s peace movement for refusing to date returning GIs.  As far as I’m 
concerned those kinds of social pressures were completely appropriate.  
This wasn’t a matter of rival fraternities.  We were not flippant 
critics of the GIs.  Even though we knew most of the GIs had been 
drafted, we believed that as human beings they were still responsible 
for their own actions.  We were children of World War II and my own 
father had fought against the Nazis.  Those of us who were Jewish had 
lost many extended family members and knew that many German people 
claimed they were “just following orders.”  Taking to heart the 
Nuremberg war crimes trials, we vowed that such a defense would never 
again be admissible and we would never be “Good Germans” who quietly 
went along with the program.  Silence was complicity as well, and so we 
had an obligation to speak truth to the GIs.  We challenged them to ask 
themselves what they were doing in a foreign land attacking a people who 
had done no harm to the U.S. or to them as individuals.  We encouraged 
them not to suppress their own doubts about what they were doing and not 
to risk their lives in an illegal and immoral war.  In general, the 
anti-war movement challenged the GIs, tried to offer them options and 
embraced them when they resisted.  Movement people provided counseling 
and sanctuary, set up GI coffee houses and published underground 
newspapers near the bases, in places as far away as the Philippines.

The GIs themselves were far from passive bystanders.  The resistance 
within the U.S. Army as well as that of returning veterans was one of 
the key elements in the anti-war movement.  As early as June of 1965 
Richard Steinke, a West Point graduate, refused to board an aircraft to 
a remote Vietnamese village, was court-martialed and dismissed from 
service.  Captain Howard Levy, an army doctor, refused to teach the 
Green Berets, elite special forces.  He stated that the Green Berets 
were “murderers of women and children” and “killers of peasants.”  He 
was court-martialed and imprisoned.  Susann Schnall, a Navy nurse, was 
court-martialed for participating in the anti-war movement, 
demonstrating in uniform and dropping leaflets from a plane over a naval 
installation.

As the years went on, these individual acts turned into waves of 
resistance, much of it from Black GIs who understood Muhammad Ali’s 
observation that “No Vietnamese ever called me nigger.”  Dr.  Martin 
Luther King Jr, as far back as 1967, had given a profound speech that is 
little-studied today—“Beyond Vietnam.  A Time to Break Silence.”  
Outlining the history of the Vietnamese struggle, he stated that, “I 
could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed 
in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest 
purveyor of violence in the world today—my own government.”  A /Le 
Monde/ reporter wrote that, “A common sight is the black soldier, with 
his left fist clenched in defiance of a war he has never considered his 
own.” (Zinn, Howard, /A People’s History of the United States/)

There were literally thousands upon thousands of desertions by U.S. 
soldiers.  Many went to Western Europe and even more sought asylum in 
Canada.  By 1970 there were also thousands of members of Vietnam 
Veterans Against the War.  Our radio appearance was far from a pivotal 
event but we wanted to do our small part to tell the truth and to 
encourage and nurture the resistance.

The night before we left Vietnam, a banquet was held in our honor.  All 
forms of wonderful seafood dishes appeared on our plates and there was 
wine in abundance.  Our hosts would have had us stay on and see more of 
their country, but as wonderful as the experience was, we were eager to 
get back home and on with the work of fighting against the war.  
Therefore, after two amazing weeks in Vietnam, we headed back to the States.

However, our route required us to return via Aeroflot to Moscow and then 
on to the U.S.  from there.  In Moscow we had a single-minded agenda.  
We were going to have a demonstration against the war that we had 
contemplated on the way through Moscow en route to Vietnam.  We 
contacted all the media, particularly all the Western media, utilizing 
the contacts we had made earlier, and let them know about the protest.  
We tried to involve some of our Russian friends but they reiterated 
their fears of repercussions.  We naively said, “Yeah but this is 
against the U.S., not Russia.”  “You don’t understand,” they insisted, 
“the Russian government does not tolerate spontaneous demonstrations of 
any sort, regardless of the content.”  OK, we thought, if there’s to be 
a demonstration of three people, so be it.  But how could we make it as 
dramatic as possible?  We decided to wear the black pajamas of the Viet 
Cong, along with our conical hats, and carry big signs saying: “We are 
the Ameri-Cong!  End the war in Vietnam” and “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, the 
NLF is Gonna Win.”

All the Western media turned out and the Associated Press splashed our 
picture across the world in papers everywhere, well, everywhere but 
Moscow.  Across the street our friends watched from semi-protected 
locations.  And sure enough, the KGB of Russian intelligence was there 
as well.  As we left the scene, we were followed for a while by a man in 
a green suit wearing one-way glasses.  He probably left us when we 
entered our hotel and got ready to leave Moscow the next day.

Judy and I flew into Canada.  Judy would stay to see her family and I 
would travel on to New York.  The Canadians, allegedly politically 
independent of the United States, immediately confiscated all the gifts 
the Vietnamese had given us.  Later, thanks to some legal action, we 
would recover most of them but we never did recoup our conical hats.  
Subversive, damning hats!

When I disembarked from the plane in New York, I was immediately 
detained, brought into a room by myself.  I waited for someone to come 
in and thought about what I would say.  This great big, beefy FBI agent 
entered the room.  He looked taken aback to see this miniature, young 
girl who was supposed to be some kind of threat.  But that didn’t stop 
him from grilling me about where I’d been.  “Moscow,” I responded.  “And 
where else?” he retorted.  “Nowhere,” said I, “you can check my 
passport.”  How clean it was since no one had stamped it with any 
evidence of Vietnam.  I feared some future ramifications but there were 
none.  It was the first time I traveled illegally but it would not be 
the last.  It’s a funny thing, I have never been to a country where I 
was not welcomed, and yet I have traveled a number of times to places my 
own “free” country has forbidden me to go.

The FBI intimidation could not stop me from my anti-war activities.  I 
was fired up and ready to go.  Inspired by the Vietnamese experience, I 
was more emboldened than ever to pursue an end to the war in particular 
and to fight for equality and justice in all areas of life.

/*NANCY KURSHAN* can be reached at: Nkurshan at aol.com 
<mailto:Nkurshan at aol.com> /

*Notes.*

Eisenhower, Dwight D. /Mandate for Change, 1953-56./  Garden City NY: 
Doubleday, 1963, p. 372.

Zinn, Howard. /A People’s History of the United States. /New York: 
Harper&Row, 1980.

Bergman, Arlene Eisen. /Women of Vietnam/.  San Francisco: Peoples 
Press, 1974.

Duiker, William J. /Ho Chi Minh/.  New York: Hyperion, 2000.

Sheehan, Neil. /The Pentagon Papers/.  New York: Bantam Books, 1971.

Dellinger, Dave. /From Yale to Jail/.  New York: Pantheon, 1993.

Dellinger, Dave. /Vietnam Revisited/.  Boston: South End Press, 1986.

/Vietnam Studies/, /Vietnam Women/, No.  10.  Hanoi: Xunhasaba, 1967.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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