|
A byproduct of President Clinton's historic trip to Vietnam was the gathering of old Vietnam
hands, including Jim Laurie, now STAR TV's VP of Network News and Current Affairs.
Ah, the passage of time. The memories rekindled. The ironies of this visit.
"Welcome US President William Jefferson Clinton and Spouse," proclaimed the banners on selected
motorcade routes in Hanoi.
There was the American President, who like so many of his generation opposed the war and avoided
the draft, reviewing North Vietnamese troops - enemy troops - in Hanoi.
There was the President gazing out from the rooftop bar of Saigon's Caravelle Hotel.As he looked
out, he stared at the spires of the Saigon Cathedral, gazed right to the site of the old US Embassy,
now torn down, and just in between, he could see the tiny rooftop immortalized in Hugh Van Es' famed
photo of Vietnamese scrambling up a ladder to the safety of a US helicopter.
As I rode the press bus with the gaggle of reporters behind the Presidential motorcade, memories of
other buses 25 years ago flooded back.
Now, smiling, waving children lined Saigon streets. Then, on April 29, 1975 panicked faces raced
along as a caravan of evacuation buses driven by US Marines shuttled people to Ton Son Nhut
Airport before North Vietnamese rockets and mortars shut it down.
That was just the beginning of a chaotic evacuation of Americans and Vietnamese which ended in
humiliating fashion America's 15 year-long involvement with Vietnam. The unplanned airlift left
tens of thousands of Vietnamese allies behind, many of whom ended up rotting in communist
re-education camps or risking escape by flimsy boat into the South China Sea.
I was one of 14 reporters and photographers who had worked and lived in Vietnam before 1975 who
were back once again with President Clinton. Most of the 200 or so journalists assigned to the White House, like most Vietnamese today, have
little or no memory of the war.
But some of the memories were amazing.
"Jim, I haven't seen you since Pleiku 1971!" shouted Pham Boi Hoan. Hoan, or "PB" as he was known,
is one of the true Vietnam vets. Having completed his army service where he trained as a combat
photographer, "PB" joined CBS News as a cameraman in Saigon in April 1965. After his evacuation
to the US, he became a CBS White House cameraman.
"Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush. I covered them all," said PB, "I wanted one, any one of
them, to visit Vietnam. Now I'm finally going back with an American President."
His colleague and friend, CBS wartime cameraman Pham Gia Cuong, also joined the White House party
.They seemed more proud and happy about this event than anyone else I met.I thank former FCCer Derek Williams,
Bill Plante and Bruce Dunning, all old Vietnam hands, for making sure I saw them again.
Other colleagues had different takes on the war. David Hume Kennerly, UPI in the early 1970's
when I knew him, and later President Ford's White House official photographer, was back again for
Newsweek.
"Bet you've seen a lot of changes here," shouted Clinton at one photo opportunity. Kennerly was
in the "tight pool" with the President. "I always enjoyed getting "tight" in Vietnam Kennerly allowed.
Seth Mydans of the New York Times had "served" in Vietnam with "RMK-BRJ," a giant American
construction company conglomerate. "It was a way of avoiding the draft," said Mydans.
"Well the Americans in Vietnam did contribute something besides misery, death and destruction,"
one Vietnamese friend told me. "our roads and airstrips would be a lot worse than they are if
'RMK-BRJ' hadn't been here."
President Clinton, of course, did not dwell on American "contributions" to Vietnam's
past. He was focused on the future: building psychological bridges not military
hardships. He focused
on Vietnam the country, not the war.
"Chuc cac ban hanh phuc va thanh cong," said the American President. "I wish you all happiness
and success."
"Remarkable," noted one old reporter, "I don't recall that either Johnson or Nixon
(the last US Presidents to visit Vietnam) even tried to speak Vietnamese when they came here."
Picture: Clinton in Vietnam November 2000
|
