An aging but exuberant group of correspondents who covered the
Vietnam War gathered in old Saigon on the 40th anniversary of the war’s end on
April 30 – but this reunion was different than the four previous ones, because
for the first time the Vietnamese government officially recognized our
presence.
On the 20th, 25th and 30th anniversaries of the fall of Saigon, up
to 100 former reporters, photographers and TV crew members would meet for
drinks and dinner in some of our old haunts, and some new ones, with the
government keeping its distance and police intervening on at least one
occasion.
But on the last day of the reunion on the 35th anniversary in
2010, a ministry official showed up and invited those of us who were staying
the following night to what turned out to be a fascinating dinner with members
of the media who covered the other side of the war for the communist North
Vietnamese and Viet Cong.
That apparently broke the ice because this year, with perseverance
from former AP reporter-photographer Carl Robinson who runs the “Old Hacks”
network that keeps the ex-war correspondents in touch with each other, the
Foreign Ministry invited all of us back. And not only did they invite us for a
week, but they paid for hotel rooms and in some cases for flights. Many
colleagues accepted the offer. A few like me, who are still working or didn’t
want to be beholden to the event-filled itinerary the ministry organized, did
not.
At this reunion, about 30 of us showed up, a dwindling number
reflecting the loss of so many of our colleagues. There were many toasts to
“absent friends” who passed away during the last five years, including my
Pulitzer Prize-winning AP colleague Horst Faas who organized the first two
reunions with me.
But there were also many fun-filled moments and some gasps in
seeing the changes to old Saigon, which is now Ho Chi Minh City, including a
52-story skyscraper with a helipad on top and a restaurant one floor below. It
has fabulous views of the city and the “other side” of the Saigon River which was
once infested with Viet Cong fighters and is now a suburban business and
residential area with modern buildings.
The government remains staunchly communist with tight controls on
any signs of political dissent and freedoms of the press and assembly. But it
wanted to show off the new Vietnam, including industrial plants and an
agricultural research center where scientists are developing new strains of
fruits, vegetables and flowers.
It was on the way to the Cu Chi tunnels, an extensive underground
network which Viet Cong guerrillas used to supply their fighters and to seek
refuge from American bombers. When I first went to the tunnels in 1995 I
remember crawling in pitch darkness through the second level, grabbing the hand
of a colleague in front of me because it was to claustrophobic. Today, there
are widened stairs to the entrance, and a short widened tunnel with light that
tourists can crouch walking through to give them a tiny taste of what the Viet
Cong supporters experienced.
Our 37-year-old guide, born three years after the war ended, was
accompanied by a veteran fighter who lost an arm and an eye during the war.
Nguyen Van Chia told us: “In wartime we were enemies. Now we’re friends. If you
remain enemies, you never sleep well.”
The Foreign Ministry also organized tours to the city’s War
Remnants’ Museum – which includes the Requiem photo exhibition curated by Faas
and British photojournalist Tim Page which honors photographers who lost their
lives during both the French and American wars – as well as local universities
and the mammoth parade in the cooler early morning hours of April 30 that
commemorates what the government views as “the liberation of Vietnam.”
A Vietnamese friend arranged for a group of us to visit the roof
of the building where the late UPI photographer Hugh Van Es took the iconic
photo of Vietnamese and Americans scrambling up a ladder to get on a helicopter
as Saigon was falling in April 1975. We clambered up a ladder to the old
helicopter landing site and took photos of ourselves and the city.
A small group of us went on to Hanoi where we were feted at a
lunch with Vietnam’s deputy foreign minister and dinners hosted by the Swedish
and New Zealand ambassadors. We also got to visit the home of Vietnam’s
legendary war hero General Vo Nguyen Giap, who led the poor Southeast Asian
nation to victory over the French and then the Americans, and spend an hour in
fascinating conversation with his youngest son.
Everywhere, Page and AP Pulitzer-prize
winning photographer Nick Ut, who took the famous photograph of Phan Thi Kim
Phuc running naked from a napalm attack, were trailed by the local media. AP’s
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Peter Arnett, Newsweek’s Tony Clifton, Robinson
and other old timers were also pursued by the new media.
As Robinson said, “These are the new hacks
for the old hacks!”
Arnett said his “coming of age as a
journalist” was in Vietnam – as it was for many correspondents who covered the
war. “We were all in our 20s,” he said. “It lasted a decade.”
Arnett said getting to know those who fought
and reported the war from the communist side “reflects the improved relations
with the U.S. and the West.”
“I’ve attended every reunion since the fall
of Saigon and I feel more welcome this time,” he said. “Vietnam is making up
for 30 years of war and is fast becoming a Southeast Asian economic tiger.”
Former Reuters bureau chief Jimmy Pringle
lamented that the North Vietnamese victors still can’t reconcile with the South
Vietnamese they defeated.
He said the Foreign Ministry’s friendliness
to the correspondents who covered the war from the south “stems, I think, from
a fear of China and the threats it is making of military action in the South
China Sea.”
“One official of the Press Department said we
journalists had helped in winning the war, and were valued friends!,” Pringle
said. “I wouldn’t go as far as that, but they were friendlier than before. Kind
of late in the day though.”
“By the time the 50th celebrations come along attrition
will be appreciably noticeable among us…It is, after all, the way of the
world,” he said.