MISSION TO HANOI
Feinberg, Rabbi Abraham L.
MISSION to HANOI by RABBI ABRAHAM L. FEINBERG A. J . Muste, the celebrated American pacifist leader, was preparing an article for The Progressive on his recent journey to Hanoi when he died of...
...If the facts and impressions I communicated help the fight for peace, our journey to Hanoi will have succeeded beyond our dreams...
...Abraham L. Feinberg, Rabbi Emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple, Toronto, spent fifteen days in North Vietnam under the auspices of the International Confederation for Peace and Disarmament...
...the old man and his grandson were sleeping in a hammock when the bombs fell...
...Within hours, xhat "invitation" was headlines throughout the world...
...North Vietnam offers very little to the flier other than rice fields, dikes for food, agricultural villages, and residential districts, and the country seemingly wants not full industrialization, but a balanced economy resting on the farm (as our guides often reiterated...
...I am bound by solemn duty to tell you this...
...The church now has a sturdy new roof of tile, its former one having been shattered...
...Other friends have told me what you have just said...
...aggressors (how Washington and Hanoi love that word) killed twenty-four inhabitants of Phu Xa (and wounded twenty-three) on August 13, 1966...
...I invite him to come here as our guest, sitting where you are...
...President Ho writes sentimental poems, moralizes, and instructs...
...Canada and India are not satisfactory...
...Soon President Ho excused himself...
...All these things were in my mind shortly afterward when we reached the high point of our mission to North Vietnam—an audience with the aging leader of that nation...
...When the shards and rubble were cleared away, the hamlet council decided to adopt this empty site for a memorial to the dead, with special concern for an entire family of nine which had perished there, and for a museum of remembrance...
...be modest, truthful and brave...
...They discriminate against us...
...She had lost parentsin-law and a nine-month-old child in the raid...
...That ingenious deviltry makes a tiny, hardly visible aperture in the body, but the suffering and disability it brings are great...
...He was alone, and so unpretentious that I did not recognize his status until President Ho Chi Minh greeted us and we were seated in the vast ornate reception hall...
...be good at learning and at laboring...
...Johnson come with his wife and daughters, his secretary, his doctor—and his cook...
...Despite plaster busts of himself here and there, he impressed us with an almost self-deprecating, puckish, human warmth and kindliness...
...Until then, we shall fight to the death...
...The wall of tact now breached, I edged forward...
...Yet we can meet and talk together in brotherhood...
...The pellet had actually lodged in the infant's cheek...
...Do not fear...
...markings), a piece of rusty shrapnel, and the outer sheath of an anti-personnel fragmentation bomb (dubbed for an undiscoverable reason "Lazy Dog" by the young men who eject them...
...I donned a surgical robe and mask, and visited two patients from the provinces, horribly burned by napalm, and one of them almost blinded by its intense glare...
...troops after peace negotiations begin, instead of complete withdrawal prior to them...
...Uncle Ho, as he immediately invited us to call him, founder of North Viet nam's political sovereignty, and, we were told, a beloved symbol to his public...
...After the formal inquiries, I summoned up courage and conveyed a warning...
...Unmistakably, bombs have dropped on populous places in all four quarters of Hanoi with considerable devastation and toll of civilian lives...
...Also among the dead were nine children, six of them pupils in kindergarten...
...There they sat before us in the hospital, the child in her mother's lap —pale and debilitated, and the mother unable to give suck, but alive, and on the mend, thanks to competent and dedicated medical service...
...Many of the dead were the tiny complex of thatched or tiled-elderly...
...that must be understood...
...That will have to wait until other problems are solved...
...I am a Communist...
...I gave the teacher a colored enamel Canada pin as a souvenir of my visit and token of sympathy...
...Lyndon] Johnson has said that he would meet anyone, anywhere, anytime, to talk about peace...
...Muste, the message was not so much the recapitulation of an old principle as a possibly momentous and fateful step toward the acceptance of a new one—that both sides must begin to think about the humanity which unites them instead of the temporary feud which divides them...
...Several times it flashed through my mind that this man of combat was torn with pity for his people, and that he yearned to terminate the struggle with some tolerable arrangement, and then turn to reconstruction works...
...the Vietnam dragon is different from—and in their view superior to—the Chinese dragon...
...Both patients will be paralyzed for life...
...On my rejoinder that we had traveled to Hanoi with that dream of peace in our hearts, he thanked us for having come thousands of miles to visit his distressed people, especially in view of our age...
...The Editors turned to one of Mr...
...I amused them by donning one of the round hats of matted and twisted bamboo and straw which every school child is urged to hang around his neck as bomb protection en route to class...
...Beside it was one of the 240 iron balls, filled with little pellets, which are exploded at various levels as the fragmentation bomb descends...
...The peace movement in the United States was supported by many prestigious voices, but it is a weak minority, I said, and President Johnson wields enormous power in foreign relations—by constitutional prerogative—and he is Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, with crucial influence on military strategy...
...On it is a black-based inscription stating that U.S...
...Johnson—could meet together in goodwill...
...In response to the third question, concerning the exchange of prisonersof-war, he held out no hope...
...This moral code is placed in the hands of every school child...
...Here we are, of many religions...
...At Kennedy Airport in New York, I reiterated my interpretation of President Ho Chi Minh's message...
...military presence is essential...
...Pham Van Dong, lean, intense, said that the destruction we had seen in Hanoi was only a thousandth part of the suffering of his people...
...I listened for two hours to an exhaustive analysis by obviously indignant but well-disciplined and highly trained minds, with X-ray photographs and chemical phials, of the injuries caused by napalm, phosphorous, and fragmentation bombs...
...It has a special meaning as a symbol of the intransigent nationalism of Ho's people...
...the younger girl can only move her hands and moan for her little sister who was killed by the same bomb...
...All the blasted and burned dwellings in Phu Xa have been rebuilt, except one that has been left untouched as a "souvenir," and another which had been practically obliterated...
...It says: "Love your Fatherland and your compatriots...
...When that settlement, which we accepted and honored as an international contract, becomes the foundation for peace talks, peace can be achieved...
...He replied with candor...
...Let him not come with a gun on his hip [reaching down, he lightly stroked his own hip] or with generals and admirals...
...Vietnam was dominated by China for centuries...
...Before we were fairly ensconced on the sofa, and the ever-present lissome girl attendant began to pour the tea, the President turned to us, speaking in English, which, he later confessed with merriment, he had learned as a cook in Soho and Harlem, and as a sailor on boats touching at New York...
...He mentioned his own seventy-seven years, and quoted the slogan which has become a Vietnam battlecry: "There is nothing more precious than independence...
...As an old revolutionary, I pledge my honor that Mr...
...The President we knew at once...
...Ultimate removal of the U.S...
...On the contrary, Americans can wage war with fierce resolution and limitless sacrifice, as two world wars have testified...
...At the foot of a broad flight of steps, Bishop Reeves, Mr...
...As we approached it, forty children were singing a zestful song of welcome to the "three uncles"—my U.S...
...This was the only formal speech of the morning...
...Pham Van Dong hunched forward, folded his hands, and looked grimly in my direction...
...What about bomb ruins inside Hanoi city...
...The cane Ho stretched out to me was a sturdy thing of alternating white stripes (ivory) and black (horn) with an exquisitely carved dragon's head for a handle...
...Yet, as my Hanoi mentors often asserted, Vietnam never allowed itself to be absorbed...
...Together, led by the hamlet chief, we slowly ambled around the sole small chamber of the tile and concrete museum, bare and unadorned save for the material evidences, artifacts and vestiges of the bombing, some of them in glass cases, and on the wall a scroll of the dead, listed by age and family...
...I have transmitted Ho's words to the White House...
...Now I orally explained that many U.S...
...Paul Hospital, I saw two girls of ten and seventeen, whose spinal cords had been severed by the spinning pellet...
...The Mayor of Hanoi, whose energetic and ubiquitous hospitality reminded me of North American "greeters" I had known, presented me with a list of five aphorisms, printed in color with a photograph of Ho...
...While we clustered around the memorial, a frail young woman, soft of speech and tread, Mrs...
...He returned with three walking sticks, souvenirs of our visit...
...Muste made a somewhat more positive assessment, the Bishop suggesting that Ho intended to indicate his desire to revive friendship and amity, to establish an atmosphere wherein the heads of state —he and Mr...
...Why don't the nations do that...
...Several questions had been submitted to him in writing...
...The younger men and women roof houses, flanked by a tall stone had gone off to their back-breaking work in the banana groves and rice paddies and at the silkworm cocoons, for Vietnamese peasants labor long and hard and Phu Xa was noted for its piety and industry...
...And, of course, numerous dwellings were destroyed or damaged...
...A new brick and concrete kindergarten stands where the old one stood...
...Indeed, the recall of U.S...
...The Premier, in a chair at the other end of our sofa, clearly heard and seemed to approve...
...There are also barren regions in the southern part of Hanoi province, I was told, bombed so often that a single thatched hut on the surface of the earth would be a rare sight...
...She was struck by an anti-personnel pellet, and gave premature birth...
...Annoyance swept into Pham Van Dong's face, and he wagged his forefinger rapidly to and fro, as he exclaimed: "Whatever happens in the United States is their concern...
...I told the Premier it was essential to be free of illusions...
...The thin man was Pham Van Dong, Premier of the Democratic Re public of Vietnam, and the building was the former palace of the French Governor-General of Indo-China...
...It was my job to release the invitation from Ho to President Johnson as an addendum to a lengthy mimeographed statement read by Bishop Reeves...
...Bishop Reeves and Mr...
...We did not doubt the testimony of workers' hovels levelled by-fire, a school gutted and crumbling, concrete residences reduced to litter, pagodas wrecked, and stone walls stark and naked to the sight...
...over there [pointing to a dignitary who had accompanied us] is a Buddhist...
...citizens believe he insists on the latter—an overnight pullout...
...I f President Johnson loses the next election, the Republicans will be even more intent on prosecuting the war...
...commune, slightly more than four Several hours later (our North Vietmiles from the center of Hanoi, numnamese hosts told us), the population bered 345, all Roman Catholics, with of Phu Xa was reduced, violently, an imposing church at the center of by twenty-four...
...As we entered they clapped hands in unison to greet us...
...A quick operation in the district hospital saved mother and child...
...On the floor lay the twisted metal casing of an explosive bomb (with U.S...
...In one case were gathered the personal effects the bombs had spared: a comb, a teacup, a cooking pan, a wedding dress, an undelivered letter, prayer books, a tiny plaster image of the Virgin Mary, its head blown off...
...Muste's traveling companions to North Vietnam for a report on that trip...
...No bomb-scarred area in our tour of inspection showed an installation even remotely describable as military, in any direction...
...Twisting around in his chair to face us, he said, with what seemed to be deliberate precision: "Mr...
...I steadily poked into the concrete trench equipped with tiny steps which divided the schoolroom floor and led to a nearby bomb shelter...
...You are Presbyterian, Anglican, Jew...
...The second query I had formulated in advance related to the Canadian role as a member of the International Control Commission...
...But nothing could blunt the sharp pang of shame that assailed me—for all the available evidence seemed to testify that the bombs that killed six kids of that kindergarten had been dropped by a plane built for bombing and dispatched for bombing by the armed forces of the United States, to which I have always been proud to claim loyalty and affection as a native-born citizen...
...They have never tasted defeat in war...
...On invitation, I have met with officials of the State Department...
...For my part, the talk with Pham Van Dong ended with a promise that I would devote the remainder of my life, if necessary, to peace in Vietnam...
...MISSION to HANOI by RABBI ABRAHAM L. FEINBERG A. J . Muste, the celebrated American pacifist leader, was preparing an article for The Progressive on his recent journey to Hanoi when he died of a heart attack...
...Thu report for readers of The Progressive is condensed and adapted from a five-part presentation prepared for The Globe and Mail of Toronto.—THE EDITORS...
...Huong, was introduced to us...
...For the rest, Pham Van Dong named the four central points of the Geneva agreement...
...In the same hospital, I saw and heard a mother in her early twenties describe a remarkable experience she had undergone near Haiphong, where she was spending, with her husband's family, the month's leave granted by law to every pregnant worker...
...The baby, however, had been hit by the pellet which wounded her, penetrating her womb...
...They would find it extremely difficult to admit reversal by a nation as small as Vietnam...
...Ho's departure was the signal for the start of a long, earnest discussion with the Premier...
...That day, under the lofty ceiling and brilliant chandeliers of the former Governor-General's residence, I interpreted President Ho's invitation to President Johnson as a jovial wrapper wherein the wily rebel had enclosed a grim fact, constantly reiterated by Hanoi's leaders...
...practice hygiene...
...Johnson will have complete security...
...colleague, the Reverend A. J . Muste, the Right Reverend Ambrose Reeves, former Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg, and me...
...And, I gathered, iron-clad assurance would have to be forthcoming before a fruitful conference could be projected...
...In Hanoi's St...
...His answer was categorical: "The White House knows differently...
...At the Hanoi press conference held by the War Crimes Investigation Commission of the Bertrand Russell Tribunal (which I attended merely as an observer), Professor Jean Vigier, a Sorbonne physicist, accused the Pentagon of using the "sadistic" fragmentation bomb as an acceptable, less provocative substitute for the H-bomb, and pointed out how its inhumanity is being augmented by '"improvements...
...The affection for Ho seems to spring from the people and apparently it is genuine...
...To Mr...
...I had asked whether he would consider a phased withdrawal of U.S...
...Again and again he punctuated the air with his forefinger, or waved it back and forth like a pendulum to underscore his indignation...
...be on good terms with one another, maintain good order and observe regulations...
...The walls, though blackened and battered by fire, did not collapse, but the broken windows have not yet been replaced...
...Lovely, fine-featured, sloe-eyed Asian types, they murmured thanks as we patted their heads and distributed sweets brought for the occasion...
...Furthermore, I added, the people of the United States are proud, like his own...
...Thousands of these pellets are released, rotating and cruel...
...I have no illusions...
...From the day I was informed that we would meet with Pham Van Dong, I had decided, as a matter of obligation, to tell him that he should not overestimate the opposition to Washington's current war policy...
...In London, on January 23, we appeared before press and television to make a public report to the International Confederation for Disarmament and Peace, which had organized the visit to Hanoi...
...Muste, and I alighted from our cars to be met by a thin, brown man in an austere suit of semi-military design, with a woolen scarf around his neck...
...I have often said to them, 'If you can't do good, at least don't do evil.' Yet when things improve, the Commission will have a job to perform...
...There is a long vital bridge across the Red River in Hanoi and a power plant—both still intact when I emplaned for home...
...A gabled shaft of concrete rises in the center of a paved circle...
...The amiable chat with Ho might have remained that and nothing more, until he suddenly remarked that he had something to say which he hoped we would publicize...
...namely, that the two warring governments could sit down to a peace table only if the "gun on the hip"—the armed forces of the United States—are left at home and Washington ceases the attempt to impose a military solution on its terms...
...After the interview, a television cameraman showed me clippings from The New York Times: President Ho Chi Minh's bid to President Johnson, reported by a Canadian rabbi, had lifted prices on the stock exchange...
...His refrain was victory...
...TN THE early morning of August 13 monument constructed in 1950 as a last year, the population of the tribute to the Vatican festival that farm hamlet of Phu Xa, in Nhat Tan year...
...Let Mr...
...It means no more to me than a pinprick in my leg...
...troops, armament, and planes, and the liquidation of bases loomed large as the basic condition for a peace treaty acceptable to the Premier's government...
...The President subsequently repeated the allusion to a "gun on the hip" and the gesture...
Vol. 31 • April 1967 • No. 4
