WITH BERNARD FALL IN SAIGON
Clark, Bronson P.
With Bernard Fall in Saigon by BRONSON P. CLARK "Pouring my recent fact-finding trip to Southeast Asia for the American Friends Service Committee, I had three meetings with Bernard Fall, all in...
...National War College and one of the ablest critics of the war...
...Then the Vietcong at least know what classification to put you in...
...He deserved to see the outcome of the war: The "victory of the graveyard"—or dare we hope that the United States will come to its senses before it is too late...
...Victory or defeat no longer seemed to concern this captain, nor even a life that might have been...
...Fall was much interested and carefully noted the date and source of the story...
...Fall knew Vietnam was dying and he was fighting American policy in his own way...
...At the last luncheon I also spoke of the effect of the M-16 rifle...
...No doubt it was all part of Fall's basic feeling that you could not fully understand the war without being in it...
...I asked how he could square being such a critic of American policy in Vietnam with his own shooting at the Vietcong...
...I had asked how correspondents could claim objectivity when they went about in uniform, in many cases carrying weapons and sometimes employing them...
...A town of 4,500, it had many two-story masonry buildings...
...Westmoreland is screaming for men...
...Perhaps in Fall's mind there might be "talks" with Hanoi, but it was clear that he did not accept the American myth of a war of South Vietnam against North Vietnam...
...What hospital...
...He walked off to keep his appointment on the M-16 check-out...
...Eliminated...
...But remember, when it was all over the Vietcong struck again and from the Iron Triangle...
...Gone...
...How can Johnson negotiate...
...He spoke again of the Cedar Falls operation...
...He told the story of the Vietnamese listening to the American general boast of one of these victories...
...He spoke of one about eighteen years old who had been carrying a love letter in her pack...
...Although the war is certainly not basically one of an advancing front the story did illuminate in Fall's mind, among other things, that the Americans were unable to control any ground they did not actually stand on...
...When I pointed out that this was certainly not the point of view expressed by the State Department he quickly replied, "Of course not, but the military know it...
...The GI had promptly opened fire...
...It was also an effort to correct American cavalier attitudes toward international agreements with perhaps a glance at the Geneva accords which stopped the war in 1954...
...I was anxious to get his latest thinking and to set the stage for sorting out what I was about to see in Vietnam...
...Fall spoke of the bullet shattering on impact, causing massive tissue damage...
...We had another interesting interchange about correspondents going about armed...
...Today, Ben Sue simply no longer exists...
...His interest in the M-16 was his belief that it also violated the Geneva protocols on the use of "dumdum" type bullets...
...In uniform you have 'Press' over the right breast pocket and the name of your paper over the left...
...They may 'win' the war but it will be the victory of the graveyard...
...It is on all the maps...
...When the Americans leave, the Vietcong return...
...I looked down at them...
...He feels very much overextended...
...He certainly spoke with pleasure at the unique position he occupied: being both a frequent lecturer at the U.S...
...Yet one sensed in Fall that for him this effort did two important things...
...They were holding hands in death...
...I figure they have the right to shoot at me, but I certainly have the right to defend myself...
...Yes, General, I understand," said the Vietnamese, "but aren't your victories coming closer and closer to Saigon...
...Secondly, if you were captured in civilian clothing you might be shot as a spy...
...We were still dealing with human beings, after all...
...I was full of questions and he was in a mood to talk...
...I chided Fall a bit on this as I knew he did the same...
...Well, in an ambush, for example, they don't know I am a correspondent, let alone which one...
...The military speak of the operation as a success...
...First of all," he responded, "your civilian clothes wouldn't last a day in the bush...
...Fall spoke of walking among the Vietcong dead, many of whom were young girls...
...Total destruction versus overwhelming troop superiority...
...Beneath that brisk confidence and knowledge about his own competence with respect to Vietnam lay a real love of the country...
...Military Command Headquarters) written in reply to his request to take M-16 rifle drill...
...All that seemed left was the attitude exemplified by his final words to Fall...
...We will all die, but we will not surrender...
...Vietnam will be destroyed...
...The military had agreed and were setting up the time...
...First it attempted to recall to Americans the humanity of the enemy...
...Some nervous and trigger-happy GI had suddenly come upon a young Vietnamese couple out taking a walk...
...He hasn't won anything yet...
...With Bernard Fall in Saigon by BRONSON P. CLARK "Pouring my recent fact-finding trip to Southeast Asia for the American Friends Service Committee, I had three meetings with Bernard Fall, all in Saigon...
...Finally Fall described a death tableau which he said was "one of the most poignant moments for me in this war...
...I showed him a story which appeared in the Saigon Daily News of December 20, 1966, quoting a U.S...
...He spoke of the ground effect of fourteen consecutive B-52 raids which the triangle had received during the operation...
...During our meeting he spoke of interviewing a Vietcong prisoner who had been fighting continually for thirteen years...
...His tongue in cheek reply was, 'Hospital...
...Yes, perhaps it was a hospital, but after the supplies and equipment were removed it was just a building, so we destroyed it.' " Perhaps Fall was chasing a will o' the wisp in recalling signed agreements about past efforts to civilize war...
...Fall showed me a communication from MAC V (the U.S...
...The one overwhelming fact about this situation," Fall told me, "which makes all considerations of ideology or politics pale, is the enormous might of American firepower...
...Negotiate...
...The last one was a lunch at the Dolce Vita restaurant next to the National Assembly building, on February 1. However, our first meeting held on the second day of my stay in South Vietnam on January 20 was far more significant...
...Fall spoke of the debate within the military over what he called "Rotterdam" versus the "Santo Domingo" solutions...
...A few weeks later he was killed by a land mine in the Vietnam countryside...
...he exploded...
...Along this same line, Fall also told of the destruction of a hospital at Ben Sue, another clear Geneva violation...
...The American military had long years of fighting ahead to conquer South Vietnam as well as deal with the implications of its air and artillery war against the North...
...The military will end up doing both," he said...
...Ben Sue was an important town in Vietnam...
...And maybe not that ground...
...The Americans can destroy but they cannot pacify...
...This became clear in his reply to my question about negotiations...
...I raised the question with the Commanding Officer...
...That is the real story of this war...
...We parted company in front of the restaurant...
...Army doctor who spoke of the surgical difficulties in treating GFs who had been hit by Vietcong using captured M-16s...
...But what have they 'won...
...But beneath his interest in things military, and under the layer of cynicism that all good international correspondents use to shield their struggle for some semblance of objectivity, Fall was deeply touched by the Vietnamese war...
...This particular one, a captain, had an advanced degree in physics and mathematics and he and Fall had reminisced together about the earlier years of the war...
...Operation Cedar Falls in the Iron Triangle twenty miles northwest of Saigon was fresh in his mind: "It looked like giant steel claws had raked the jungle...
Vol. 31 • May 1967 • No. 5
