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SAIGON NOTES: Talking Grunt Blues

The Saigon Post, Dec. 25, 1970

 

SAIGON NOTES

 

     Talking Grunt Blues

 

(Time: About a year ago during a lull in Red offensive. Place: A Special Forces camp, full of  shrapnel holes, near the Cambodian border. The young gunners of Charley Battery were a separate unit from SF, and sometimes at odds with them. They pointed out, for example, that SF  could stay inside its bunkers during rocket and mortar attacks. Charley Battery had to be out in the open, manning the guns, returning fire.) 

        

                   *

The medic wears Montagnard bracelets. "The 'Yards say if you remove your bracelets you may remove your luck."

                   *

Hot dinners were flown in. "Not so hot, but better than we expected."

 

                   *

"We used to have fun with the Montagnard kids. Then the little girl took shrapnel in the stomach one day. The kids are all evacuated now."

                    *

The pregnant Vietnamese woman in white pajamas follows her soldier mate down into their bunker near the barbed wire.

                     *

The old Montagnard 'Pop' wears jungle fatigues and enjoys his pipe. He points at the tobacco and smiles intelligently.

 

"Tabac Ban Me Thuot. C'est bien."

                     *

"Captain Coleman, our XO, came out with our paychecks one  afternoon when he had two weeks left in-country. He said he wouldn't ever do a crazy thing like that again. We took a mortar attack that same afternoon. The Captain died in my lap, right over there."

                      *

Colonel Sam, who used to teach literature at Saigon University, now commands the Vietnamese Rangers. He is paunchy and polite, but tough.  A Vietcong rocket once tore into his home where his wife and seven children lived.

 

"But I already build bunker for them. I teach them what to do. Rocket no harm them."

                   *

Special Forces Captain Palmer, who used to work in a Memphis bank, "One night a rocket would have finished off all seven of us in the Team if it came just three feet closer. That must be luck."

                     *

With a book, the young gunner is sitting off by himself under a howitzer facing Cambodia. The book is Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf.

 

"Hard to get good books around here, so I have some sent to me."

                    *

Cilenti makes a succulent pot of spaghettis in the SF bunker, adds clams to the sauce. "Man, smell that prevolone."

 

"We're adopting you, Wop."

 

"Hold on, Babe. Don't you mean I'm adopting you?"

                    *

Sergeant Brock says he knew the Green Berets when they were elite. He wants to put .105 rounds out there in the highland dusk.

 

"Ceasefire, hell!  Everybody knows they use it to get themselves re-supplied and re-grouped."

 

He plans to go to Saigon one day next week and see a woman.

                    *

"My grandaddy carried this flag as an Army dentist, WW I.  My Daddy carried it 36 months in the Pacific as a Navy pilot, WW II. I'm the last of the Potter line. Either I bring this flag home or the line ends with me."

                    *

In the SF bunker Lt. Turney's dark mustache droops. Oddly, he looks like a Middle East money changer in need of sleep. He sits down, eyelids drooping. Rat traps are set in the kitchen. A girl-famished Private jokes about sheep. Lt. Turney cracks a walnut and sips coffee. He mumbles something sleepily.

 

"All right, Merry Christmas, guys."

 

 

 

SAIGON NOTES: Dec. 21, 1970

(Vietnam Legacy Project. Details at July 4 post)

Dec 21, 1970 The Saigon Post

 

            SAIGON NOTES

 

                      by

                         Daniel Cameron

 

       JOB MARKET REVISITED

 

This column's Dec. 4 item,'THE JOB MARKETEERS,' described some shady 'employment agencies' which prey on semi-desperate men in Saigon. Herein are two subsequent developments: (1) December 16 'Global Assignments'  publicly announced the closing of its Saigon  office, adding that "No responsibility will be accepted for any past or future dealings with Global. (2) This column has received  a letter from Overseas Services, Inc, of Lynwood, California, dated December 8.

 

The letter is signed by Bruce Magruder, Jr. a former Lt. Colonel in the US Marine Corps who has served in Southeast Asia both in military and civilian capacities. Together with the letter, Mr. Magruder enclosed an impressive variety of documents and credentials testifying to the integrity of his firm.

 

These include advertisements, the firm's monthly pamphlet, transactions with the Governments of Vietnam,Korea and California, plus dozens of correspondences with employers like RMK, BRJ, Standard Oil, Sheraton in Hawaii, Philco Ford, Department of State, Lockheed Aircraft and the University of Maryland.

 

Mr. Magruder, during his visit to Saigon to open a liaison office experienced "dismay when learning of subsequent efforts of fly-by-nights to operate in Saigon."

 

He adds: "I note with interest that you refer, in your article, to the many 'so-called' employment agencies currently in Saigon. I couldn't agree with you more."

 

For the text of Mr. Magruder's detailed letter, please see page 3.

 

   A WORD FROM MARS

 

In a recent Letter-to-the-Editor, a Pedro L. Rodriguez says of this columnist: "I believe he is not worth a space in your paper because  he said he was born in the moon and is a naturalized citizen of Mars."

 

The reply to Mr. Rodriguez (in Martianese): "Awk-awk ot shash vim mazlimbka oosh ba ooshka!"

(For translation you must go fly a rocket.)

 

   VIM, VIGOR, VIRGINITY

 

Le Prince et la Vierge (The Prince and the Virgin) at the Eden. You must be 18 to see this, but it's worth it. A very professional Italian-French production in classic Latin tradition: sex as a symbol for fun, humor, wit and intrigue. with neat glimpses of Renaissance Italy. American-Swedish sexploitation is often boring and childish in comparison.

 

....An impotent Prince can make love only on rainy Sundays. His virgin wife has suffered through a whole year of rainy Sundays. Finally a truly stormy Sabbath arrives. The Prince rises to the occasion. Unfortunately he does it so well that he dies of heart failure. What is the Princely domain to do now for an heir? Enter the  Prince contender (Vittorio Gassman). This dashing contender, so often victorious, both on battlefield and in boudoir, gets three chances to prove himself with the lovely Virna Lizt. The royal subjects stand outside the castle all night, hoping and praying for success, But the dashing lover, who has bestowed himself on so many women in the past, begins to fear the prospect of failure. Has he spent too much of himself in prior adventures? Can he conquer this greatest of all challenges. A doctor offers encouragement. The doctor assures him that every healthy man, in his lifetime, "has 3000 arquebus shots in him."

 

The Prince and the Virgin. Not your typical sex movie.

 

P.S. TIPS? COMPLAINTS? WANT ACTION? Phone/write us at the Post. Names withheld on request.

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

The Will of the West

(Part of on-going Vietnam Legacy Project as detailed in July 4 post.)

 

The Saigon Post, April 9, 1971

 

                 SAIGON NOTES

                      by

                          Daniel Cameron

 

     The Will of the West

 

Wheaties or Cheerios for breakfast, of course, is no guarantee of political stamina. Communist and fascisr propoganda against the West has always been emboldened by the theme or conviction that the capitalist democracies are monied forms of semi-anarchy without real staying power in the jungle of world politics. Lenin, Hitler and Ho Chi Minh have all been convinced that Western will is fickle or downright flabby in comparison to the iron will displayed by a Nazi Berlin, a Stalinist Moscow, a Red Hanoi or a fascist Tokyo.

 

US news media, especially the major television networks, generally disclaim any responsibility in molding American attitudes and wills. This, despite the fact that American families, whose TV screens serve generous helpings of selected carnage, violence, firefights and wounded soldiers and civilians with dinner every night, have actually seen much more of the war than the average resident of Saigon has seen. Their nerves have been played upon for hundreds of evenings this way. This electronic living room war is a new event in history, still awaiting its sociologists, psychoanalysts and other intellectual entrepreneurs.

 

And so, in the April 3 New York Times, Max Frankel in Washington reports a new kind of Indochina debate and "enlightens" us as follows:

 

"Whatever the past divisions between Hawks and Doves, or Conservatives and Liberals, it is clear from the polls and discussions in Congress, that more and more of the country is united in its desire to quit Indochina---sooner rather than later---and for a growing segment of the population, regardless of the consequences there.

 

"The daily reports of civilian as well as military casualties and the preoccupation at home with talk of war crime and high-level guilt are leading a number of legislators on all sides to conclude that the country can't stand much more such pressure."

 

That's just part of Frankel's piece. He plays artfully on the theme that the US is becoming a nervous wreck over Vietnam. Watch him closely. Observe how the literate, logical NY Timer throws his ponderous weight behind a policy that calls for the US Government to rectify its mistakes by acting like a depressed fishwife who shouts, "Max, I can't take it anymore. I ain't gonna take it anymore, I ain't, I ain't. You hear me, Max, you old bastard?"

 

                      INFORMED SOURCES SAY

 

Semi-intelligence sources are speaking again of a general increase in defection from VC ranks, especially by long-term cadre members who have had as much as 20 years experience in the underground. They say this development, which is most noticeable in the Delta, includes many political officers, committe members etc who entered the movement as young idealists and are leaving it in middle-aged disillusionment, Dwindling numbers in the ranks are leading the organization, at times, to make party secretaries out of 20-year olds. Which indicates that there are lots of executive and junior executive positions available for ambitious young men wo see Red in the future. Qualifications: better than average intelligence and willingness to do lots of night work.

 

These same sources add cautiously that the VC infrastructure, even when in shreds, has much tenacity and refuses to die altogether.

 

"Let's face it," one official said. "No other organization in the world can hold together like the Communists---except the Catholic Church."

 

                A WORD TO THE NUDE

 

One of the specialties of a certain hotel in downtown Saigon are signs which are painted on all the corridor walls. Some give information on how to safeguard your valuables. Others describe the do's and don'ts which a guest should observe. One sign by the stairway is very emphatic about the don'ts.

 

"Please don't wander about the building when your body without trousers and shirts or your body naked, partially clothes. Don't tease, embrace and kiss women and girls in public....

 

"These rude manners will lose the good morals, customs of the Vietnamese and the serious appearance of this building."

Thank You

 

               AROUND THE TOWN

 

An exhibition of watercolors by JOSE DE MONTREUIL, at the ALLIANCE FRANCAISE, 24 Gia Long Street. Lots of Vietnamese scenes with a European influence of primary colors, often done with brief vertical or horizontal dabs....Film ROMEO AND JULIET due soon at the REX....The new iron grill work in the corner window of the Givral cafe is one of the most elegant little sights in town.

 

PS. TIPS? DOPE? (The information kind) Write c/o The Saigon Post. For fast action, leave note on bulletin board, JUSPAO, 145 Nguyen Hue Street.

 

 

 

 

 

North Vietnam Commando Raid

(Ongoing Vietnam Legacy Project. Details at July 4 post.)

November 30, 1970, The Saigon Post

 

         

SAIGON NOTES:The Commando Raid in N. Vietnam

      by

          Daniel Cameron

 

Bold, yes. Imaginative, yes. A propoganda coup that may eventually aid the POW's indirectly. In motivation, even noble. The volunteers, heroic. But successful in the stated task? Let's stop the kidding.

 

The abortive rescue mission demonstrates how strongly the US feels about the POWs and Hanoi's exploitation of them.

 

 Unfortunately, it also demonstrates an open secret: the US military in Vietnam has no intelligence system adequate for such a delicate operation. A sad thing about all this is that such an operation has to succeed the first time. The enemy won't give you a second chance to surprise him in the same way. Does anyone doubt that he will now make it virtually impossible to rescue the surviving POWs in another such raid? Kidding each other won't change this fact. Neither will it change the fact that the US military's intelligence was bush league.

 

We see no equivalent of the German air commandos who sprung loose Mussolini himself from Allied captivity in Northern Italy. Or the tiny Israeli team that tracked down Eichmann in Argentina and whisked him all the way back to Tel Aviv.

 

All we see is people congratulating each other for an aborted mission. Brave men were landed in N. Vietnam and found nobody home. In Vietnam the US military, it seems, is best suited for expensive meat-grinding, H & I fire and saturation bombing. In football terms it produces a maximum of blistering, hulking tackles, a minimum of artful quarterbacks and deft half-backs. It may snow the Washington civilians, but we don't propose to be snowed.

 

ps The American-distributed Vietnam Round-up and Vietnam Press Review will be excused from reprinting this commentary.

 

    AROUND THE TOWN

 

Strange rains? Folks are wondering why the beginning of the dry season has been so wet....TITO V. CARBALLO has settled in Phnom Penh with his wife BLANCA, for the Phillipine News Service. TITO has been with the Saigon Post for two years....An American who retired from the US Army after more than 20 years service is living in Saigon with his wife and children and working for a US-Government operated contractor. Yet MACV refuses to give him Commissary privileges, he says.  He claims that USAID employees get these privileges with no sweat....LOLITA re-appeared at the Vinh Loi cinema recently. James Mason plays the poetic middle-aged Humping Humbert who does a cross-country station wagon tour with glorious fair-haired nymphette played by Sue Lyon. In the movie she's about 16. In NABOKOV'S original novel she was 13....Remarkably the non-political Association of Foreign Correspondents in Vietnam has decided to involve itself in the accreditation case of DON LUCE who is firmly established in  many minds  here as a political personality....What is ARTHUR DOMMEN smoking up there in Vientiane? More on this later...Chinese own the TOKYO restaurant on Le Loi. but the food is Japanese-style and reasonably priced....Somebody has spread reports that we're wedding HENNY SCHOUTE the air-borne blonde. Nothing to it. We are not jump-qualified.

 

Phone, write tips in to the Post, or leave phone number.

 

 

SAIGON NOTES June 12, 1971

(The Vietnam Legacy Project. Details at July 4 post)

 

June 12, 1971 The Saigon Post

 

             SAIGON NOTES

                  by

                      Daniel Cameron

 

    A POW BREAKTHROUGH?

 

Now that the Associated Press (Bangkok) on Teusday of this week confirmed the story that appeared in this column the previous Sunday, the question of the neutral of "third country" looms larger.

 

The private American group, headed by the CROSBY brothers, BING and LARRY, is seeking to bargain with Hanoi by offering to re-build war-damaged facilities in North Vietnam. This week it got a qualified "maybe" from Hanoi officials in Vientiane. This is already more than US Government officials have ever gotten.  Vis-a-vis the US Government, Hanoi has always demanded the prior withdrawal of all American troops before the POW issue can be settled. Obviously the CROSBY group is in no position to withdraw all US troops from Vietnam. Yet it got a qualified "maybe" in response to its offer. A source informs this column that the group is emphasizing the pragmatic methods of the American businessman.

 

The private group, (initials PEACE) also proposes that the American POWs be interned in a third country till the war's end. The country being proposed will surprise a great many people. A source in direct contact with the CROSBY group's chief spokesman has informed this column of the country's name, but we are still not authroized to print it.

 

  CALLING ALL US OFFICERS

 

This column issues a formal invitation to all ranking (and maybe not so ranking) American officers in South Vietnam to appraise this country's mood during the pre-Election period. While aware that the public analyses of a country's "mood" are not the normal function of US officers, we couldn't help but take notice of the anonymous officer who does just that in the June 7

issue of US News & World Report.

This column will offer any US officer equal time and equal anonymity. Comments on the waiting list for General are certainly welcome to respond. Generals anticipating a peaceful retirement are assured of the utmost invisibility in this space, but let it never be forgotten that views of the lowliest lieutenant are also eligible for airing.

 

If no replies are received, this column will not take the position that officers experienced sudden mental blank spots. It will only assume that they agree. Generally speaking, as the news mag says, the officer was drawing  on years of intelligence work here.

 

Samples of the man's views, according to US News & World Reports, June 7.

 

"The Oppostion appears to be better organized for propoganda than the Thieu Government. There are many signs of that in town. Consider the press in Saigon. Consider the press of Saigon. Many papers published here could not possibly make a go of it on their own. The money backing most of these papers must be coming from Hanoi's Reds through local banks.

"The theme of such papers is 'peace now.'  They expose scandal---and there is plenty of that here. They appealto the under-paid, over-taxed, war-weary and have-nots in terms which seldom offer both sids of any story."

 

He adds that, as October's elections draw near, expect more demonstrations, more discovery of scandal and more anti-Americanism, both the calculated and real kind.

 

PS TIPS? CONSTRUCTIVE GRIPES? Do what others have done. Contact SAIGON NOTES, the mon-Wed-Fri column that is read in the inner sanctums of Government., private enterprise, MACV and barrooms. Names withheld on request.

 

 

SAIGON NOTES: De-Dopification

(The on-going Vietnam Legacy Project continues. For details, explanation, see July 4
post.)

July 21, 1970  The Saigon Post

 

         SAIGON NOTES

           

 

URINALYSIS & DE=DOPIFICATION
          by
              Daniel Cameron

 

De-Toxification Center, Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam

 

G.I.'s in dress kakhis stood in line, processing for their flight home. They had the contented look of

negatives. The positives, if any, would go into quarantine for five days. It's part of the Army's new crash program to get G.I.s home without heroin-deposited morphine etc in them. Every G.I. in Vietnam will go through this 3-day process. COLONEL ROSS, a big silver-haired fatherly-looking surgeon said:

 

"The aim is only to de-toxify those whom the urine tests show to be positive. The patient's social or psychological needs for drugs is another problem. In this first month we feel the program has been a big success."

 

Later, a Major said, "First we're gonna take you people on a walk-through of the various facilities just like the G.I.'s go through them. First come and have a cocktail and lunch."

 

Lunch, which we also paid for, was in a mess hall where the sign said OUR MEALS ARE NEXT TO MOM'S.

                                                         *

The soldier was going home now. Heroin was a problem  where he used to be stationed, up around Phu Bai. How did they take it? Any way---snort it, shoot it, smoke it. When he first got there, they were on pot. Now, 90% of the old pot heads were on heroin. But his buddy added that less than half the people he knew were on pot or heroin. It was less than people thought.

 

                                                         *

A Negro MP from the Second Security Battalion was going home. Half the people he knew in the Danang area were on pot or heroin. Why? Everyone got a thing to do. How about when they got home?  It'll be rough on 'em if they want it and can't get it.

 

                                                           *

A number of senior officers wore dark glasses.

After lunch next to Mom's they took us to the Urine Collection Facility.  A big G.I. in tee shirt  sat high on a shelf directly over the urinals. What was his job classification?

 

"He watches the urinating,"  Lt. DINAPOLI explained. "Some G.I.s tried to avoid the test by bringing in a bottle of a buddy's urine."

                                                            *

 

The Presidential Proclamation is available for any G.I. who opts for the Amnesty Box. He is allowed to deposit anything in the box, no questions asked. What did the Army find in the box? MAJOR MCMASTER said they found knives and guns and Government property. Ever find drugs?  Once they found three small vials of heroin.

                                                             *

The other two centers were at Long Binh and Camp Alfa near Saigon.  The Major said stattistics for all three centers showed only 50% positive. That showed that the use of hard drugs was less than everyone thought. The Major wore dark glasses.

 

                                                              *

COLONEL ANGEL, Chief toxicologist, US Army, on special assignment in Cam Ranh Bay: "Technically heroin is not found in the body. Morphine is the indicator. That's what will show up in the chromotography tests."

 

Was there a de-toxification center for alcoholics? The Colonel said no.

 

The G.I.'s face was pale, freckled and well-etched. The program here was good, he said. He was glad to be off heroin and going home. In March he was at Khe Sanh.  Some of the Arvins at Khe Sanh were using heroin, but not as heavy as the Americans. Most of them just wanted to make money out of it. They made quite a bit. Of the guys he  knew at Khe Sanh, at least 40% were on heroin.  You can also buy it from mama-sans in Danang. Why did he use it?

 

"I had quite a few friends killed at Khe Sanh. That's what turned me on."

 

The ones who wore blue pajamas inside the wire fence were in quarantine. A Vietnamese camera man working for a US network tried t6o sneak some camera shots.

 

"That's the last time I'm gonna tell you," the Major said, pointing.

 

                                                           *

 

COLONEL FIKE, a physician, stated three objectives: (1) de-toxify the patient (2)begin rehabilitation (3)make clinical observations and record experiences.

 

"Patients are generally dependent personalities. They respond especially to female nurses and attendants. They prefer passive recreation and look forward with keen interest to the afternoon snack period. They also get opportunities for 'rap' sessions and...."

 

                                                              *

 

"Well," said a newsman in the back of the bus, " the Army's gone full cycle. Now they're inspecting for heroin like they used to inspect for clap."

 

                                           

 

 

 

 

SAIGON NOTES: Anatomy of the Media

   (Part of a continuing series, digitizing a Vietnam Legacy Projects. See July 4 post for details.)

 

       SAIGON NOTES

 

            by

                Daniel Cameron

 

(The Saigon Post, March 12, 1971)

 

     A DISCRIMINATING EMBASSY?

 

One of our readers from RMK-BRJ---ROBERT H. VERLO, a Senior Systems Analyst---writes

on February 5:

 

"Here's one for you. The US EMBASSY DISCRIMINATES FILIPINOS."(The block letters are Mr.

Verlo's.)

 

"I work at RMK's main office. We're just a half block away from the Embassy. The Embassy has a snack bar which is run under the name of International House. (yet.) Supposedly it is open to one and all as the VN types are always buying there.

 

"About a half dozen people in our office like a sandwich in the A.M. and we have been taking turns going and getting them. However, recently, they (Marine guards) have been refusing to let the Filipinos in. They have used a number of reasons. No Embassy-issued I.D. card, the snack bar is only for Embassy personnel etc etc. I have inquired about this myself, but the guards tell me the snack bar is open to the public.

 

"I fail completely to see the logic of trying to promote harmony and goodwill amongst  your allies and yet pull some (unprintable) stunt like this.

 

"Maybe a few words from you in your column might get the situation clarified."

 

Right. We agree that if the snack bar is a public one, this indeed would be a very naked case of discrimination. So we took the matter to the Embassy. A spokesman made the following points.

 

(1) There is no snack bar at the Embassy called 'International House.' There is a snack bar which is known simply as the snack bar.(2) The snack bar is located strictly and exclusively within the perimeter of the Embassy.(3) Being located inside the Embassy, it is not a public snack bar. (4) The Vietnamese mentioned in MR VERLO's letter ought to be, in fact must be, employees of the Embassy. (5) Generally speaking, to snack in an Embassy bar is the exclusive perogative of  Embassy personnel.

 

                         ANATOMY OF THE MEDIA

 

Some Stateside journalists are beginning to zero in on some of the tricks of the trade as practiced by certain news media performers in Vietnam. We welcome the company.

 

KENNETH CRAWFORD in the February 23 Washington Post reports a speech made by former Post Editor J. Russell Wiggins who asked the rhetorical question: How would the modern media have reported

George Washington's crossing of the Delaware at McConkey's Ferry on Christmas 1776?

 

We can't answer that, but Wiggins' reply sounds like Chapter 1 in a manual of how to succeed in the Saigon bureaus of some US news agencies without hardly trying.

 

"Television cameramen would have focused their zoom lenses on the rag-wrapped feet of Washington's troopers. When it was over, microphones would have been thrust under the noses of stripling recruits to catch their answers to the question: 'How do you feel about some of your buddies being lost in this sneaky operation'?....New York editorial writers would have followed lamentations....Washington, instead of attacking, should have been negotiating....His occupation of Trenton and quick withdrawal showed that he was still engaged in search-and-destroy operations---following the will-o-the-wisp of military victory...."

 

The tee-vee boys might have done unusual work in other wars, too. How about a sequence in the US Civil War, entitled 'DISCIPLINE CRISIS IN THE ARMY'?

 

Camera pans as Irish tear up New York City in protest over the draft.  Draftees are seen running back to their farms. Captain shoots private who fails to advance on line.  Then camera zooms in on a drunken officer who is shaggy-haired and wild looking. The camera strives to show us the lice in his beard.  He turns to the camera. A commentator questions him.

 

"But don't you agree this is a very dirty, unpopular war, GENERAL GRANT?"

 

ps Information suitable for this column can be mailed % Saigon Post, or leave name on bulletin board at

JUSPAO, 145 Nguyen Hue St.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lawyer in a Mini-Skirt

(On-going Vietnam War Legacy Project. For details, see July 4 post.)

 

         SAIGON NOTES, Aug 19, 1971 (The Saigon Post)

 

                      by

                         Daniel Cameron

 

            Lawyer in a Mini-Skirt

 

Technically it may have been a midi, but MIss Dolores Donovan---known to friends as Dede--undoubtedly filled it.

 

She looked up from the desk of the LMDC (Lawyers Military Defense Committee) at 203 Tu Do St. Her hair isn't strictly red or utterly blonde, but there's plenty of it. She can let it fall to a bohemian, or Vietnamese length. Her face, suggestive of a higher intelligence, is womanly. A certain Praxitiles cast to it---you might say an Athenian brow. At that momentit seemed weary: care-worn, over-work, Vietnam blues. No-Doz or what the Victorians called melancholy? Maybe a little of each. It changed quickly as she smiled, though. The name rings Irish bells, but there could be a Scottish grandmother in the line, keeping things properly sober.

 

Miss Donovan's home is Palo Alto.  She's done a lot of living in San Francisco and graduated from Stanford Law School in 1970. She specialized in Constitutional Law.  She was working in Paris last October when she heard about the LMDC in Saigon and its work in defending G.I.s.

 

"I was interested in military law."

 

She could have gotten a job Stateside but decided to combine travel with learning miliitary law.

 

Travel wasn't a series of plane hops from hotel to hotel. Following a route crossed three times by this columnist, she left Istanbul by bus December 27 for the ferry across the Bosphorus. Asia opens with immense plains, prairies, deserts and  mountains,  The trip aggravates you and fascinates you.

 

Deserts end at the gateway to India, where Miss Donovan arrived in January and traveled for six weeks. She hit Saigon in March and was soon employed by LMDC.

 

LMDC is a non-profit organization incorporated in Cambridge, Mass. It's funded by private contributions and takes cases on reccommendation from  the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union.) The Saigon office was started in November 1970 by  Henry M.  Aronson. Yale graduate known for his 1965-67 Civil Rights work in Mississippi. Other Saigon staffers include David Addlestone of Washington, D.C, and Duke Law School, and Joseph Remcho of harvard Law School. Secretary Susan Sherer is from New York City. This staff will be replaced by a new one in November.

 

Another Saigon law firm also accepts G.I. cases, but LMDC accepts cases without payment.

 

Miss Donovan isn't the very first female lawyer here.

 

"There was a girl who worked for Kirkwood, but she left just before I got here. She didn't do military law."

 

Does being a woman affect one's professional activity?

 

"It makes a difference with the line officers, but not the JAG (Judge Advocate General) officers. The latter realize that a woman can be a lawyer."

 

She is conscious about liberation movements, including the feminine one.

 

"I'm a member of Women's Liberation."

 

She said it firmly. I forgot to ask whether the 'W' and 'L' should be capitalized.

 

At one time in her academic career---she majored in History and French---she was considering a Doctorate in French Literature. She finally decided on Law, because it seemed more vital and interesting. Bu she doesn't plan a career in military law.

 

"In the future I'll never exclusively practice military law, but this experience will be useful for civil liberties law."

 

She believes that in Vietnam there are many abuses of a soldier's civil rights, due partly to the "character of the Army."  She mentions pre-trial confinement, gross curtailment of rights and JAG officers who are over-worked and under-staffed.  These things may be "unavoidable" but "that is no excuse."

 

Impressions of Vietnam: "It's turned out to be what I expected. The longer I'm here, the more conscious I become of Vietnamese hostility."

 

Did she take this personally?

 

"Yes, when it's directed at me. People yelling, for example, particularly at Tan Son Nhut."

 

(Not the time for me to analyze ways in which 2 million G.I.s---many of whom would  be unwelcome in neighborhoods  where owners of the NY Times lived--- could affect a fairly sensitive population.)

 

When she returns to the States, she may join a 'law commune.' The term sort of startled me. I must have been way behind the times.

 

"A law commune," she explained, "operates on a basis of equality. Secretaries, for example, are on the same level as the lawyers. The commune is formed for radical and civil rights cases. Members live on a subsistence level."

 

The times they are a-changing?

 

Female emancipation has always seemed to me to be a dull subject, yet not without a certain border-line fascination. Was she, in fact, emancipated?  No, she explained. It was an on-going process of development, then? Yes. Even women she knew had a long way to go.  She knew two women lawyers in California who were going through the process. Emancipation, then, seemed to be a journey, not a goal. The goal, if any, was the journey itself.

 

How about idols? Were there any professional women who she espcially admired or respect, whom she looked to for you-know-what? No.

 

That reply assured me that Miss Donovan is a woman.

 

Our interview was terminated at that point, as four Negro G.I.s entered the office. The other lawyer had already left.

 

PS COMING SOON: The Talking New York Times Repertorial Blues.

PPS Tips?  Contact the Mon-Wed-Fri column you won't find in Stars & Stripes.

 

 

 

THE HIGH COST OF KILLING

Note: This is part of a continuing series to digitize the Vietnam War legacy of reporter/columnist
Daniel Cameron, especially work appearing in The Saigon Post. (See July 4 post for details.)
The following is from the series 'ETCETERA' and was first published October 06, 1970.

                   THE HIGH COST OF KILLING

                                      by
                                          Daniel Cameron

ETCETERA (Saigon Post, Oct. 06, 1970)

 

THE HIGH COST OF KILLING

 

by Daniel Cameron

 

In the Ho Bo Woods

 

Some grunts have education, you know. Have you been to the boonies as a G.I. Or at least an I.G. (Instant Grunt?) If so, you may have marched with a school teacher-grenade launcher,drank chlorinated water from the canteen of a biology graduate, or maybe watched an air strike with a soul brother psychology major.

 

 

PFC Bill is from Pennsylvania. Because of his intelligence he may never rise above PFC, but he's still a good guy. I bumped into him in the Ho Bo Woods of Cu Chi Province. People like PFC Bill sometimes have interesting things to say while trying to dodge the booby traps.  Bill had entered d a school of economics before entering the rice paddies.

 

We were out together on a two-platoon sweep in this wild hedgerow area near the snaky Saigon River, right in the heart of booby trap country. In a bush, our point man had discovered another of Charley's camouflaged trap doors that lead down into a series of underground tunnels. One of our tunnel rats, Private Ginger, volunteered to go down. Ginger found nobody home but came up with a rusty Chicom AK-47, a Russian K-54 pistol, two bags of rice and three cans of mackerel canned in Japan with tomato sauce. This weapons cache was Bravo Company's main find for the day. Sometimes you do better, of course. Every hole is a little different. Sometimes a lot different.

 

As usual, orders were to blow the tunnels so that Charley would have that less many hideouts and chances for mischief. Naturally, everybody knew that Charley woulld dig more holes somewhere else. That was part of the cat-and-mouse game.

 

Bill and I didn't mind so much. It would give us time to rest our over-heated selves. We sat on the edge of a bomb crater while the detonating team began work. Bill washed down his salt tablets with lukewarm canteen water. He lit a menthol cigarette from his C-ration pack and wiped gobs of sweat off his glasses. PFC Bill was in a lecture mood today, despite the Cu Chi sun.

 

"Someday," he said, "I'll have to do a thesis on the economics of Vietnam military operations. It ought to win a humor award, anyway."

 

"Why's that, Bill?"

 

"Guess how much it costs to kill one Charley boy? Just one."

 

"I'm a bad guesser."

 

"Well, my conservative calculations say it's 199 thousand dollars. Green dollars."

 

"Really?"

 

"But that was three years ago. Now, with this galloping inflation...My God."

 

Bill took off his steel pot and ammo belt. The way he reached his figure of 199 thousaand per Charley sounded very complicated. Some of the professional economy people might say the figure was too high. Then again, others might say it was too low. PFC Bill used a lot of terms from professors, and from economics books, but it all came down to one point: Hanoi is over-charging. It almost sounded as if Charley boy costs more dead than alive.

 

Ginger popped yellow smoke and we watched the Huey chopper come down with the load of explosives that had been ordered by radio. Five grunts from the first platoon helped carry out the crates of forty-pound shape charges, bangalore torpedoes, the C-4 sticks of plastique, det cords, fuses and blasting caps. These would be used to destroy five or six holes in the ground.

 

PFC Bill opened his canteen again.

 

"Put that all together," he said, "And you have a nice $10,000 firecracker. Charley, of course, paid maybe ten farmers and kids a nickel each to dig him those holes...Paid, hell. He may have just pointed his bayonet...."

 

Sure made me think, that Bill. I suppose if a man asked a thousand dollars to mow down ten cents worth of grass in my backyard, I'd wonder whether the dude has all his crap together.

 

Bill would too. Bill also seemed to think that people who trifle with $10, 000 firecrackers are a gross insult to the nation's Gross National Product. Especially when they fail to ram the firecracker up somebody's apparatus in Hanoi. (He put itworse than that.) He also felt they were a gross national insult to the grunts who had to do the actual detonating in actual booby trap country.  A grunt likes to feel that people in authority are squared-away people. It helps, anyway. A strong jaw is good, but a strong mind is maybe even better.

 

Bill's war economizing covered the Vietnamizing business, too. He seemed to think that even when most American combat troops leave, it will still cost many thousands of dollars for one ARVIN to kill one Charley. At the same time it will cost the Russians and Chinese about $1.98 a piece everytime their Charley boy assasinates a village Chief or school teacher or Government official. Then we pay thousands to get the killer (sometimes getting innocent civilians who Charley boy is trained to put in our way. And in the meantime it costs the pious protesters back home maybe 29 cents a placard (with free TV network time) to tell us to stop killing the killers.

 

"I think Hanoi is overcharging something fierce," Bill said.

 

But if we left Vietnam and stopped payment altogether, Charley and his gang, like any winner, would take all and we would have shown ourselves to be history's impotent giant, or at least its biggest bungler. For if our past ten years were all a vast and vain mistake, thousands of Americans killed in their prime, thousands maimed, scores of billions of dollars washed away in the mud, the nation denounced at home and abroad, then what nation ever bungled more?

 

Sounded like the Russian Bear and the Chinese Dragon had a good thing going for them, anyway.

 

The detonating crew put ten-minute fuses on all the charges, and we cleared out of the area. The boom came as we reached the rice paddy. We all turned and watched the geyser of smoke, dust, clumps of earth and  bits of trees fly high and come down.

 

PFC Bill wiped more sweat from his glasses.

 

"We produce lots of big-bang firecrckers," he said, "but not many General MacArthurs or Colonel Rheaults."

 

Bill may send me a copy of his thesis if he ever gets it published.

 

Some grunts have education, you know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saigon Notes, October 06, 1970

Note:  This continues an Indochina Legacy series, digitizing (for scholars and researchers to come) the local reportage of Daniel Cameron in Vietnam. (Details in foreword to the July 4 post here.) The following appeared in The Saigon Post, October 06, 1970.

             

       SAIGON NOTES 

    by Daniel Cameron

 

                     Mail Spies at Juspao?

 

A number of persons are seriously wondering whether correspondents' mail arriving at JUSPAO is being secretly opened. They mention suspicious signs on envelopes and packages

 

Having no hard evidence yet, this column is making no charges. Are the wary individuals perhaps suffering from mild paranoia? We have no hard evidence on that either.

Of course the mail clerks, who are obviously nice kids, are not mentioned. What is spoken of are the "spooks" who roam JUSPAO.

 

                           SOME FEMALES IN SAIGON

 

Petite Eve Sharbert at AP: Southern charm is welcome in this town...Mrs. Co at JUSPAO: With legs so shapely and smooth, it's humane that she doesn't often wear the traditional ao dai...Hennie the Dutch airborne blonde: Good lines, generally speaking, but her joints seem a little constricted, her bones maybe a little tired. Too many jumps?...Gloria Emerson, New York Times: If there were no New York Times, would Gloria feel a need to invent one?...Mary, the French and English speaking reporter of Greek nationality, cultivator of confidences: She's doing herself a big favor by reducing, but will Nature allow her to complete the job?...Lisa Cronin, now Mrs. Captain Frank Wohl: Despite the bum deal she got from AP, she has Celtic vitality and big blue eyes...Anne Bryam. Editor of Overseas Weekly: Brittle but attractive, especially for an American woman in Vietnam. Is she secretly a frustrated General?..Mrs. Dennis Cook at UPI: That red Botticelli hair looks, at times, like it's on fire...Tony Pyle at AP: Friendly, we are told, and can wield a pen...Miss Nga in the JUSPAO lobby: Cute, dimply and theoretically pinchable.

 

                                       SHARON TATE AT THE EDEN

 

It was a parody of the James Bond thing, old but entertaining. Plenty of color, humor and style.

One test of a good movie is its appeal to different nationalities. This one packed in the Vietnamese and made them laugh.

Dean Martin the title role of Matt Helm, hip secret agent,(Dubbed in France, unfortunately.) Dean Martin knows how to be light and humorous without ever compromising his dignity. There's a delicious karate combat scene between Nancy Kwan and Sharon Tate.

Why must so many of the good ones die young? James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, and now the gorgeous redhaired Sharon, daughter of an Air Force Colonel.

        

                                          OVER THE BRINK

 

Eric Cavaliero, a former religion editor for the Honolulu Advertiser, was evicted recently from the Brink Open Grille. Long hair, he was told. Yet Eric is fairly bald. But he does have some hair on the back of his head, you see. Naughty boy. Apparently he committed the cardinal MACV sin  of letting it grow a wee bit. So out he went. The Brink, you see, is "tightening up."

 

To the MACV types who are "tightening up."  If you yourselves are deathly afraid to grow hair, why not grow up? No wonder women make morons out of you.

 

                                        HURRICANE IN VIETNAM

 

The Hurricane, published by H Field Force, has put out a special Cambodia issue. The slick, glossy publication chronicles the May-June operations in Cambodia. Many color plates. Interesting stories on General Do Cao Tri.

Oddly, the most remarkable photographs are, we think, the facial close-ups of US Cambodian Commander, MIchael S. Davison, by someone named Joern. The shots, illustrating an interview, reveal big patrician features resembling a solid Roman Emperor before the period of Rome's decline.

 

                                    SPIRITUAL LIFE AT AP

 

Now that the likes of (Pulitzer Prize) Peter Arnett are gone and (Foto Chief) Horst Faas, now fat and famous, is largely gone, and Vietnam is unofficially off-limits for future Pulitzers, what does Associated Press, Saigon, do for morale food?

 

 

SAIGON NOTES, March 15, 1970

(Note: This is the second in a series for an on-going Vietnam War Legacy Project that began July 4.
My features that appeared in The Saigon Post etc will be digitized for future reference  and also posted here. (Details at July 4 post.) The following, under byline 'Daniel Cameron,' is the SAIGON NOTES  column for March 15, 1970.)

            SAIGON NOTES

               by Daniel Cameron                 

          THE 'I' HOUSE INCIDENT

 

 Most Saigon hands remember  the International House which closed down  last year on Nguyen Hue  Street. You paid a $20 membership fee and then ate low-priced steaks, drank the PX booze, played the slot machines and had companionship. American civilians went there in droves,  The place did a good business---so good, in fact, that at least two managers are being indicted  by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles. The charge is conspiracy to defraud an instrumentality of the US Government of hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is according to a recent Stateside article by CLARK MOLLENHOFF.

 

The American Embassy here is involved because it had the authority to audit the club and was also represented on the board of International House. This Board was composed of officials from various  US Federal agencies in Saigon. It had the responsibility of supervising  the club's finances and, presumably, keeping the wrong hands out of the right pockets. Although no Embassy official is implicated in any wrong-doing (aside from gross negligence) MOLLENHOFF writes:

 

"The intital investigation of International House gives a clue as to how one State Department official was able to afford Monday night parties with guest lists as long as your arm, and still repay an old credit union debt of thousands of dollars."

 

The International House was not an agency of the US Government. It was a private club managed by non-Government managers. As an American official explained to us, it wound up becoming a 'baby' of federal agencies here because that was the only way it could get duty-free food and liquor. He said that without these duty-free privileges the club would not have been able to serve its 5000 members at bargain rates.

 

"There was a need for such a club," he said. "Almost everybody wanted it. And so we let ourselves take the responsibility for the financial supervision."

 

According to MOLLENHOFF, a Justice Department audit says that "much of the fraud was apparent, but nobody paid any attention to the evidence."

 

State Department auditors say the records are missing, equipment is missing, money is missing and it's almost impossible to reconstuct financial transactions.

 

While official members of International House were meeting regularly in Saigon, non-officials with hot hands  were apparently having a good time operating slot machine rackets, equipment-purchase rackets  and kick-back rackets. Liquor, meat and other foods would be bought from "favored" vendors for as much as 30 or 40 percent more than the going market price. The vendors split the amount of the overpricing with "key club employees."

 

An American official tells me, "We had no idea what was going on."

 

The funny or sad part is that he was probably being perfectly honest in his reply. Did the Board of International House ever anticipate such possibilities for hot hands in the "I" House?

 

Apparently not.

 

MOLLENHOFF writes: "The US Embassy had the authority to audit the club, but it did not have the specific responsibility to conduct periodic audits. Consequently the club personnel operated with little or no supervision."

 

ps. Information suitable for this column can be mailed to The Saigon Post. Or leave name on bulletin board at JUSPAO , 145

Nguyen Hue St.

 

 

Saigon Notes

 

ANNOUNCEMENT/////////This begins a little Legacy Project from the war in Vietnam (and Cambodia.) It will  digitize and upload one man's experiences and observations, especially those recorded in the very controversial (and independent) column, SAIGON NOTES, and the earlier series, ETCETERA that appeared in the Saigon Post.  These comprise over 150 articles under the byline 'DANIEL CAMERON.'  Later I may add some of the "well-behaved"  reportage done for NEWSDAY, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, The CHICAGO SUN-TIMES and finally for CBS after its entire staff fled in the famous panic during the 'Story of the Decade,' i.e. the Fall of Saigon (including the  in-house  story that remains in the CBS Memory Hole to this day.) 

 

In general the period covered ranges from late 1969, when President Nixon began to 'Vietnamize' the Democrats' war, gradually phasing out US forces, to the fateful Spring of 1975, when most Americans were gone, Nixon had been Watergated out of office, and Congress refused emergency aid to the South Vietnamese as Hanoi's Communist Army rolled South, less than two years after the famous Paris Ceasefire and Peace Accords of Nixon's Henry Kissinger and Hanoi's Le Duc Tho.

 

The digitizing project will start today with the very first SAIGON NOTES (September 28, 1970) reproduced at http://www.gringoman.com / These re-printings will be somewhat redacted for clarity.   The originals are  full of typos. (Unfortunately, the Chinese typesetter sweating in his underwear in a wartime basement  did not have even a GED in English.)

 

Note to ideologues of any stripe: In Saigon everyone read these columns and not a few were offended, especially members of the crack Saigon press corps, like NEWSWEAK. If you are not offended right away, just be patient. Of course I wouldn't write exactly like this today, being slightly more civilized. I certainly wouldn't be so mean to a poor Gloria Emerson, late of the NY Times. But the historical record compels me, in the main,  to stick to the original, even when it offends even me. (Typo-cluttered originals are microfilmed somewhere or other by someone or other.)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

 

                               

 

1970. NOTICE: 'Saigon Notes' by Daniel Cameron makes its debut in The Saigon Post starting Monday, September 28. The columns will be a regular feature on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The views expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Saigon Post.

 

                                        SAIGON NOTES

                     ENTER SIR ROBERT

Great Britain's distinguished Southeast Asia man, Sir Robert Thompson, advisor to President Nixon and author of NO EXIT FROM VIETNAM, returned to Saigon recently.

Discreet, as ever.

 

                                       EXIT JAMES STERBA

 

James Sterba of the NY Times is probably one of the finest young reporters in Vietnam, Now that he's going home very soon, we hear that he's spending much more time at the pinochle table than in briefing rooms. Sterba completed a very good article recently about the G.I. use of marijuana and drugs in Vietnam. But persons who read both claim that he may have been surpassed by 'STEEL POT IN A MARIJUANA CONVOY' which appeared in the little old Saigon Post, September 18 and 19. Sorry 'bout that, Jim. But nobody will hear about it Stateside, or in JUSPAO's Vietnam Round-up. No sweat.

 

                                        DIAMOND DADDY DILEMNA

 

Now that a Stateside diamond salesman is going to take over The Overseas Weekly,the outfit's local staff may have to do some uncomfortable soul=searching. Indications are that Diamond Daddy plans to castrate the hard-hitting publication, turning it into a respectable eunuch which he feels will make friends with military commanders and money with G.I.s The current staff may have to go along with Diamond Daddy or face unemployment. In such a dilemna, what would you all do, buckeroos?

 

                                         CLYDE AND CHARLEY

 

According to senior North Vietnamese defectors, the word coming down from COSVN headquarters to all echelons and branches is: economize, economize, economize. The Allied sweeps into Cambodia and the closing of the Sihanoukville port to Red supplies have painfully damaged Red logistics. The problem is compounded by China's unwillingness to let Russian supplies enter North Vietnam through China, which may quadruple the Kremlin's transportation costs. It's reported that in An Xuyen and Dinh Tuong Provinces of South Vietnam, Red forces are being directed to use their AK-47's only under specific orders. The non-automatic weapon is now the common weapon, using less ammo.

 

                                          FOR MISS GLORIA EMERSON

 

"The concept of trying to help  others is an alien one to most Vietnamese, who distrust such attempts."

This New Yorker insight is from a September 14 NY Times article by Miss Emerson. The article was about social welfare or charity projects in Vietnam. Miss Emerson's smug, reckless generalization about Vietnamese character was either deliberate slander or sheer obtuseness. We prefer to think she is intelligent (aren't NY Timers by definition intelligent?) so we'll suggest slander. We don't demand unusual perception and  insight from US correspondents, but we hope for basic education. Gloria, dear, maybe you were just confusing "trying to help others" with the concept of organized charity? Maybe you know that organized charity is a peculaiarity mainly of the Anglo-American world? You've been around a little, haven't you? Most of the world, dear, sees the practice of philanthropic NY socialites  in a slightly different way than you may see them. Your description may get by with New york provincials, but what about others?

 

 

 

DC Train Disaster: Quota Hire?

 

(Extracted from the Washington Post report on yesterday's fatal train crash in Washington===and raising the politically incorrect question.)

There was no reason to think that the operator did not spot the train ahead of her yesterday. The weather was clear, and the trains were not in a tunnel.

"It doesn't look like she hit the brakes," said a train safety expert, who asked not to be identified because the crash is under investigation. "That's why you have an operator in the cab. She should have been able to take action. That's what they're there for."

============================

These systems were supposed to make yesterday's crash impossible.

But four years ago, in an episode eerily similar to yesterday's, the signal system briefly failed in the tunnel between Foggy Bottom and Rosslyn, forcing two quick-thinking operators to stop their trains manually to avoid a crash.

In the June 2005 incident, the operator of one train noticed that he was getting too close to the train ahead. The signal system was telling him the track was clear, but he hit the brakes. The operator of a third train on the line hit the emergency brakes on time, too.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/22/AR2009062203261.html

 

 

 

Now Iran

Here is a video than conveys more in minutes than many movies do in hours, and the pictures are all still,  as choral voices in the background move. This is what Revolution feels like.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNrYy7oTqGw

Remembering The 'Nam

(fotos copyright dan cameron rodill)

Christmas Day, 1969 at beseiged Special Forces Camp Bu Prang in the central highlands of South Vietnam(the 'Nam, as the 'grunts' of US Infantry called it,) With a lull in a month of intense Communist shelling, a Colonel and two Doughnut Dollies from the Red Cross arrived by helicopter to greet the soldiers. These  'Redlegs' of  Charley Battery, 2/17th Artillery, First Field Forces  had seen Montagnard children wounded in camp and their own XO (Executive Officer). Captain Coleman killed.  The Captain had visited them  one day with their pay (although he didn't have to)  was hit and his Sergent's leg blown off. Before he could be medevaced,  Captain Coleman died in the arms of Charley Battery's radio man. Over 1400 shells had landed inside  Camp Bu Prang's barbed wire perimeter. During that period the young Redlegs never failed to come out of their bunkers, man the big guns and pour fire back into those surrounding hills. They were never overrun.

MIDDLE FOTO   Charley Battery and the Donut Dollies

BOTTOM FOTO. Gunners at Camp Bu Prang, enjoying some liquid refreshment after their Christmas turkey dinner etc. They were proud, "We shell like hell," but not happy about the recognition they would or would not get. It was not just that the US media at this time was far more interested in a story of American disgrace, the My Lai Massacre, than in a hundred stories of American valor and honor (I covered this story for the Saigon Post, as US editors were not interested.) Charley Battery also claimed to me that the Army would pin individual citations on the Special Forces who remained inside their bunkers during the heavy North Vietnamese bombardments, while giving the 'Redlegs' who came out and manned the guns only a group citation. What I knew for sure, despite leaning to liberal politics at the time, was that the Communists were winning the Media War and Americans were losing it. But it wasn't until almost six years later, during the Fall of Saigon, covering for CBS News after its entire staff fled in the panic of a rumored bloodbath, that I got unforgettable insight into the rules of the game. And Walter Cronkite, "America's most trusted broadcaster," was never going to broadcast it.

BOTTOM FOTO. Charley Battery and the Red Cross Doughnut Dollies

Waterboardgate?

It doesn't have the same ring to it as the epic notoriety of Richard Nixon's 'Watergate' almost 35 years ago, does it? .
Is Nancy Pelosi, after a press briefing that made even Democrats cringe, likely to be driven out of high office in disgrace and acrimony, an encore of Nixon-like debacle? 

The short answer: No. 

The not-so-short answer: Well, Maybe. Sort of. But....The 'but' is the kicker.

True, she's gotten herself into a direct confrontation with the CIA, something that Nixon would never have done in public. But since she's made this  into a she said/they said stand-off, who will liberals and Democrats side with---their House Speaker Pelosi or the CIA?

It's generally not considered wise to call the CIA liars ("They misled me in 2002." She says they only told her that waterboarding was an option, and that they were not using that option), or to waffle like a child (She said that they admitted to others in 2003 that they were waterboarding, and these others told her, yes, but the CIA did not brief her directly on this, so what was she to know and what could she do about it anyway?) Not good, Nancy. Yes, you've got the Democrats' "torture" jihad against Bush and Cheney to support, we understand, but weaseling like this makes you look positively frantic, trying to cover a certain part of your anatomy. Too, the CIA is known for it's record keeping, its ability to corroborate. It often knows who did what and who said what and exactly when. You defamed them to their nation and to the world. What were you thinking?.... But....(see the 'but' above.)

Nancy, despite being a very presentable rich woman of a certain age and probiotic injections, who learned politicking from her Daddy , a Mayor of Baltimore, is not considered popular with many Democrats who deal with her in Washington. But her vote-getting smile still works wonders in her 8th Congressional fiefdom in San Francisco, especially as she caters to demands for aborting, gaying and the special needs of violent Islamic fanatics held at Guantanomo.

It's widely believed that the Obama White House feels it can manage without her. It probably understands that her serving on so-called 'Intelligence' Committees raises too many questions. But was Nancy raised by her politician father to go gently into the night?

Assuming that Nancy, by catering to the Democrats' "torture" meme against Bush, Cheney etc, got herself so tangled up, needing to cover contradictions and mis=statements, that she committed the equivalent of a "blood libel" on CIA staffers who saw themselves as dedicated and safeguarding Americans, can the Obamanistas, needing a working relationship with the CIA, afford her anymore? Maybe not, but surely the Left would feel betrayed if Obama did to Nancy Pelosi what he did to his white grandmother.
Does POTUS Obama have a choice? What if the CIA has the facts and the records to blow Nancy Pelosi out of the Potomac? But we don't know (yet) what they have and what they may leak.

And then there is that which almost no one wants to mention in public. Obama's birth certificate? Yes, but that's just the tip of the elegibility iceberg, even aside from the dual citizenship birth, derived from a Kenyan father, which no court has been willing to adjudicate, not with Obama poll numbers still in global warming.  Obama, the "transparency" guy,  has been extraordinarily secretive even about his school records, medical records, passport history, travel history, Indonesian adoption history etc. Any single one of these documents might or might not have information bearing crucially on his elegibility for POTUS. He and his pricey legal SWAT team have managed to keep it all secret, so far. An  acquiescent media will not pry open that can of Constitutional worms. Judges look away. Republicans have lockjaw. Dissident lawyers are marginalized. Citizens who complain are called "birthers" or "troofers", as in the art of ridicule from Obama mentor Saul Alinsky's 'Rules For Radicals.' 

Conclusion: Even if the Democrats had a crush on Nancy Pelosi, and they don't; even if Barry had a mysterious fatal attraction for her, and he doesn't, can the CIA tolerate being called liars by a patent liar? And just because Barry pays legal hotshots a million dollars to keep sunlight off his records from school, birth, doctors,travel, adoption etc, does that mean that the CIA is clueless as to what is on those records?

 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might still be third in line for the Presidency come 2010. But then again, maybe not--- especially if she is  seen as a Botoxic asset by the Obama White House or the CIA, and not necessarily in that order.

The Gaying of America

(NOTE: gV sees this legislation, as described by Jerry Kane,  as another  landmark in what  gringoVision calls 'The Gaying of America.' )

 

Making Free Speech a Hate Crime

By Jerry A. Kane

The hate crime bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives April 29 is an attempt by democratic socialists and progressives to silence dissent against alternative lifestyles. Their incessant iconoclastic attacks on once established values and morality have nearly eroded this nation’s spiritual and cultural legacy. Instituting same-sex marriage and prosecuting hate speech will complete the process and shatter the remaining hopes for cultural regeneration and tear down the last vestiges of the country’s Judeo-Christian ethic.

In America’s brave new post-modern multiculture, homosexual and transgender people will become a federally-protected class under the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, HR-1913. Under this act, anyone who publicly opposes the practice of homosexuality or any of the 30 other sexual orientations as designated by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) could be charged with expressing “hateful words” and convicted of a “hate crime.”

 

 Continued at http://editorials.americandaughter.info/?p=372

Flaming Sarah Palin

(Also posted at monicamemo under Monica Crowley's 'The O'Reilly Factor' for her appearance with Alan Colmes.)

A suggestion for a still-hot topic for Monica and her bubby-in-law Alan Colmes: FLAMING SARAH PALIN (who, as you know, the Republican elite decided they must invite on their, uh, national "Listening Tour.")

A propos, here is a new gringommentary directed at someone who, by the way, will not hesitate to slam commenters at times, if they earn it.

(Conservative Attorney Debbie Schlussel---dubbed by gringoVision 'The Hebrew Hammer'---is lashing out at supporters of Sarah Palin, especially the ones who message her viciously and obscenely. Here is a gringommentary to the post she titles,

You Stay Classy, Sarahmessiah & BristolBabyMamaMessiah Fanatics; Hypocritical Palin Daughter Contradicts Herself for Big $s.)
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2009/05/you_stay_classy_1.html
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dear Debbie,

Sarah Palin does light the oven, doesn't she? Amazing how the heat turns off some and turns on others. Has any Republican been able to do that(to this degree) since Ronald Reagan? Have you tried flame retardant for Sarah? You clearly do not want a 'Red-Necked Woman' in the White House, do you, and that's your right.

Full disclosure: I'm interested enough to keep Sarah (my own mother's name, did you know that?) on my radar. It will be interesting to see which way she blows in the wind, and if they   can keep her where you and Obamasuck media and elite Republicans obviously think she should be, down home in a trailer park with the rest of the 'white trash.'

And Debbie, I don't demean you for honest critique and reporting what you see as contradictions and hypocrisies. Say anything you like about Palin, especially if it's well reasoned. Vicious Palin "supporters" (if they really are hers, and not ACORNbots on special duty) who come on you like foul-mouthed low-lifes are regrettable. It's proof that the "progressives" don't have a monopoly on scummies and dirtbags after all. But we knew that already, didn't we?

BamBam Getting Dumb-Dumb?

(A Gringommentary at www.monicamemo.com / under PEARLS BEFORE SWINE, after questioning Monica Crowley's seeming to give George Bush a free pass on the question of "open borders" and the new swine flu.)

 

If we can segue for a moment from the Adoration of the Georgie to the Hosannas for The One....

Re yesterday's stupendously stupid Air Force One "mission" over Manhattan which paniced many New Yorkers who experienced 9.11....As for accountability and our being told of Obama's "outrage," the facts show that approval for this amazing idiocy came directly from where it would have had to come--guess where?---the White House. Of course.

"On Monday afternoon, the Director of the White House Military Office, Louis Caldera, released a statement saying, "Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision...." (link below)

As for transparency, perhaps Obama will step forward like a man and take responsibility for this, or at least apologize for having such stupid help in the White House?

Do you think?

http://a.abcnews.com/Blotter/story?id=7

Rappin' Latin Obama Trip

(A GRINGOBROmmentary posted Monday, April 20, 2009 at monicamemo under Monica Crowley's OBAMA DOES DICTATORS....Note: If you know anything about using computer to provide a musical,,,er, uh, rap background for, you know, like home-made fresh rappinade, GRINGOBRO tells me he will appreciate what you can relate....gringoman

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Once again our Monica is in torment
About the dude elected President
She sees a whole lot of socialist intent
Makes it hard to smile like Pepsodent
Well, she must know more than Gringobro
She's got the doctorate to show.
Me, I can't figure why this Prez would go
And grin, like she says, with Dictator Chavez.
But I don't know enough to crow
About him bein'  a dreamin' schemin'  neo-com ho'
The country is worried, the economy is messed.
He must be doing what he thinks is best.
Only will his best pass the test
Even with his media girl friends so impressed?
They say the reason he went mano-a-manos
With all those lefty Latin Americanos
Was just for diplomatic bran-nose.
Did he go down there just to get kissed
Or show Morales, da Silva and Ortega how to bump a fist?
I know, they look like Marxistas who want the USA dissed.
Is capitalismo what Bamacito really wants to banish
Or did he go down there just to practice his Spanish?
I haven't figured out all the rhumba politeeka,
And you know what? That could be the cue for La Princessa Warrior Moh-nee-ka

by GRINGOBRO The Cracker Rapper.  Coming YOU LIBERAL RACIST, YOU.