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The Saigon Post
March 29, 1971

SAIGON NOTES
by
Daniel Rodill

STATESIDE ACTION

The February 10 feature in this column about two elderly Americans who spent almost a year in US Army and Vietnamese prisons on homicide charges and claimed they were framed by US Army CID personnel was not picked up by any agency or member of the Saigon press corps, but we now have a reaction from Mr. JAMES H. DILLON of New York City.

DILLON is Presdident of the Construction Men's Association, Inc (12 Avenue of the Americas and 249 West Broadway. In a March 19 letter he writes:

"I had your column photo-offset and mailed it to 100 different newspapers in the United States."

SURGICAL SERVICES

The recent news about government deputies who also do part-time work in other fields such as smuggling heroin, gold and jewels has brought responses from many Vietnamese groups. According to the newspapers Tieng Vang and Tin Sang, MR NGUYEN DINH, Chairman of the Vietnam Veteran's Association indicates that his group will take action. The Veteran's Association "would raise the case of smuggler Deputies with the Government in the near future and would "amputate the hands of smuggler Deputies."

REVOLUTION & SAMBA

O Cangaceiro, with Tomas Milan, at the Eden. It wasn't a spaghetti Western after all. It was a techniclor serving of humor, uncouth savagery and provincial Brazil. Nothing immortal or award-winning, just something that has fun with revolutionary social themes. Espedito and his band of bearded, sharp-shooting barbarians are loved by the people and not loved by the wealthy. The Governor, who wants to assign Espedito's haunting grounds to foreign oil interests, knows that he must either kill him or buy him, whichever is easier. He sends a blond Dutchman to contact the bandit chief. The cool adventurous European saddles a horse, takes a good supply of cigarillos and a sleeping bag and rides into the Brazilian back country.

Satisfactory acting, and a wild scene where the banditos samba with society matrons at a ball to which the Governor invited them. Lovely haunting melodies of Brazilian guitar songs and earthy little scenes lend atmosphere to the film .(The European on horseback comes across a poor farm girl who is pregnant and asks the father why the girl has no husband. The farmer, not interrupting his pounding of cacao beans in a bowl, replies indifferently, "I took her myself. My wife died. Children are needed around here."

Espedito and his men are a dirty hard-drinking, hard-fighting bunch. After shooting it out successfully with Government troops, they ride out into the night singing the famous Brazilian folk song, 'O Cangaceiro', The Dutchman manages to contact Espedito, reads books to him and gains his trust. But the European has a certain liking of Espedito and has not decided yet whether or not to betray him.

'O Cangaceiro' has defects which any NY Times film critic can tell you about. but it's a watchable movie.

AROUND THE TOWN

A reporter just in from up-country mentioned an American Colonel who sends empty aircraft out every day on cross country flights in order to get the sorties on his record. The Colonel is preparing himself for promotion to General....Heard recently. An American who walks with a broken hip had his wallet snatched recently outside the Mekong Restaurant. Despite his hip trouble he dropped his cane and chased the thief through the street and managed to catch him. In the process he lost a wristwatch but got his wallet back. This particular official has years of experience in Vietnam.

PS TIPS or otherwise suitable information may be mailed % Saigon Post, or leave message on JUSPAO bulletin board, 145 Nguyen Hue Street, Names withheld on request.

HELICOPTER HELL

from SAIGON NOTES, by Daniel Cameron in the Saigon Post)

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Saigon, March 10, 1971





Within the next few weeks Veno expects to fly his first mission into Laos. "I can't think of a better way to die," he states, then, getting carried away again, repeats: "This USO is so great it's unreal."

Martin Woolacott's report from Quang Tri, "Custer in the Clouds," appeared in the February 19 Guardian. He's a sober Englishman but finds himself astonished by the young American pilots who go flying into the helicopter hell of southern Laos.

Sometimes it pays to represent a British paper in this war. Not being emotionally involved like the Americans, the English can afford to be more relaxed and may be more perceptive about these events (although they still managed to turn out a Kipling etc back in the infernal India days.)

American reporters, so often, have to labor over "body counts" and "according to informed sources" etc. The war is a subject for national convulsions back home and political species on the make. Who wants to hear about real people while being palpitated and convulsed? So sentences like the following would tend to come from an English correspondent:

"They are the most astonishing bands, these 19 and 20-year old (helicopter pilots) that the US Army trains up in nine months and thrusts into Vietnam. sustained by a strange combination of adolescent fantasies and immediate personal loyalties."

Is it unfair to say that an American today writing like this for American editors might be suspected of having strayed into the jungle and contracted a rare brain fungus?
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It is well that war is hell, lest we become too fond ot it.

---Ancient Greece and Rome